Wikipedia:Arbitration/Requests/Case/Eastern European mailing list/Evidence

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

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Evidence presented by Sandstein

Reposted here from the case talk page as suggested by Daniel.

I was first made aware of the (alleged) existence of this mailing list in the WP:ANI thread of 17 September 2009, and have not seen the supposedly leaked archives.

I have not participated in any off- or onwiki coordination related to Eastern Europe in general or administrative actions in this area in particular. I am not aware of any attempts, as has allegedly been the purpose of this mailing list, to exert any sort of influence upon me (except of course that I have received several onwiki and some e-mail reactions to administrative actions I took with respect to the topic area).

My administrator and arbitration enforcement actions in this area are all based solely on the requests made and evidence presented on the administrators' and arbitration enforcement noticeboards, and this will continue to be the case.  Sandstein  12:44, 18 September 2009 (UTC)

Evidence presented by Ellol

User Russavia was unfairly topic-banned

First of all, what are the facts. Russavia was topic-banned for 6 months by Sandstein [1] for addressing a member of the Eastern European Mailing List (Marting) in a not generally appropriate manner.

Later, the topic ban was extended by Sandstein for infinity after this Russavia's comment at Russavia's talk page: [2].

Given the new evidence about the Mailing List, the situation looks so.

Russavia told to a member of the Mailing List a single sentence that was treated by the admin as WP:BATTLE (though it was marked with a smile, and could be normally treated a joke). As far as I know, it's a rather harsh decision even without the current evidence.

But given the evidence we have now, I assert that Russavia was not in the situation of the ordinary Wikipedia user-to-user discussion. Instead, he addressed the people acting as a single united team with certain ideological settings. Generally, we see the Wiki relationships as person-to-person ones and insist that people need to stay civil. But in this case, Russavia was confronted by a team.

I had to stand in some situations against edits by users from the Mailing List, and I can say it's a highly unpleasant feeling, when it looked that I don't talk to real alive people, but the wall that behaved regardless of what I do. It looked like the world around was against me. And it looked that I am wrong merely for having a different opinion than the other people -- who as I see now actually teamed against me. So I understand perfectly well what Russavia could feel.

What happened later is what I can't understand at all. Russavia's ban was extended merely because he posted a comment on his own talk page! What does it mean -- he could not even express his opinion about what's going on, at his own talk? How can this be possible?

I strongly propose the Arbitration Committee to review the situation with Russavia's ban, that looks for me very much unfair, especially given the new evidence.

Admin Sandstein shouldn't be let to keep sanctions on Russavia

I see that he made an unjustified decision to ban Russavia even without the evidence we have now. But what strikes me is that Sandstain continues to insist now that his decision was correct: [3].

I am afraid, that now he might be merely proving that he was right that time, as it may matter for his future and current Wikipedia career.

I believe that he is not an uninvolved person to this case. I strongly propose not to leave Russavia's case on behalf of admin Sandstain, who must be suffering from the conflict of interests.

Evidence presented by Durova

After taking a couple of days off it isn't very much of a surprise to see this dispute at arbitration, but it is startling to discover the way it arrived and shocking to see myself compared to a cockroach. If any good can arise from this unfortunate situation let's hope it will be to see WP:CIVIL resume its former significance at this website. For those who prefer name-calling, Usenet is thataway.

These unexpected developments make a statement necessary. As everyone knows, I have a history with regard to offsite correspondence which I am very sorry for. If there had been any reason to guess that this situation could take a similar direction then I would have avoided it completely. I was not aware that the mailing list existed. The ANI thread about Russavia's topic ban appeared to be at the wrong venue and it seemed like a reasonable thing to agree with the people who had already referred it elsewhere.

Shortly afterward, when a community sanction got proposed, I objected procedurally in order to prevent the kind of difficulties that arose after the Bluemarine case: for a quick refresher browse two noticeboard threads that bookend the problem.[4][5] The main lesson to be learned from the Bluemarine example is that it's best to establish clear lines regarding arbitration sanctions and community sanctions. Months of trouble arose from the lack of clarity in that instance. The Eastern European disputes are bitter and longstanding; a similar problem there would likely be worse.

Both at ANI and here I have no opinion whether the sanctions on Russavia were appropriate or inappropriate; I simply hope to see ArbCom settle the matter and put it to rest.

Until today when this case opened my only offsite correspondence regarding this dispute was a brief gchat with John Vandenberg on 11 September, which I initiated. I mentioned the ANI thread and suggested the Committee might want to look into the problem before it worsened. My final words to him were "It's the type of situation where the cross-accusations tend to accumulate, and ArbCom eventually finds itself mopping a big spill instead of a small one."

Today I received two brief emails from Piotrus and a gchat from Giano, which brought me up to date in a basic way. As the nature of this matter becomes clear please conduct further communications onsite.

Regarding the list emails themselves (which I have not seen nor do I want to), it is currently my understanding that they were obtained via hacking. During the Bluemarine arbitration a computer hacking occurred and the Committee disregarded the information that emerged from it. There are two very good reasons for ignoring hacked information: (1) we don't wish to encourage hacking, and (2) anyone who sinks to hacking is probably not above altering material.

In the Bluemarine case the hacking victim's bank account was also emptied. Durova³¹⁹ 19:40, 18 September 2009 (UTC)

Evidence presented by Skäpperöd

Off-wiki coordination of the group was/is not limited to the mailing list

In addition to evidence already forwarded to the Arbcom, I formally include here the evidence concerning off-wiki coordination presented in Wikipedia:Requests for arbitration/Eastern European disputes. With the mailing list archive, Arbcom has strong evidence and should focus on the analysis of that archive in the workshop, yet as shown in the respective evidence sections of the prior EE case the timeframe of the group's operation and the group's means of off-wiki coordination are not limited to what the archive reveals.

Rumours tell and Arbcom/clerks may be able to verify that

• [20090603-1312]: Piotrus, Tymek and Jacurek coordinated their edits before the latter joined the list.
• [20090613-0505] and [20090613-0651]: IM, compare to former Piotrus2 Arbcom.

Pending verification by Arbcom/clerk

May Arbcom or a clerk please verify if the following rumours are correct:

Piotrus proxied for blocked Molobo

• [20090915-1759] --> [6]
• [20090607-0903] and [20090607-2005] --> [7]

Jacurek proxied for blocked Molobo

• [20090902-1512] --> [8]

Radeksz proxied for blocked Molobo

• [20090905-2159] --> [9]

Tymek proxied for blocked Molobo

• [20090624-2155] --> [10]

Sock of Radeksz proxied for blocked Molobo at Wikimedia Commons

• [20090624-2155] --> [11] (proxying sock) and [20090628-2225] (sock was Radeksz. Radeksz had and has an account at Commons [12].)

Jacurek did tasked reverts following selective tendering by Radeksz

• [20090626-1934] and [20090626-2029] --> [13], [14] and [15]

Piotrus, Digwuren and Tymek coordinated their actions at WP:AE

• [20090205-1849] ff. --> [16]

Radeksz, Digwuren and Tymek coordinated editing

• [20090613-0720] (Radeksz) --> [17] (Digwuren) and [18] ff. (Tymek)

Molobo (blocked, via proxy), Radeksz, Piotrus, Jacurek, Tymek: Canvassing, coordinated editing, reverting and baiting into 3RR, coordinated report

[20090606-1316] ff. (whole thread) --> resulting 3RR. Note also Poeticbent's involvement.

Questionable behaviour during this case

Piotrus going after his opponents here on admin boards

links will break once the boards archive these threads

• Piotrus opened an AN thread on Vlad fedorov [19]
• Piotrus going after Giano in a dead AN/I thread [20]

Statement by Deacon of Pndapetzim

Email archive

Let's get one thing clear: this list is real, and the amount of incriminating material is breathtakingly overwhelming and thickly spread, so much so that despite the huge size of the archive evidence of gross misconduct is obscenely easy to spot. For instance, in the threads entitled "[WPM] [WMP] Molobo ban" (early days of June), it is revealed that Piotrus, Radek, Biophys and others knew and encouraged Molobo's recent socking (for which he was banned for a year by User:Avraham), conspired more puppetry, pondered how to avoid detection in future, and advocated use of proxies. Other such activities are easy to spot. Conspiring to harass and edit-war is so rampant throughout the archive that ironing out the details is almost pointless, and using this User:Deacon of Pndapetzim/North-East Europe AE threads along with the archive saves very little time. I will not post many more comments on the archive until it is clear what ArbCom have and have not spotted, what they intend to do, and so on.

Some of these emails should be required reading for future AE admins. Particularly Biruitorul's post on "[WPM] More cabal theory" June 6 2009 and Radek's long post at "Re: [WPM] It isn't over" on June 21 2009, the former concerning the "political" set-up among nationalist users in eastern Europe and the latter on cabaling strategy in general. Read only though if you can take the smack on your faith in human nature, and can protect yourself from future over-reactive cynicism.

My "involvement" and how this was allowed to happen

Two of the users on this list I've been familiar with for years, namely Piotrus and Molobo. I only encountered them because I inadvertently stepped into a nationalist war on a medieval history article (Jogaila), and, after that dispute was settled everything was amicable, until the Lokyz unblock that is. The others I had never heard of until the period leading up to the Piotrus 2 ArbCom hearing, but know now from AE threads. What an experience it has been to have users like Martintg, Biophys, Vecrumba, Digwuren, and others, who I'd barely heard of and never had a dispute with, attacking me on wiki. Back when I encountered them in 2006 (Piotrus and Molobo are the only survivors from that period on this list), they were doing much of this on wiki, at

• Portal talk:Poland/Poland-related Wikipedia notice board (note the top, there is a list of nationalist POV disputes advertised to all members to edit war in "articles needing attention")

(and there after visibly went offline e.g.)

I sought intervention against that board and its activities then,[21] (or see Talk:List_of_Polish_monarchs/Archive_01#Aftermath) and nothing would have happened (as I was an inexperienced newbie) were it not for the fact that my concerns were picked up, independently I think, by User:Elonka.

E.g. Portal_talk:Poland/Poland-related_Wikipedia_notice_board/Archive_6#Proposal_to_rename_this_notice_board

Elonka's good-faithed activity led to her recusing from involvement in the area once she became an admim, yet she was not "involved" beyond trying to ensure good behaviour, while her Polish ancestry made her no more involved than Kirill Lokshin, the Russian architect of most previous ArbCom decisions. Yet the users in question managed to hound her from the area, just as they later hounded me. And as a result, two admins with insight into this matter were made useless to the community, and instead it was left to more naive admins whom this cabal could and have eaten for breakfast. I've had to watch while good-faithed admins like AGK, Ryan Postelwaite, Sandstein, and others were played like pawns in a game they neither understood nor knew they were playing (Thatcher is an exception, and this should be stated). If these admins think I am being unfair, then they should check the emails and note how the cabalists glory and gloat at their expense.

Why have I been unable to do anything? When I brought Piotrus 2 forward, they depicted me as an involved eastern european editor:

Wikipedia:Requests_for_arbitration/Eastern_European_disputes/Evidence#Tag_team_1:_Russian], where Piotrus listed me as part of a Russian tag team.

• The account User:Koretek was set-up by User:Molobo (as User:Sciurinae has shown since) purely to leave messages on talk pages accusing me of being anti-Polish

I think some of the arbs bought this, sadly enough; certainly that's what the email cabal seem to think (e.g. "Friday, February 06, 2009 5:15 PM"). A frivolous admonition was passed against me as punishment for bringing the case, and since then this "remedy" has been used to undermine everything I've said about this case, whether this was on AE threads (e.g.) or elsewhere.[22] I have also been accused of nursing a grudge against Piotrus (by Piotrus' list pals of course, but sadly also by User:Coren,here soon after a minor dispute I had with him as a clerk, comments which even these mail-listers thought were funny [check the relevant emails]). I was really frustrated at this, but being a little non-networking user/admin I had to accept that this is sometimes the result of trying to protect good wikipedians against abuse. As I said at the time to one of the arbs, ArbCom and the clique around them often inadvertently do more damage to good users than these bad users do.

But if I and Elonka, two admins with AE experience, had freedom in this area, this cabaling would not have had the same effect. I can't speak for Elonka, but I already knew this was happening and stated frequently. As a result I was frequently accused of bad faith and grudge-holding, but my integrity has never been seriously challenged and the plain fact is that I just had more experience and insight. Having no reason to doubt my integrity, there was no reason to ignore me and my experience, as ArbCom did. But if this weren't bad enough, ArbCom had the ability to know itself just by reading the evidence, but did nothing.

You can bring a horse to water, but can't make it drink

ArbCom already had the information to know this was happening, and to know about the character of these users. The Alden Jones incident in question was commented upon in the evidence section of Piotrus 2. Since mine is mostly deleted now, I'll repost the section:

Shortly afterwards a user came out of nowhere and reverted [23], User:Alden Jones, for which effort he was almost blocked for it.[24] The user has only poor English, no interest in the topic and was only reverting to "support" Piotrus, and most of his edits in the past have consisted of little more than reverting to whatever version of an article Piotrus happens to prefer. Funnily enough, Alden had been inactive for more than three weeks prior to that revert, since his 2 day block for revert-warring (along with Piotrus) on Truce of Vilna. Alden Jones has since effectively revealed that he was sent there by another user; the only other reverter was, of course, Piotrus [25]. Piotrus later left this message Long time after the single revert, but 2 hours after Lokyz' comment there. Use your own judgment here. He has since claimed this is a loving follower, and now I'm just waiting for him to claim that Alden's gaff was the result of his poor English.

The diff, presented above, is here.

Evidence showing beyond doubt that off-wiki collaboration was widespread was presented, here, here, and, among other places, here and here. But, despite this, we got:

25.3) There is no definitive evidence that Piotrus (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · logs · edit filter log · block user · block log) is responsible for any off-wiki editing coordination that may have occurred in this case.

Passed by 6 arbs to 0.

You can only bring a horse to water, you can't make it drink. Not only was this FoF a bad summary of the evidence, it was also a misleading message (presumably prompted by Piotrus' disingenuous complaints that he was being misunderstood) that told the admin community that the accusations against him were a natural result of the inevitable enmity he encounters by writing lots of articles, and nothing more. I know some of the arbs actually believed this, from a second hand account of private arbitrator comments. That said, this finding was just one of many absurdities showing the arbs hadn't read the evidence and had little but haughty contempt for those who provided it, a haughty contempt that turned misguided opinion of the matter into damaging action.

It was continually shown that Piotrus and his followers were using offline techniques to co-ordinate edit-warring and harass other users; it was continually shown that Piotrus had a disreputable character unbecoming of an editor let alone an admin (evidence the TigerShark-Lokyz IRC incident, or the [Black Book] whose post_Piotrus 2 history can be seen in the emails), yet those punished were the victims, a list including but not confined to User:Irpen, User:Lokyz, and, in a previous case, User:Ghirlandajo. The last, before he left, was statistically Wikipedia's top content contributor! Irpen joined Ghirlandajo after the case in the long list of productive wikipedians who have been driven off the project. They are volunteers and don't need to put up with this kind of abuse if ArbCom, the only body who could have protected them, refused to and instead victimised them. Having a sense of injustice transforms a person remarkably.

What's to be done

Every single remedy and FoF in Piotrus 2 case is outdated and many of them now look not only ridiculous, but positively cruel. The entire case should be declared void. If not, then at the very least victims like Irpen, Lokyz, and perhaps Boodlesthecat, should have their punitive remedies lifted. Ghirlandajo should be praised for his former contributions, and a remedy should be passed urging him that his return to content-editing would be welcomed. And lastly, I, Thatcher, and the few others who now appear in all the ArbitrationEnforcement threads to have credibility should be praised for the effort we've put in and the stress we have endured. The Digwuren case, the plaything of this email list, should similarly be put to the sword and the bad book burned. An all-encompassing new case with a new set of remedies in light of ArbCom's lucky new wisdom should be enacted.

What's more, ArbCom needs to reform itself in certain regards. Beyond the miscarriages of justice, the biggest frustration was the reason these miscarriages happened: the arbs didn't read the evidence, or if they did there was no on-wiki evidence they did, and there was no opportunity to challenge the arbs before they acted. Besides the fact it was obvious to me they didn't from their remedies, there was no participation in any of the workshops, despite the fact the designers knew this was necessary and signaled their intention for this by having separate (in practice almost always empty) arbitrator sections. This is beijg changed anyway if I remember correctly, and if so this is good. That's not the only reason it went wrong though. Just like I said they would, the users in question filled the evidence section with slander and misleading diffs, increasing the workload to overwhelm the arbs ... forcing them to rely more on weak heuristic techniques, such as punishing both sides equally from a sense of "natural justice". At worst, two handfuls of active arbs merely read Kirill's remedies and voted with only cursory glances, trusting Kirill. At best, all of them read the evidence, and few of them understood it, most miraculously coming to the same conclusions as Kirill. All the arbs are intelligent hard working people, but they need to give themselves a chance to avoid normal human frailties which, although safe elsewhere, can be damaging with this kind of power.

Then there's the issue of off-wiki co-ordination. It's not likely that this is the only group, though it is probably the most disreputable and most skilled, and we are very lucky here to have uncovered it. I suggested a while ago on that Arbitration reform thread that admins be allowed to classify the edits of multiple users as one at their discretion (following ArbCom remedies of course, not generally). It wasn't much heeded at the time, being apparently over the top. But with this evidence now, is it really?

Evidence presented by Offliner

Here I present some evidence which I hope will be helpful to ArbCom when investigating the emails. I will concentrate on editors who according to ArbCom are members of the list. There is a huge amount of evidence of all kinds of dirty tricks and tactics by the list members, including coordinated edit warring, provocations against the list's opponents, coordinated block shopping and defending each other all over Wikipedia.

When did members join the list?

• 2009-03-21. Miacek joins. (20090321-1644-[WPM] Miacek is now in our little list.eml)
• 2009-04-14. Biophys joins. (20090414-1421-[WPM] Biophys subscribed.eml)
• 2009-05-27. Radeksz joins. (20090517-1235-[WPM] Radek should be subscribed now..eml)
• 2009-06-03. Sander Säde rejoins. (20090603-1317-[WPM] Sander resubscribed.eml)
• 2009-06-05. Tymek joins. (20090605-1944-[WPM] Tymek subscribed.eml)
• 2009-06-08. Jacurek joins. (20090608-2054-[WPM] Jacurek joining.eml)
• 2009-06-11. Ostap R joins. (20090611-2032-[WPM] Ostap subscribed.eml)
• 2009-06-15. Poeticbent joins. (20090615-0819-[WPM] Poeticbent.eml)

Others seem to have been members from the beginning.

Members of the secret email list coordinate their edit warring

Here are some example incidents about coordinated edit warring by the list members.

September edit warring

• I went on a wikibreak on 7 September: [26]. Around the same time, PasswordUsername went on a break due to hardware problems.
• On 9 September, Piotrus points out to the team that this is an excellent time to edit war on articles where the list's "enemies" have an upper hand. (On 20090909-1718-[WPM] Russavia got Bannned !.eml)

Alexander Litvinenko

• On 9 September, after having made no edits on the article for a long time, Biophys suddenly appeared to edit war: [27] He performed a massive revert to an old version. To see why this is a massive revert, observe how Biophys blindly restores a typo ("persecuition"), that had been fixed many times by other editors (as noted on the talk page by Russavia.)
• On 9 September, Offliner reverts Biophys: [28].
• On 9 September, Biophys mentions Offliner's revert on the list and calls for help in the edit war. (20090909-2347-[WPM] Russavia got Bannned !.eml)
• On 15 September, while Biophys was blocked, Radeksz arrived to edit war on Biophys' behalf: [29]

Russian apartment bombings

• After having made no edits on the article for a long time, Biophys arrived on 11 September to edit war: [30]
• Radeksz arrived on 13 September to edit war in support of Biophys: [31][32]. Before this, Radeksz had showed no interest in the article's subject. He had only made 1 edit, which also was a revert in support of Biophys: [33] (for this edit, Radeksz was briefly blocked: [34])
• Biophys was blocked for edit warring on another article for 31h on 15 September (although he also made 3 reverts in 24h on Russian apartment bombings, and more later) [35]
• Radeksz continued to edit war in support of Biophys while Biophys was blocked: [36]
• Piotrus arrived on 16 September to edit war in support of Biophys (Piotrus never edited the article before): [37]

Early June edit warring

In early June, there was edit warring in several articles with several members of the list participating.

There were several calls to arms on the secret list.

• 2 June. Digwuren asks the list members to help him edit war in several articles. (20090603-1647-[WPM] Discrimination.eml)
• 5 June. Digwuren suggests that they team members should try to overwhelm the opponents' revert count. (20090605-2009-[WPM] tactics re Offliner and PasswordUsername.eml)
• 6 June. Piotrus suggests that the team should coordinate their reverts, so that none of the team members get too many reverts and their opponents (such as Offliner) gets more. This way the team should be able to report Offliner at ANI/3RR eventually without getting reported themselves. (20090606-0618-[WPM] tactics re Offliner and PasswordUsername.eml)

Ethnocracy

• 3 June. PasswordUsername edits: [38]
• 3 June. Digwuren reverts: [39]
• 3 June. Shotlandiya reverts: [40]
• 3 June. Radeksz arrives (he never edited this article before): [41]
• 4 June. Edit war continues: [42][43][44][45]
• 5 June. Martintg arrives: [46]
• 9 June. Sander Säde arrives: [47]
• 11 June. Radesz continues to edit war: [48]

Discrimination against ethnic minorities in Estonia[49]

• 1 June. Article created by me.
• 1 June. Martintg nominates for deletion: [50].
• 5 June. Article is merged to Human rights in Estonia.
• 6 June. Radeksz arrives to edit war: [51][52]
• 6 June. Vecrumba arrives to edit war: [53]

Kaitsepolitsei

• 5 June. Criticism by Amnesty International inserted.
• 5 June. Radeksz removes: [54]
• 6 June. Sander Säde arrives to do the same: [55]
• 6 June. Radeksz continues to edit war: [56]
• 7 June. Martintg arrives: [57]
• 7 June. Digwuren arrives: [58]

Digwuren personal attack

Digwuren calls other editors Neo-Nazis (in violation of WP:DIGWUREN): [59] As a result, Digwuren is blocked by Thatcher: [60]

Team members use coordinated action to keep copyvio images

• On 11 August, admin User:J Milburn (who is very experienced with image copyrights) nominates several copyvio images for deletion. Example: [61]
• At 01:01 on 12 August, Piotrus arrives to accuse J Milburn of disruption: [62]
• At 01:42 on 12 August, Jacurec arrives to protest against the nomination: [63]
• At 02:09 on 12 August, Poeticbent arrives to do the same: [64]
• J Milburn is convinced that the images are copyvio: [65]
• See J Milburn's replies here: [66]. Sorry I didn't say this just now, just wanted to add that my head is reeling. I really, really, really can't see why you've turned a simple image cleanup into some kind of war between encyclopedists and deletionists. What are you doing?! Whatever, that image can be decided at FfD now. Seems like an awful waste of time, but it's what you wanted...
• It seems very likely that on 11 August, there was a call to arms on the secret list to use team pressure to keep the copyvio images. Especially in light of the extremely fast response time of the team.

File:German Soviet.jpg

This is a remarkable episode, in which the team members through stealth canvassing and abuse of admin tools almost managed to keep a clear copyvio image.

• At 21:37 on 11 July. File:German Soviet.jpg nominated for deletion by J Milburn. [67]
• Tymek informs the group of the nomination. (20090712-0554-[WPM] To your attention.eml)
• At 22:56 on 11 July. Dc76 arrives to argue for keep: [68]
• At 05:52 on 12 July. Jacurek arrives to vote keep: [69]
• At 06:49 on 12 July. Piotrus arrives to vote keep: [70]
• At 11:28 on 12 July. Martintg arrives to vote keep: [71]
• At 13:25 on 12 July. Biophys arrives to vote keep: [72]
• At 15:53 on 12 July. Vecrumba arrives to vote keep: [73]
• Only three non-cabal members voted in the discussion: User:J Milburn (delete), User:Mosedshurte (keep), User:Calliopejen1 (delete) and User:Jennavecia (delete). [74]
• The clear conclusion of this is that the swamping of the discussion by cabal members was effective and almost resulted in the copyvio image being kept.
• At 17:05 on 12 July. Admin User:Chase me ladies, I'm the Cavalry closes the discussion as speedy delete: "...per NFCC8, or as a blatant infringement of fair use laws." [75]
• At 21:48 on 12 July. Piotrus uses his admin tools to restore the image. [76]
• At 22:13 on 12 July. Piotrus explicitly exploits the pseudo-consensus that resulted from list members swamping the discussion: [77]
• On 12 July. Piotrus announces his action on the secret list. (20090712-2106-[WPM] To your attention.eml)
• At 14:48 on 13 July. J Milburn deletes the image again: [78]

Team members are engaged in coordinated attempts to provoke their opponents

Coordinated provocations against Deacon of Dnapetzim

• At 06:05 on 4 April, Piotrus initiates a move discussion at Talk:Battle of Vilnius (1655): [79]

• Piotrus asks members to comment on the discussion and try to provoke Deacon into losing his temper. If this happens Deacon can then be reported to AE/ANI according to Piotrus' plan. (20090404-0611-[WPM] Deacon versus Piotrus.eml)

• At 09:53, Radeksz arrives to support Piotrus: [80]

• At 09:56, Digwuren arrives to support Piotrus: [81]

• At 15:56, Deacon of Pndapetzim arrives to oppose: [82]

• Jacurec, Poeticbent and Loosmark also supported Piotrus.

• Deacon's participation on the move discussion is used against him in an WP:AE report (filed by Radeksz on 8 June): [83]. List members Piotrus, Jacurek, Tymek and Poeticbent make comments on the thread.

Coordinated provocations against PasswordUsername

On 10 June. PasswordUsername edits Jewish Bolshevism. [84]

On 11 June. Vecrumba makes a post at PU's talkpage: [85]

On 11 June. Vecrumba discusses his post on the secret list. He predicts that either PasswordUsername will back of, or he will take the bait, lose his temper and make incivil remarks. If this happens, Vecrumba will try to get PasswordUsername banned. (20090611-0230-[WPM] PasswordUsername_ opportunity.eml.)

Members of the secret email list protect each other at admin noticeboards

• 2009-03-20. Russavia reported to AE. Commenting against Russavia: Digwuren, Vecrumba, Martintg
• 2009-04-02. Martintg reported at AN3. Defending Marting: Colchicum, Piotrus, Biophys
• 2009-04-02. Colchicum reported to An3 . Defending Colchicum: Digwuren, Martintg
• 2009-05-21. Digwuren reported to AN/I. Defending Digwuren: Martintg, Colchicum, Radeksz, Vecrumba, Piotrus
• 2009-06-14. PasswordUsername reported at AN/I. Commenting against PasswordUsername: Radeksz, Piotrus, Vecrumba, Martintg
• 2009-06-18. Biophys reported to AE Defending Biophys: Digwuren, Martintg, Vecrumba, Piotrus
• 2009-06-18. Digwuren reported to AE Defending Digwuren: Martintg, Piotrus, Jacurek, Miacek, Tymek
• 2009-06-19. Rejected Eastern Europe Arbitration request
• 2009-09-15. Biophys reported to AN3 Defending Biophys: Martintg

• On 15 September, Biophys was blocked by User:Rjanag: [86] Martintg arrives to defend Biophys: [87] Marting tries to defend Biophys on Rjanag's talk page as well -- Rjanag thinks Martintg's actions are inapproriate: [88]. Rjanag responds to Martintg: "The only reason you think it's unjustified is because in the past I didn't block one of your "enemies" who, in your perception, edit warred just as much": [89]. Piotrus arrives to defend Biophys, saying "I didn't see the unblock request, otherwise I'd have unblocked you": [90]. Caspian blue says: "You'd better not because you're an involved person in regards to Biophys (not in the edit warring). Favoritism should be avoided". [91]. Piotrus claims he is not involved: [92]

Team members used coordinated action to convince an admin to unblock Martintg

• 2 April, Martintg was blocked for edit warring: [93].
• Martintg called for help on the secret list. He asked team members to point out his previously clean block log (20090403-0013-[WPM] WMConnolly blocked Martin.eml.)
• Piotrus arrived -- as usual -- to Martintg's defence: [94]. Biruitorul also defended Martintg: [95]. Dc76 also appeared defensive: [96].
• Both Piotrus and Biruitorul used the same argument (Martintg's previously clean block log) as requested by Martintg on the secret list.
• Afterwards Martintg posted an email on the secret list, thanking Piotrus, Biruitorul and Dc76 for defending him, saying that their comments evidently convinced William M. Connolley to lift the block. (20090403-1015-[WPM] WMConnolly blocked Martin.eml)

Members of the secret email list appear to be involved in stealth canvassing of votes

Most of the members always vote the same way in AfDs. Often editors who never showed any interest in the article's subject will suddenly appear to vote in favour of other members of the group. Especially interesting is the behaviour of Radeksz and Piotrus in the following Russia-related subjects: normally they only edit Poland or WWII related articles, but often they appear out of nowhere to support their friends on Russian articles.

• 2008-12-28. Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Putinjugend.
  • Keep: Biophys, Martintg, Digwuren, Biruitorul, Dc76, Hillock65
• 2009-03-30. Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Proto-Ukrainians (2nd nomination).
  • Hillock65 nominated it for deletion.
  • Hillock65 invited other members to participate in his email 20090330-1348-[WPM] AfD_Proto-Ukrainians.eml.
  • Keep: Biruitorul, Dc76, Miacek.
• 2009-04-19. Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Evidence of FSB involvement in the Russian apartment bombings
  • Keep: Keep: Biophys, Martintg, Vecrumba, Biruitorul
• 2009-05-02. Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Russian influence operations in Estonia.
  • Keep: Vecrumba, Biophys, Martintg
• 2009-06-08. Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Discrimination of ethnic minorities in Estonia.
  • Delete: Martintg, Digwuren, Sander Säde, Colchicum, Vecrumba, Biophys, Termer, Radeksz, Piotrus, Biruitorul
• 2009-08-02. Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Russian influence operations in Estonia (2nd nomination)
  • Reported in 20090804-0059-[WPM] AfD.eml
  • Keep: Martintg (through the ip), Radeksz, Piotrus, Tymek, Vecrumba, Jacurek, Poeticbent, Biophys
• 2009-08-03. Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Communist genocide
  • Reported in 20090805-0640-[WPM] AfD.eml
  • Keep: Piotrus, Martintg, Jacurek, Hillock65, Poeticbent, Vecrumba, Termer, Biophys
  • If we count only third-party votes (neither members of the list nor their "enemies", the result is +9 votes for delete.
  • The AfD was closed as "no consensus."
  • It is clear that without the stealth canvassing by the list members, this article would have been deleted.
• 2009-08-26. Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Evidence of FSB involvement in the Russian apartment bombings (2nd nomination).
  • Keep: Biophys, Martintg

Piotrus has made unfounded personal attacks

When I filed a report about Digwuren, Piotrus responded by attacking me: I agree with Radek; and I am fed up with the continuing harassment of Digwuren by Offliner. He has started baseless threads here, at user talk pages, at other Wikipedia pages... and has been throwing mud on Digwuren by the bucket, hoping something will stick.[97]

I asked Piotrus: Could please provide evidence that I have done such things? When have I harassed Digwuren or started baseless threads about him? I do not recall starting a single threat about him, except this one.[98]

Piotrus refused to provide evidence for his claims, although I requested this repeatedly: [99][100]

When I filed an AE report of Digwuren, Piotrus responded by attacking me: [101]

He also said that my evidence was "extremely poor." However, based on this evidence, Digwuren was blocked and placed on 1RR.

When I filed an AE report of Biophys, Piotrus again responded by attacking me: [102]

Piotrus has abused his admin status

• Piotrus often uses his admin status to defend his team mates.
• For example, on 15 September, when Biophys was blocked, Piotrus said: "I didn't see the unblock request, otherwise I'd have unblocked you."[103]
• At WP:AE, Piotrus has repeatedly tried to present himself as an "uninvolved adminstrator" on EE threads concerning his team mates or his enemies. As a result, he has been warned by Jehochman, who threatened to ban him from WP:AE: [104].
• In an WP:AE thread about fellow cabal member Biophys, Piotrus says: How am I aligned to any sides here? When editor A agrees with editor B, it doesn't mean that they are part of some evil cabal :) Please stop such accusations [105]
• I another thread about Radeksz, Piotrus again claims he is not involved, and suggests he should be made a mentor for Radeksz: [106]
• Piotrus' actions are in direct violation of a previous ArbCom remedy, which cautions Piotrus "to avoid using his administrator powers or status in situations in which his involvement in an editing dispute is apparent."[107]

Piotrus has abused his admin tools to help team members in edit war

• 17:19 on 14 September. Hillock65 edit wars at Battle of Konotop: [108]
• 05:38 on 15 September. Radeksz arrives to help Hillock65: [109]
• 10:48 on 15 September. Radeksz is reverted by anonymous IP: [110]
• On 15 September, Hillock65 informs secret list members of the edit war. (20090915-0524-[WPM] Advice is sought on situation.eml)
• 18:00 on 15 September, Piotrus arrives to protect the article: [111]
• 05:53 on 16 September, Martintg -- having never edited the article before -- reverts the IPs edits to last version by Radeksz: [112]

Other abuse of admin tools by Piotrus

Piotrus has abused his admin tools to restore an image that was speedily deleted by another admin as a clear copyvio violation: [113]. After the nomination was reported on the secret list, team members arrived to swamp the discussion and vote keep. (See the corresponding section above)

Martintg has continued to be disruptive after his 1RR sanction was lifted

Based on this investigation, Martintg was placed on 1RR on 23 June, 2009.[114]

Later, after intense protesting by several editors, the sanction was later lifted by Thatcher for bureaucratical reasons, because no prior warning was given. As a sidenote, it may interesting to ArbCom to investigate the emails of the secret list from this time period.

After his sanctions were lifted, Martintg has continued to be disruptive.

I edited Kuril Islands dispute for the first time on 9 July, 2009: [115]

The next day, Martintg arrived (he never edited this article before): [116]

Martintg started to edit war with me and to insert anti-Russian POV in the article.

Martintg unilaterally moved the article two times without discussing first. As a result, he was warned by an admin: [117]

He then launched a personal attack against me, and attempted the reveal private information about my background: [118][119]

He was then blocked for outing: [120]

Piotrus -- as usual -- arrived to support Martintg's unblock: [121]

I believe this episode was an attempt to provoke me into edit warring or to making incivil remarks. Like I said, Martintg never edited the article before this. The only reason he arrived was because he saw that I had just edited the article the day before.

Martintg has been disruptive in other articles as well. On 10-11 August he broke 3RR at Communist genocide: [122][123][124][125]

Confirmation by William M. Connolley that Martintg broke 3RR: [126]. See this discussion: [127]

Martintg has edit warred at Soviet Story. As a result, he was warned by an admin: [128].

Statement by Lysy

I've been involved in Eastern European topics for years here, took part in many contentious disputes, edit wars etc. and never heard of any mailing list so far. My bias is Polish. --Lysy^talk 02:40, 19 September 2009 (UTC)

Statement by Jmabel

I'm remarking here only because I notice User:Biruitorul, whom I've always considered a first-rate and evenhanded contributor, is on the list. Checking the evidence above, the only allegation against him is that he said a user ought not to be blocked for his earlier edits to an article from which he had withdrawn, which sounds reasonable to me in almost any circumstances. Surely it is not a reason for a ban from editing on Eastern European topics, the proposed "remedy".

In fact, I'm not sure what exactly is supposed to be the problem here. What is the basis for saying that this particular list of users are involved in a conspiracy? - Jmabel | Talk 06:35, 19 September 2009 (UTC)

Evidence presented by Badger Drink

Extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence

A certain meme has already started to spread with regards to this case, stating that the mailing list archive was hacked, then falsified, before being leaked. This meme is catching on through sheer force of repetition, and has already made a sucker out of at least one outside participant above.

At this point in time, the only supporting evidence for this claim is the following line of reasoning: "Certainly nobody from this list would leak its contents with an outsider! The list has been leaked to an outsider, therefore it was leaked by somebody who was not a member of the list! Therefore it was hacked!".

Unfortunately, the premise here (that nobody on the list would share its archive with a non-participant) is completely unverified. Whistle-blowing is hardly a new phenomenon - no matter how gung-ho all members of a group may feel on day one, there's always the chance that eventually, one member will feel disillusioned.

It is my sincere hope that ArbCom not be taken by this smokescreen until substantial, valid evidence is offered to back these claims of hacking. Extraordinary claims require extraordinary proof, and up to this point there has been no proof of these extraordinary claims of hacking and forgery - no extraordinary proof, no proof at all.

Evidence presented by Atama

I just wanted to post a response to Ellol above. Per Russavia's block log, Sandstein had blocked Russavia for only 2 days. Russavia had violated a topic ban but later agreed to abide by the topic ban, which led to Sandstein removing the block. It was Good Ol'factory who later blocked Russavia for making legal threats, and that block has only been lifted procedurally to allow for comments regarding this mailing list incident. I don't see why Sandstein's block is being objected to, when the current indefinite block was Good Ol'factory's decision. Good Ol'factory made the declaration of the indefinite block on AN/I and approved the temporary unblock. I just wanted to clarify this as an outside observer.

Evidence presented by Biophys

We had no idea

Dear arbitrators,

Please do not judge casual editors by the same standards you would judge yourself. There are many complicated policy issues involved, and we do not fully understand them. How could we know if even Piotrus did not know, although he knows WP policies much better than anyone of us. Thatcher tells that anything I said to another WP user can be viewed as an "off-wiki coordination" and forbidden. No, I did not realize that, being familiar only with voting fraud instruction. Let's put it straight. I talked with my friends about life, politics and WP editing, and I did not even thought if some of my words might negatively affect WP business. And certainly none of us intended to make any damage. Yes, I made negative comments about some editors off-wiki, but I never asked to attack anyone. To clarify this issue, you should place such banner for every new user to see:

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

If I only knew that, I would never be involved in the group. Yes, I suspected that our emails could be intercepted by Russian FSB and sent to Arbcom (see below), but I thought it can not be a reason for opening any official case, simply because I would never read your personal emails. Yes, I was aware of the CAMERA case. But that was an organized group of paid editors hired by an outside lobbing organization. But we are ordinary editors who were not recruited by any outside organizations. We are not a nationalistic gang. We have rather different POVs and different ethnic and cultural backgrounds.

You do not block even vandals without a warning and explanation.

No damage to encyclopedia

• We did not drive away any single person. All blocks and sanctions have been applied by WP administrators, and you will probably support every single action by administrators after looking at the evidence. If you believe that a number of editors (us) must be evicted for the good of the project, this is your decision. Do you really believe that banning Piotrus will improve encyclopedia content?
• Members of the group were not able to influence any decisions by WP administrators, except the appeal of discretionary sanctions by Thatcher, but the reversal of sanctions was done according to the policies (just as he made good judgment by imposing the discretionary sanctions per IAR)
• No any private information was disclosed in emails, except information about the participants themselves and information that was openly posted by others in wikimedia space
• No discussions and votes were influenced to produce a clearly incorrect outcome. This discussion is a typical example. The members of the group often debated the issues and disagreed with each other. However, they more frequently voted in a similar way, apparently because they share similar POV.
• There were no damage of WP content.

We are victims of outing

Some bare facts:

• Personal information with real names of every member of the group was posted off-wiki, and people are receiving emails with links to that site [129]. This is probably the biggest outing in WP history.
• The leak was accomplished quite professionally, through a proxy server in a third country. No traces.
• The leakage was made precisely at the moment when Alex Bakharev and Ezhiki exhausted every possibility to unblock Russavia.
• This case is only the latest episode of a multi-year conflict between a small group of Russian users (some of whom were blocked but quickly replaced by others) and users from many other countries (Baltic States, Ukraine, Poland and others), some of whom created this mailing list.
• Our mailing group had no archive. Someone, either within the group, or outside the group carefully collected every single message to release it at the moment of his choosing.
• There was no a "dissenter" in our group who would release the archive to retaliate for Russavia and bring him back. As clear from the emails, some participants did not care about Russavia; others did not like him.
• Every member of the group publicly asserted at this site that he did not send the archive. Why? That is what Russavia thinks. Do you believe him?
• In email dated April 27, I said to other members of the group (perhaps for a wrong reason): "Do you want our correspondence here mailed to ArbCom?" I explained that one of the members of the group suppose to be a Kremlin's informant according to every textbook, and I also explained why our WP activites are important for people who work there. And that is precisely what had happened.

But this all started much earlier for me. I have reported to old ArbCom a coded death threat which was made to me by pro-Putin editor ellol. He did it using slang Udaff to make translation from Russian more ambiguous and almost impossible by a non-native speaker. He would be blocked right away because I also reported this incident to the ANI, but User:Alex_Bakharev declared that ellol did not mean it.

Being perfectly aware of this threat, another pro-Putin editor User:Vlad fedorov suddenly reappeared as a sock puppet, User:La poet to evade his one -year block by ArbCom and reported my real life identity to ellol. I send this information with diffs to Thatcher some time ago, but the diff is still sitting right there, and I would appreciate if Thatcher redirected my email to ArbCom if he still has it.

Next wave of outing was initiated by User:Miyokan and supported by User:DonaldDuck and User:Russavia (hence his two-week block by Moreshi), who all know my real life identity and made it clear to me that they know it, and who are strongly pro-Putin editors. I can support this by diffs over the email to ArbCom if needed. I am not sure why they are doing this because I almost never edited article Putin.

Note that Vlad is still active, although he was caught evading ArbCom ban by registering as "la poet": [130]

User:YMB29 is an SPA who does nothing but reverts

This user made so far only ~500 edits. It is enough to look at his edit history and block log. Just a few examples (note misleading edit summaries): [131] [132] [133] [134]. He was also incivil [135]. The only user with whom he was able to positively collaborate [136] was User:Kostan1, a sock of notorious User:M.V.E.i.

Response to evidence by Russavia

The only bad thing I ever said about Russavia in emails was essentially this: I think he has a conflict of interest (and yes, I do believe that many other editors have a conflict of interest as well, as should be clear from my emails). However, I never accused any editor of this in wikipedia space, contrary to claims by Russavia and some others. This is not supported by any of his/their links or diffs.

Since no one challenged the first two-week block of Russavia for outing me (15 September 2008), I have to start later. When Russavia came back from the block, I suggested him to live in peace here and suggested an independent editor who was at the moment at the Russavia side to mediate any potential disagreements. But Russavia responded that "Anyone who thinks I would agree to such a thing would have to have rocks in their head" [137]. and mobilized several users for a big "battle" [138], [139] [140]. He called these users "members of a web brigade" [141].

Although this all sounds bad, I had a serious content disagreement with Russavia in only one article (Litvinenko). Here he accused me of BLP violation (see his statement below). This is nothing new, because Russavia repeatedly accused me of this during an unrelated AfD discussion, at the talk page of Kirill, at the BLP noticeboard, and WP:RS noticeboard. After such campaign by Russavia, I decided that it would be safer to remove this information even though it was well sourced. I removed it [142] and reported to BLP noticeboard that the problem has been resolved:[143]. And what Russavia does? He re-inserts this claim back!. I am trying to remove it again because I do not want to be accused of BLP violations: [144]. But he reinserts it back again [145]. Why he is doing this? In order to accuse me again during this ArbCom case?

During all this time, I made an official question/request about Russaiva in only two cases, and Russavia received no sanctions due to any of these requests: (a) a thread about 22 hour non-stop editing started by Piotrus (no, I did not ask Piotrus to start this thread over the email - there is no evidence of that), and (b) an AE request about uncivil comments with regard to Baltic users (no, no one asked me over the email to file this request). Anyone can check this ANI thread and AE request to decide if I acted in a good faith. I believe I provided enough evidence for the AE request, and the concern about his 22 hour non-stop editing, day after day after day, was grounded.

Wikistalking by Offliner

I filed this AE request about Offliner. Once again, no one asked me to do this by email. I believed the request was justified because Offliner continuously wikistalked my edits. All these articles were created or extensively edited by me. Offliner never edited them before. He suddenly visited a number of such articles (most of the diffs below are in the end of April), and removed a lot of sourced content, together with supporting sources:

• Article 1 and again, and again, and again, and again
• Article 2
• Article 3 and again
• article 4, and again, and again
• Article 5
• Article 6, and again, and again, with offensive edit summary
• Article 7, deletion of other sourced information in the same article
• Article 8
• Article 9
• Article 10

• And he refused to discuss his deletions:[146],[147],[148],[149],[150],[151].

Also note this offensive suggestion by Offliner at my talk page and his endless block shopping and personal attacks by Offliner [152], [153], [154],but although he believes he never started baseless threads

Other responses

To PU and Offliner: Clearly, a coordinated edit war took place in many articles. But it takes two to tango.

To DonaldDuck:: This is warning by FaysalF to DonaldDuck with regard to outing me [155]. Actually, I asked blocking admin. for softer sanctions for Petri Krohn: [156]. And I still believe he does not deserve such harsh sanctions.

To Viriditas: I am very sorry for this incident. I do not know Mosedchurte, but I saw his articles and was strongly impressed by their quality. I saw this excellent content editor unjustly accused at the ANI by you and only wanted to help Mosedchurte. I commented at the ANI and at the article talk pages (rather than "arrived" as you tell) and made a couple of reverts to a more neutral version. Yes, I told about this story over the email, but simply because I honestly debated everything I saw in WP with my friends. I did not ask to attack you. Why would I? I promise to avoid any articles you edit or compromise with you on any subject, if I am not banned by Arbcom.

To Commodore sloat: By commenting here Commodore sloat decided not to follow this ArbCom recommendation [157]. No further comments, because I do follow this recommendation.

To vlad_Fedorov: Most of his evidence is very old and irrelevant to this case. I am especially disturbed by his claim that "Biophys reinserts unsourced statements inciting ethnic hatred", because I am opposed to any aggressive nationalistic agenda, being it Russian, Polish or Ukrainian, whatsoever. My conflict with Vlad started because I insisted to exclude from an article a poorly sourced and inflammatory citation telling literally "Kill, kill, kill!".

Last word

If you allow me editing pure science (I contributed a lot in this area without having a single conflict with anyone), that would be great. I might also edit some heritage articles, like biographies of Russian writers and poets. The area of conflict can be defined as either "Human rights in Russia" or "Post-Soviet Russia".

Suggestion by Óðinn

I urge the ArbCom to check if the User:Petri Krohn has also been the victim of this alleged campaign of harassment, discrediting and provocation. He is currently blocked for a year over a conflict with one of the parties of this case. Óðinn (talk) 20:54, 19 September 2009 (UTC)

Evidence presented by User:Russavia

Evidence of the existence and purpose of this cabal

Throughout the 3,402 emails there are plenty of accusations that myself and many other editors, whom they deem to be their "enemies", are members of some cabal that they have dubbed the USSR Forever Cabal. There is no existence of any such cabal, and there will be no evidence as no such cabal exists now, in the past, or in the future; at least I am not aware of such a cabal, I am not a member of any such cabal, and I would never be a member of such a cabal. List members dispute that they are a cabal, although on the list, they clearly recognise that they are a cabal, and this is evidenced by the frequent use of terms such as "our cabal". In 20090803-2153-[WPM] HELP!! Radek _ Piotrus_ Tymek and others. Dc76 states the main purpose of the group is "to prevent pro-Soviet propaganda through WP". But I have no doubt in my mind, that this actually means the prevention of any POV which doesn't fit their own agenda. Take for example, Tymek's suggestion that WP should only utilise the writings of western historians. I clearly responded to Tymek that we should be preventing ALL POV and attribute it appropriately. There is also no reason why a historian connected with the Russian Academy of Sciences should be excluded, but any anti-Russian source can be included. This goes against WP:NPOV in a major way, and has nothing to do with whether individual editors agree with Soviet/Russian views, etc on things - which for information, I don't believe a lot of the Soviet propaganda either, but it is notable for inclusion on WP. The other purpose of the list seems to be drawing up lists of enemies, some of whom they stalk and harrass onwiki, and hound into a corner in order to get them to be uncivil, so that they can report and get rid of them. Apart from the stalking on myself presented below, another example is 20090913-0218-[WPM] Lokii - to Vecrumba where Radeksz suggests that they push LokiiT in order to get him to make what they perceive to a personal attack, which they can then report him on. The cabal was also created in order to allow list members to edit war as a group (undetected) in order to ensure that their group POV was the most prevalent, whilst creating a WP battleground in which their opponents could be culled by way of the group acting as sockpuppets and meatpuppets. This is made explicitly clear by Piotrus in 20090908-1810-[WPM] Russavia going nuts on Soviet Story in which he states that it is important that cabal members should make edits, even if they would be reverted by their perceived wiki enemies, as this could used as evidence by this cabal of their opponents POV/revert mentality/edit warring. Piotrus goes on to state that the cabal shouldn't be worried about reverts, as this is precisely why the group was formed in order for them to WP:TEAM, WP:GAME and meat puppet on Wikipedia, and furthermore suggested they make up a list of articles which their wiki enemies have supposedly taken over and take them back.

So in short, the group exists in order to WP:HARRASS and WP:STALK editors, enforce their own WP:POV, WP:TEAM and WP:GAME WP policies, processes and general standards of conduct, engage in WP:NOTADVOCATE, and a host of other things which go against the very collegial nature of Wikipedia, which in turn has only increaed the nature of WP:BATTLE that is evident in this area, and which many editors such as myself would like the project to be rid of.

WP:OUTING and harrassment by list members on myself

Persistent sock/meat puppet accusations

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, and other editors at times. I have no doubts that Piotrus and crew co-ordinated at least one campaign of harrassment on this email list. In November 2008, immediately after I received a block for 3RR (which entailed me removing and then rewording very poorly sourced information in the Litvinenko article surrounding claims of Putin being a paedophile - a WP:BLP violation)[158][159][160][161][162][163] (might I add I am disgusted that nothing ever happened despite raising objections at numerous venues) Biophys asked Tiptoety about his belief that I was sharing my account. He was advised that there was not enough evidence to proceed with any checkuser. Due to other accusations levelled against me, which included accusations that I was employed by every Russian state organ from the Ministry of Foreign Affairs to the FSB/KGB[164], (instead of just being a conscientious contributor who is here to contribute and improve the project), I demanded a checkuser be run on myself in order to put the matter to rest. Even after the results were confirmed that I am but a single editor, it was continued at the checkuser's talk page. On 23 April (my local times I guess), Piotrus posted Wikipedia:Administrators'_noticeboard/Archive191#Ethics_of_sharing_an_account what I thought at the time was posted on behalf of Biophys, as a continuation of what myself and others deemed to be harrassment. Due to Piotrus claiming that he was asked about this subject, and after not being able to find any evidence of any onwiki discussion between Piotrus and any other editors, I assumed there was offwiki communication going on in this regard, and hence asked Piotrus for information, but no name or editor came forward. Logically, one can only assume that this was posted either on behalf of Biophys (and others), or was posted by Piotrus in order to give these editors yet another opportunity to harrass myself onwiki. I am certain that if Arbcom checks emails of dates around 23 April 2009, there would more than likely be discussion on this particular harrassment campaign on their email list, which would thereby prove this campaign of harrassment, and the legitimacy of the emails received.

At the same time, so concerned was I that there was serial harrassment and stalking going on, that on 26 April 2009, I contacted a crat on Commons, in order to have my name and other details removed from File:Kremlin authorisation-English.pdf and File:Kremlin authorisation-Russian.pdf. I operate a business in the real world, and am setting up another, and due to what was obvious to me at the time was stalking and harrassment, I did not want my name being linked to any accusations of my being connected to Russian FSB, etc, particularly as one of those businesses is connected to what is deemed to be a strategic industry; the nature of which I believe I have made known to Arbcom in emails in the past.

The outing and harrassment of myself was further enforced in my mind when Biophys posted this on Digwuren's talk page in March, with the comment, "Please read it. I am not going to comment anything further.". On 17 April Biophys included a link to the document on Commons in his userspace; ostensibly as proof of his unfounded accusations that I am employed by the FSB or some other organisation, and am a paid editor, as part of some web brigade. It was in searching for the discussion on Digwuren's talk page that I stumbled across the AN thread; a thread which was allowed to run for two days without my being aware of it. This was an obvious set up by these editors to continue with their campaign of outting and harrassment of myself.

Response to denial by Piotrus

Piotrus asserts that the thread that he started was not harrassment. An uninvolved editor clearly thought it was, starting a subsection on this very assertion. In fact, throughout the entire overall thread there are numerous uninvolved editors and admins who saw it as continued harrassment. Now bringing this back to this case, between "20090422-1543-[WPM] Important categories at CfD" and "20090427-2055-[WPM] Attack on Russavia" there are numerous emails discussing this very subject. Some of the emails predate Piotrus' posting of the ANI thread, and the rest postdate it, and all are around the time of the actual thread. The emails see discussion and plotting by Piotrus, Biruitorul, Biophys, Digwuren and Martintg. All of whom appeared at the ANI thread. In "20090422-1935-[WPM] Important categories at CfD" Piotrus mentions that he has posted the thread, and that it may be useful in this groups campaign to harrass myself, and provides a link to the ANI thread started by himself. In "20090424-0205-[WPM] Russavia", Piotrus reposts the link and advises the team that they are missing a good opportunity to harrass myself further. In "20090424-1635-[WPM] GFDL", Biruitoral claims, blazenly, that any accusations that they make against myself, even if knowingly false, would only help the team. The rest of the emails involve discussions on meatpuppeting, sockpuppeting, discussion of my real life identity, and also discussions on how list members could mess with my real life identity and my real life business. This indicates that my gut feeling back in April on removing my name from files on commons was spot on, as even my paranoia which lead to me removing my name from two commons files[165][166] was discussed in emails from those dates. Given the email posted by Biophys, with links to previous discussions on this subject, and the fact that it was noted in some of those links that the constant accusations of myself sharing my account with others could be deemed to be harrassment, Piotrus is not credible when he states that his posting of this thread on behalf of Biophys, and in order to further harrass myself, is not harrassment.

Additionally in 20090428-0510-[WPM] China_ Digwuren discusses the harrassment on myself by the web brigade. Digwuren states that open harrassment of myself is not a good idea, as the "maddening aspects" of it would be reduced by myself deciding who is behind it. He also states that anonymous harrassers very rarely show up at AN/I threads (my note: my harrassers did show up indeed didn't they), and he goes on to say that if I can plausibly claim that my opponents harrassed me (my note: I have known about the harrassment, and have clearly shown evidence of this, since November 2008) that future DR actions or arbcom will give credence to the idea that my opponents are wrong doers who are worth punishing. In 20090428-1957-[WPM] China_ Piotrus states that Digwuren has a good point, and explains that this is why his position on the thread that he started was now "100% "damage control"", in what he stated was an attempt to torpedo any attempt to create a consensus that Biophys was stalking. In the same email Piotrus also "highly advise(s)" other members of the web brigade to post at the thread that he started to strongly oppose that idea.

It is now obvious that Piotrus is not credible in this situation. Hoisted with one's own petard.

Admissions that list members were stalking and harrassing myself

• In 20090113-0105-[WPM] Weird reaction by Russavia, Martingtg answers a question from Digwuren, concerning Martintg's recent placing of the recent patrollers usebox on his userpage. Digwuren asks Martintg if this was part of a potential adminship campaign by Martintg. Martintg states that he placed the userbox on his userpage only as a defensive measure against WP:STALKING allegations, in case any of the mud should stick. This is an obvious admission by Martintg that he has, as I have long known and suspected, systematically stalked my edits. --Russavia ^Dialogue 17:28, 23 September 2009 (UTC)

Discussions relating to stalking/harrassing myself in real life

• In 20090615-1727-[WPM] Could this tell us anything_ Piotrus states that he would be against the above due to it crossing into real life harrassment of myself (as if onwiki harrassment isn't enough), but seems to suggest that an anonymous tip could be given to the Australian security services detailing that I am some sort of Russian spy.

Further evidence of stalking

• I added information to List of most common surnames after stumbling across an article on RIA Novosti. Several editors, none of whom had edited the article previously soon showed up. Miacek revert. I have re-worded and re-added. Martintg reverts (missing the fact that the referenced article quotes an Estonian media source), I revert, noting the stalking. Digwuren, then starts a talk page discussion at Talk:List_of_most_common_surnames#RIA_Novosti.27s_scope_of_reliability, which is joined by tag teamer Vecrumba in which both editors start attacking the use of Russian sources (a common tactic used by these editors to exclude information from articles). Both editors more interested in creating and fermenting yet another battleground, rather than recognising the source states: "One in every 200 Estonians has the Russian name Ivanov, making it the ex-Soviet Baltic country's most common surname, weekly newspaper Eesti Ekspress reported on Thursday.". Instead of helping to find the Eesti source (I don't speak Estonian), these editors instead stalked myself, obvious tag team, used the talk page as a soapbox and created yet another battle. In 20090130-2021-[WPM] Advance warning_ a possible conflict point created Digwuren directs editors to the talk page discussion he started and states that its possible the so-called cartel will see it as an attack on reliability of Russian media in general, and may take it further. Vecrumba then appears on the talk page as per the above, and they both engage in soapboxing against the use of using any Russian sources; this is very common for both of them.

Suggestions that there was intent to harrass other editors

• In 20090910-0238-[WPM] Russavia got Bannned ! User:Vecrumba suggests that if User:Offliner continue to question User:Sandstein in relation to the email that Vecrumba sent Sandstein, that the group should take the angle that Offliner is acting as my proxy.
• In 20090912-1303-[WPM] Sandstein may need support Digwuren states that they should express disappointment in Ezhiki, given Ezhiki's questioning of the extent of the topic ban placed upon myself by Sandstein. In 20090912-1749-[WPM] Sandstein may need support Digwuren suggests that they should not blame User:Ezhiki outright, but to keep him away from questioning my ban with the threat of blame.

Treating WP as a battlefield

Web brigades

January incident

Back in January 2009, Digwuren added information to the web brigades article citing an a previous Arbcom decision. After it was removed by another editor, Digwuren re-inserted it. It was again removed by yet another editor, citing correctly that WP is not a reliable source. Piotrus has instantly reverted. This was again removed by yet another editor. Piotrus has again reverted. At that point, I have reverted, noting discussion on the talk page. Martintg has then reverted me. And I have removed again, after which the article was locked by] User:Vassyana. Discussion took place on the reliable source noticeboard, at which Martintg, Piotrus, Vecrumba, Digwuren and Biophys -- all list members -- argued for it's inclusion, whilst it was evident as per other editors who commented, that it should not be included.

I noted at the time, and with hindsight it was like reading from a crystal ball:

The inclusion of this information into the article, in my opinion, is well co-ordinated continued harrassment of editors by this clique; by linking to the Arbcom they have given readers of the article an opportunity to go and read all the paranoid accusations that User:Biophys has made against MANY editors."

To demonstrate my stance then with current events now; if it is found that these list members have acted in the same fashion as a web brigade allegedly does, i.e. teaming, harrassment, etc, would they object to its inclusion in the article based only on an Arbcom decision. Even under those circumstances I would be removing it for the same reasons as I removed such contentions back in January, i.e. Wikipedia is not a reliable source, nor is it a battleground, and I hope this would be the same of all Wikipedia editors.

The evidence for this can be found in 20090112-1447-[WPM] ArbCom as RS_ also Russian media in which Digwuren announces that he has entered the information into the article. In 20090113-0209-[WPM] ArbCom as RS_ also Russian media Piotrus points list members to the reliable sources noticeboard, makes mention of battling, and implicity invites list members to join the discussion on the noticeboard, in order to push for including Arbcom decisions as a reliable source.

More recent battleground created by email list members

In 20090915-1859-[WPM] We brigades_ Internet operations by Russian Piotrus asked the list if he is the only one interested in this article; this is a clear invite to participate in meatpuppetry, and edit warring. In 20090915-2143-[WPM] We brigades__Internet operations by Russian Radeksz suggests that another member of the email list should perform a revert on this article. In 20090915-2223-[WPM] We brigades__Internet operations by Russian User:Jacurek says that they should perform a revert on the article now, so that they can ensure that any WP:3RR report is not in vain. In 20090916-0100-[WPM] We brigades_ Internet operations by Russian Piotrus informs the list that someone should revert an editor on the web brigades article, with an explicit warning list members to watch their 1RR. The target of this was User:Ellol, whom they wanted to take to WP:3RR. Given this evidence, it is obvious that the email list have not acted as individual editors, and as such their reverts on this article should be regarded as ones which are performed by a single editor, and as such they have as a group breached WP:3RR as a collective group.

Alexander Litvinenko article

Immediately after I was banned under Sandstein's first ban, Biophys has done a massive revert[167] to the Litvinenko article, re-including what I believe is 2 WP:LINKVIO, text which I had verified and changed accordingly, misrepresentation of photos, the same mispelled "Persecuition" and the removal of a huge amount of sourced, NPOV-worded text, to what is often described as a compromise version (code for his favoured version). I posted a long list of problems with the article on the talk page and this basically went unheeded. Offliner, an editor who has long been active on the article and talk pages, and also an editor who had been working with me on User:Russavia/Litvinenko, reverted this, due to the same type of problems. Biophs reverts this. After being unblocked by Sandstein, I have reverted this, pointing Biophys to the talk page discussion. (Note: This edit is one which contributed to me being topic banned from ALL Russian articles). Biophys reverts this. (Note: By this time I had received message from Sandstein on my talk page, and I didn't have a chance to incorporate several minor fixes to the article). Offliner reverts this, again pointing Biophys to the talk page, at which point Radeksz acts in a team like manner and reverts. At this point Alex Bakharev has locked the article, and started a discussion.

In 20090909-2347-[WPM] Russavia got Bannned ! Biophys states that he needs assistance in enforcing his reverts in this article. In 20090910-0004-[WPM] Russavia got Bannned ! Radeksz states that he will keep an eye on the article, but won't act right now in case it is seen as a provocation which could be used by the non-existent USSR Forever cabal to get one of them banned in retaliation for myself. In 20090910-0012-[WPM] Russavia got Bannned ! Martintg agrees that they should be careful, so not as to get sucked into some vortex of wikidrama. In 20090910-0018-[WPM] Russavia got Bannned ! Biophys states that they can get around all of this, by having another user make a minor fix to the article, in order to make it harder to revert, and claimed that no sane admin would object to this. In 20090910-0021-[WPM] Russavia got Bannned ! Radeksz funnily enough suggests that someone would try to get someone on the "Litvinenko said Putin is a paedophile" line, and that they should make sure that it is sourced the hell out of, then there is no cause for complete. The reason this is funny, is that it was myself who sourced the hell out of it, and made it NPOV in the first place, only to see Biophys reinsert the poorly sourced version (see diffs below). In20090915-0449-[WPM] We brigades__Internet operations by Russian Biophys directs list members attention to this edit. Immediately after this post, Radeksz reverts making the false claim of consensus. It is obvious that Biophys reverted to his months old version, and Radeksz was making false claims in order to help enforce this, despite there being no consensus for Biophys' massive removal of sourced, NPOV information from the article. In 20090910-0218-[WPM] Russavia got Bannned ! Vecrumba states that he would visit the article in a few days, only to avoid them appearing opportunistic on this article.

Some article history

It should be noted that my issue is not the existence of the accusation, but that the accusation was presented as fact, rather than an allegation, and that it was almost entirely sourced to sources closely linked to Litvinenko, which does not have an established history of fact checking. I remove BLP violating text, with a note on making it NPOV. Biophys reverts, saying there is nothing wrong with it. I remove the section again whilst an NPOV version is worked on on the talk page. It is important to Biophys that this information is present in the article for some reason. Once I have reworded the BLP violation, an uninvolved admin has expressed this opinion that it is no longer a BLP violation (link on talk page link above). But Biophys, who so vehemently was in favour of its insertion, is all of a sudden against its inclusion, and takes it out of the article completely. The only reason I could see is that it contained information which was critical of this guy's accusations. I have reincluded it into the article, noting that Biophys himself argued to have such an accusation in the article. Again consider the reason for him now wanting it out. Biophys again removes the information. And it has finally been reinserted by myself in its non-BLP violating, NPOV form. Now here is where it get's interesting. Biophys again removes the section, then instantly reverts himself, and then incredulously instantly reverts back to his preferred BLP violating version, ostensibly in order to make a shorter version, without any criticism of Litvinenko -- this is often referred to on the talk page as his compromise version (see below). Of course, I have removed the BLP version reinserted by Biophys. From thereon in, it is edit such as this which Grey-Fox and Biophys attempted to game by claiming it wasn't a reliable source (see above links to the RS noticeboard). I tried my damndest to get Biophys to understand what was wrong with his version, and did seek outside intervention, but I was left to my own devices, trying to get this through to editors who wished to write a respectful article (WP:NOTADVOCATE again]]).

It should be noted that Biophys' compromise version is somewhat one of two running jokes on WP amongst editors in this area; for it entails him removing any information which doesn't pertain to his own POV, and will often involve reverting to an old version of an article which excludes edits by other editors; for example Russian apartment bombings as is detailed in evidence by another user, he reverted to a year old version. It is for this reason, and actions on other articles, that myself and other editors believe that Biophys is using wikipedia to engage in advocacy of an often fringe point of view, to the exclusion of other POV, which is against policy.

Soviet War Memorial (Treptower Park)

This was a very contentious article, in which the fact that it is called the Tomb of the Unknown Rapist became a matter of contention, and in which was proven that User:Martintg has committed a gross violation of WP:V, and was backed up by Vecrumba, Biophys and Digwuren. At Talk:Soviet_War_Memorial_(Treptower_Park)#Tomb_of_the_unknown_rapist, one will note that an editor (with sources quoted) has said: "The reason is simply that I've come to the conclusion that for now the sources can only with certainty be used to include the name in relation to the much smaller monument with its tombs, in the center of Berlin: Soviet War Memorial (Tiergarten). see these references: [5], [6]. Apparently Beevor, who is the source for the second link, also refers to the monument in the center of the city, i.e Tiergarten." At Talk:Soviet_War_Memorial_(Treptower_Park)#Tomb_of_the_Unknown_Rapist.2C_part_2, another editor has re-inserted the epitaph, citing the same sources. After a discussion in which Vecrumba attempted to turn the article into one on the war itself....more to come....

In 20090628-2315-[WPM] Offliner barnstaring Shell Kinney_ Biophys brings attention to his edit here, even though it is shown on the talk page as failing verification in all ways. After being reverted by BeatleFabFour, Biophys again reinserts the information. This was again reverted by BeatleFabFour, which was then reinserted by Digwuren, with the laughable edit summary of "Restored sourced material. At what point does WP:V kick in?" This was finally reverted by PasswordUsername. Both PasswordUsername and BeatleFabFour mentioned the talk page discussion in their edit summaries, but this was completely ignored by those two editors, as it seems it was more important to have in the article the epitaph "Tomb of the Unknown Rapist". --Russavia ^Dialogue 09:14, 25 September 2009 (UTC)

List members acting as sockpuppets and/or meatpuppets

There are many instances of email list members using the list as a call to arms in order for them to stack votes according to their own editorial POV. It is plainly obvious that apart from the harrassment of their so-called enemies, a major function of the group was to enable the group to force thru their POV by sheer numbers, thereby creating false consensus. Example of this include:

• 20090912-1939-[WPM] Help needed on Anonimu-initiated move reques is a call to arms to list members by Biruitorul to Communist Romania. As has been noted at on the talk page, there was a rapid succession of votes by members of this list, inluding Biruitorul himself, Biophys, Radeksz, Dc76 and Tymek. Vecrumba, whilst not voting, did make comments on the talk page. Please note, that this is a current move request, and editors are aware of this arbcom now taking place. --Russavia ^Dialogue 10:19, 23 September 2009 (UTC)
  • After posting this message and seeing votes come in, in 20090913-1833-[WPM] Re Anonimu - thanks!, Biruitorul sends a congratulatory message to the list thanking them for their meatpuppeting. --Russavia ^Dialogue 10:42, 23 September 2009 (UTC)
• In 20090326-1736-[WPM] Unimportant_ but pertinent AfD Biruitorul comments that a "Canadian dolt" is stopping consensus from forming, and that the group has ways to get around that. The AfD in question is Wikipedia:Articles_for_deletion/Albanian-Moldovan_relations, and one would notice that both Digwuren and Martintg have come to the AfD.
• In April after Martintg was blocked by WMC for edit warring, in 20090402-2239-[WPM] WMConnolly blocked Martin Piotrus tells Martin that he shouldn't do more than 2 reverts in a day, and if more reverts are required he should either ask on the list or via IM (perhaps Gadu-Gadu?). In 20090402-2314-[WPM] WMConnolly blocked Martin Martin says that yes, he should avoid getting into edit wars, which is followed up in 20090402-2358-[WPM] WMConnolly blocked Martin by Piotrus reinforcing that of course Martin shouldn't worry about edit warring, as all Martin has to do is to IM Piotrus and ask for a revert. In 20090403-0013-[WPM] WMConnolly blocked Martin Martin then suggests that editors post messages on his talk page in support of himself. In 20090403-1015-[WPM] WMConnolly blocked Martin, Martin thanks Piotrus, Biruitorul and Dc76 for the messages that they left on his talk page in response to his request, and stated his belief that it helped convince WMC to lift the block. In 20090403-1312-[WPM] WMConnolly blocked Martin Digwuren notes that once editors use up two reverts, that they should then "call in reinforcement". He also notes his observation that when edit history looks like a checkerboard of two editors edits that administrators like to blame both editors, but when there is one editor against several others, administrators tend to think that the single editor is the one editwarring.
• In 20090804-0059-[WPM] AfD Martintg points editors to Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Russian influence operations in Estonia (2nd nomination). Not long after he posts this to the list, Sander Sade, Piotrus, Tymek, Poeticbent, Biophys, Vecrumba and Jacurek all post their votes inline with each other. As a result of this cabal's voting, the article was kept.
• In 20090830-1820-[WPM] Bobanni'd move disruption Piotrus mentions the contributions of a particular editor, and tells editors to go to the talk pages of any moves that the editor has proposed and vote oppose, to stop any of the moves succeeding.

As yet unnamed section

• In 20090916-0206-[WPM] We brigades__Internet operations by Russian Biophys invites Piotrus to unblock him after Biophys breached WP:3RR. This is after Piotrus says that he would have unblocked Biophys and after an objection to Piotrus utilising his tools in relation to Biophys is raised, Piotrus claims he is not involved in regards to Biophys.

Creation of a cabal admin/checkuser

• At User_talk:Biruitorul#Admin.3F, User:Tavix suggests that Biruitorul should run for adminship. In 20090407-1548-[WPM] Biruitorul for RFA Digwuren notes this, and suggests that due to their unfounded suspicions that I stalk him and Martintg, other list members could vote safely, and that he planned to vote at the very end of the process. In 20090407-1621-[WPM] Biruitorul for RFA Piotrus agrees with the idea of voting, and that he would WP:CANVASS amongst Polish editors to get them to vote in support of Biruitorul. In 20090407-1631-[WPM] Biruitorul for RFA User:Miacek also agrees that he would make a good admin. In 20090407-1807-[WPM] My RfA Biruitorul thanks them for support, but says that he wouldn't run for admin at that time.
• More to come

My topic banning

In 20090909-2108-[WPM] Russavia got Bannned ! Digwuren states that any attempts to compare my "obvious misdeeds" with their "not-so-obvious misdeeds" must be deemed by the cabal to be examples of combative attitude. Well this cabals misdeeds are now more than well known, and as per the Cabal co-leader's suggestion, this is exactly the line that editors used at the AN/I thread. In the same email, Digwuren states that Vecrumba's email to Sandstein could be a "useful device" in assuring Sandstein that Vecrumba is concerned with Sandstein's integrity. Digwuren also suggests that Sandstein should be nudged that if he can find something against Martintg to criticise, that he should be pressed to do so in order to demonstrate that Martintg is open to criticism.

Response to evidence by Biophys

At Wikipedia:Arbitration/Requests/Case/Eastern_European_mailing_list/Evidence#Massive_outing_and_email_theft, Biophys asks if he is paranoid. The answer to that is of course; yes he is. It is a well established fact that Biophys has accused many editors of being in the employ of Russian security services (KGB/FSB/etc) in the past, and the present, and in fact seems to insinuate as such right here on these arbcom pages. He refers to this edit as my calling an editor to arms - when clearly it is a notice to another editor who had long been involved on the article that they may want to join the discussion on the article talk page. Remember this is the same article and at the same time that I covered above. The other call to arms to these supposed web brigade members is this diff. This of course is in relation to this, which I only placed after LokiT was heavily involved in the article and the accusations that kept being inserts of Putin being a paedophile. As one can see from my talk page, LokiT stated that he is staying away from such articles in future, due to the severe problems in this area; problems which are basically summed up by this very case. This diff presented by Biophys is the clincher. I stated very clearly, "I'm not getting into an edit war with you on this, I will ask other members of the web brigade editors for their opinion." What Biophys doesn't make clear here, is that the only place that I asked other editors was at Wikipedia_talk:WikiProject_Russia/Archive_1#Artyom_Borovik - the article is clearly within the scope of the project, and as such it is making perfect use of the project talk page - of course, it's going to be argued that this is inviting editors of WP:RUSSIA to edit war and team and the like, but this is so far from the truth, it isn't funny, because WP:RUSSIA is made up of editors who have varying personal viewpoints, but I think for the most part that most of the active members of the project realise that we are not here to engage in POV-pushing, advocacy and spreading of propaganda, but that we are here to build an encyclopaedia in a collegial environment; something that having to deal with editors such as Biophys, at times, impossible to deal with, due to his obvious misconstruing of events to present a problem as something that it is not, and which almost certainly always comes back to accusations that anyone who disagrees with what he is doing, has to be a member of the web brigades. As all the evidence thus far is showing, there is only one web brigade in this area of editing. --Russavia ^Dialogue 17:08, 23 September 2009 (UTC)

Response to evidence by Martintg

It is interesting that Martintg raises Kaitsepolitsei, and also commits a potential BLP violation by referring to someone as a neo-Nazi. As one can see from the talk page, I agree that the opinion could be included, but stated my opinion that it was undue in the form it was. Based upon that, I removed the opinion from the article and reworked it. It should also be mentioned that Diguwren was blocked for 5 days by Thatcher for his referring to myself and Offliner as neo-Nazis. One can also note that both Digwuren and Martintg acted in a somewhat tedious manner over where the article should be named - Digwuren called my Google results bullshit, accused me of vandalism, and of acting against "wide consensus" (meaning team members Martintg and himself). In fact, Digwuren's actions on this article were raised at Wikipedia:Arbitration/Requests/Enforcement/Archive42#Digwuren. Note, I did not post into this AE. In 20090621-1802-[WPM] Offliner Martintg notes this AE thread, and suggests that evidence should be included by someone such as User:Miacek. And course, cabal members including Martintg, Piotrus, Biophys, Miacek, and Tymek all post on there in defence of Digwuren. It was as a result of this AE that he was banned for 5 days for referring to me and Offliner as neo-Nazis.

Evidence presented by YMB29

Biophys' stubborn edit warring

From editing the Human rights in the Soviet Union article, I could tell that there was some kind of team work involved. User:Biophys would have some users show up to support him in edit warring and "creating a consensus". User:Bobanni especially would come and help Biophys avoid 3RR, keep his edits to 3 or 2 reverts.

Recent example:

10:36, 10 September 2009 Biophys (Unexplained revert)

10:12, 10 September 2009 YMB29 (Undid revision 312888591 by Biophys (talk) See edit on 15 June 2009 23:46)

20:49, 9 September 2009 Biophys (rv. Sorry, but that was you who started reverts here)

13:13, 9 September 2009 YMB29 (Undid revision 312804016 by Bobanni (talk) See talk. Don't start a revert war again.)

12:22, 9 September 2009 Bobanni (reverting to an old copy is not the Wikipedia way - see talk)

10:53, 9 September 2009 YMB29 (Reverted sneaky reverts by Biophys, made some statements more clear and neutral.)

And then an admin blocked me because I had 3 reverts, but Biophys only 2...

I can understand how the group could have gotten users blocked after purposely making them lose their cool. It was often very frustrating with Biophys. He would act like he was following the rules and knew what he was editing. However, discussing with him felt like talking to someone who pretends to be silly to make you lose your patience. Often he would ask me to list my problems with the article to discuss, but he was unable to follow on with the discussion, continue to revert, and then again ask to discuss the issues...

Some of his comments from discussion:

You act against consensus here.

I will need a couple of days to look into all the issues and find all additional sources.

I have no time right now.

We had a stable version. You came and started making large changes without discussion.

You are welcome to include citation tags if they were accidently deleted.

Please tell what specific problems do you have with this last specific version.

Please do not fight against consensus using blind reverts.

OK, let's start it all over again, one point at a time.

Comments like that were very annoying in the context of him refusing to fully discuss issues and him reverting everything, including tags and sourced info.

Based on Biophys' editing, it is no surprise that he might have been involved in planned actions that were against Wikipedia's rules. He has shown that he only cares about keeping the article how he wants it with his stubborn reverts, which were often sneaky. He would say one thing in the edit summary but would really just revert the article to his version. This was obviously done to mask his reverts. For example, after settling down for seven months, on 15 June 2009 he reverted to his version from 3 Nov. 2008.

19:46, 15 June 2009 Biophys (actually, this is referenced to book by Albats that someone deleted) diff

You can see here that the versions are exactly the same, while his edit summary is nothing about that.

Piotrus defending Biophys

On Sept. 10th, not wanting to get into another long edit war with Biophys and Bobanni, I reported Biophys, specifically his edit on June 15th.[168] The first comment I see to the report was one by Piotrus defending Biophys. Before I could write a response that Piotrus is not impartial when it comes to Biophys (I knew it from here), I am blocked. Another admin blocked me without really looking into what I reported. I have a strong suspicion that Piotrus' comment may have influenced this hasty block.

Furthermore, when Biophys was last blocked Piotrus again defended him and said he would have unblocked him if he would have seen his unblock request (before it was withdrawn) [169]. Also User:Martintg hounded the admin for blocking Biophys.[170]

-YMB29 (talk) 20:49, 20 September 2009 (UTC)

Response to evidence by Biophys

I don't know what difference it makes how much edits I have. Maybe I would have more edits if Biophys was more cooperative in that article, since he wasted my time and discouraged me from getting into editing other articles. From the misleading edit summaries Biophys claims I made, only in one I did not mention or imply that I was going to revert (I reverted and added links as part of a compromise). [171] I did reply and explain on the talk page [172], so I was not misleading anyone.

I was not uncivil to him; that was regarding a user citing hate websites in another article over three years ago.[173]

As far as User:M.V.E.i., Biophys already accused me of being his sock and was proven wrong [174] (even though there was not any real evidence to start a checkuser request).

-YMB29 (talk) 02:42, 21 September 2009 (UTC)

Evidence presented by MBisanz

Authenticity of archives

In June/July I was contacted by two people now alleged to be on this mailing list, the discussions I have since forwarded to arbcom. I have now seen a copy of the mailing list archive on a public website and compared the emails around the dates of these two earlier conversations and do see references that lead me to believe that the archive in general is authentic, since it would require non-public knowledge known only to me and the two other parties to re-create these properly timed references in the archive.

Evidence presented by Good Olfactory

Responsibility for block currently in force against Russavia

I want to confirm what Atama has stated in evidence above. The editing restriction imposed by Sandstein is related to, but obviously not the same as, the block I imposed. I imposed the block for Russavia's extensive wikilawyering and for making an ambiguous legal threat while Russavia was challenging the restrictions imposed by Sandstein in a WP:ANI thread. The block currently imposed on Russavia is the block I imposed. This block has been temporarily lifted with my knowledge and acquiescence so that Russavia can participate in this case. Unless the decision in this case decides otherwise, I expect the block against Russavia to remain in force after the case is concluded.

Was not contacted by any of the parties in this case prior to imposing the block

I was not contacted by any of the parties in this case regarding Russavia's behaviour prior to my decision to impose an indefinite block on Russavia. I have had typical Wikipedia "passing interactions" with some of the parties in the case, but I have never experienced any contact with any of them in which a user has lobbied or otherwise requested that sanctions be imposed on other editors.

Evidence presented by HistoricWarrior007

On the Russavia Ban

I believe that the reason Russavia made the comments that enabled Ol'Factory to ban him, was because Russavia was constantly provoked by the e-mail team, and even banned by their resident administrator. Thus the issue here is not Russavia's final action, but the reason that Russavia committed his final action. We are all human. We all err. A single error should not be the reason that a person gets banned. Russavia made a bad post, after being provoked by the e-mail group, that Sandstein used to get him banned for 6 months. Here is the comment: "In his edit notice at [94], Russavia (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · logs · edit filter log · block user · block log) wrote that the content at issue was "hardly undue and i willl fight you to the death on this :D." When a Russian user posts a smiley on the end, ahh heck, when any user posts a smiley on the end - that means they are kidding! A six month ban for such a comment, considering the previous provocations against Russavia, and considering that the article in question, is trying to promote a film that shows "how similar Soviet States was to Nazi State" (because we all know it was the USSR and SS going around and committing the Holocaust, or so the film's hypothesis alleges). Russavia wanted to include a Dyukhov, someone who wrote a critique of the film, while the e-mail group wanted to marginalize Duykhov, and anyone critiquing the film, because "if you cannot attack the argument, attack the person making the argument" is apparently a valid tactic to use on Wikipedia. For this, Russavia received a six month ban from Sandstein, which led Russavia to make the comment that was used by Ol'Factory to impose an infinite ban on Russavia. I don't see this as neither fair, nor just.

Evidence presented by Fut.Perf.

Tymek voluntarily disclosed his password

User:Tymek has publicly admitted he voluntarily disclosed his wikipedia password to his fellow list members [175]. (Arbitrators can check this against the e-mail archive from July, thread titled "vacation".) This means we no longer need to assume any illegal act of "hacking", "security breaches", "information theft" etc either from inside or outside the group at all. It makes it quite likely that the whistleblower e-mails were exactly what they said they were: written by somebody from within the group who felt he could "no longer support this". The whistleblower used his own, legally acquired copy of the e-mails and was merely forwarding them non-publicly to selected individuals, which is entirely legal; by using Tymek's account he was probably just trying to create a false track to avoid detection by his fellow conspirators, but he wasn't even acting illegally in doing this because Tymek had explicitly invited list members to use his account for "whatever they felt necessary".

This also throws some doubt on the sincerity of the loudly professed security fears and concerns over illegal hacking attacks offered by the list members – after all, they all knew Tymek's account was open to this kind of exploitation by one of their own. Fut.Perf. ☼ 08:15, 21 September 2009 (UTC)

CAMERA precedent

Given the above evidence, it seems safe to assume at this point that the legal status of the Wikipediametrics e-mails is exactly the same as that of the CAMERA e-mails in 2008: leaked to Wikipedia administrators by somebody who, being a legitimate recipient of the original list, had every right to do so. In the CAMERA case, the following practice was found acceptable by both the community and Arbcom: a small group of administrators who had been given access to the material were free to study them, publicly summarise their contents, publish selected quotations from them, and disclose links between wikipedia accounts and list members, while making certain that personally identifying information in the e-mails was filtered out (see Wikipedia:Administrators' noticeboard/Incidents/Statement re Wikilobby campaign). Sanctions imposed by us administrators on the basis of this report were explicitly validated by Arbcom (here, see also here). Fut.Perf. ☼ 08:50, 21 September 2009 (UTC)

Evidence presented by PasswordUsername

Note: I will be posting evidence for the ArbCom case as User:Anti-Nationalist, as I don't have access to the password for my old login when my laptop hardware got fried on September 7th. Anti-Nationalist (talk) 16:27, 21 September 2009 (UTC)

The history reviewed

The situation that ArbCom is now looking at is nothing new, and was already apparent to all who bothered to look from the very get-go, such that when I arrived on Wikipedia, I was already besieged by accusations of bad faith, repeated -- seemingly endlessly iterated -- edit warring against the change that I sought to make, threats to expose me as somebody's sockpuppet, attacks on my motives when I sought to complain to an administrator, and denials of any out-and-out coordinated editing by the team members.

When it was continually shown that such users Biophys, Piotrus, and fellow members of the cohort were using what appeared as extremely well-coordinated edit-warring and harassment against other users to get their way, nothing was ever done, while good editors who pointed out the problems with members of this group were driven away by endless harrassment and confrontation from the team members. Both User:Deacon of Pndapetzim and myself pointed out the matter very succintly when we pointed out the politics of the game for ArbCom members in our opening statements [176] for the (rejected) Easterm Europe case in June.

I pointed out the state of things very clearly on May 26 [177], on just one occasion when the whole team showed up en masse to swamp a request for comment section for Human rights in the United States full of their own POV. Rather than actually do something about users who disrupt the productive lives of other editors, both the administrators at large and ArbCom (when prodded to take a closely resembling case back in June) preferred to ignore such warnings. When 1RR restrictions for both list members and opponents were issued by User:Thatcher in June, these were soon rolled back after an intensive e-mail lobbying campaign; the pattern of things returned to status quo ante. Were it not for this sudden whistleblowing and leaking of the evidence to ArbCom, Wikipedia would have simply let Russavia, one of the most productive Wikipedia editors and an outstanding contributor of Russia-related content, be banned for having made one remark in an edit summary without bothering to check the long-time harassment that he has faced from content opponents such as the stubborn editors from the leaked archive of the clandestine mailing list.

Swamping of AFD and CFD discussions

• Biophys-created Internet operations by Russian secret police (nominated 27 March 2009). Voting keep: Digwuren, Vecrumba, Martintg.
• Digwuren-created category Category:Neo-Stalinism (nominated 9 April 2009). Voting keep: Digwuren, Dc76, Martintg, Biophys, Miacek. (No uninvolved users participated; the semi-involved Petri Krohn–a relatively pro-Russian editor–was subsequently chased off Wikipedia by the same crowd.) (Re: to Radeksz, I meant the category, not the article by GCarty. See the CFD right over here: [178])
• Miacek-created Derzhava [179] (older version; nominated 28 May 2009). Voting keep: Digwuren, Miacek, Biophys, Radeksz, Martintg. (The few uninvolved users voted delete.)
• Digwuren-created Soviet-run peace movements in the West (nominated 11 July 2009). Voting keep: Piotrus, Biophys, Ostap R, Biruitorul, Jacurek. (Most uninvolved users favored deletion.)

Stalking by mailing list members

Various users, all part of the mailing list, appear to have stalked me at various points in the past six months, although the editing patterns of these users may also be attributable to something else. Worst of all was the following of my edits to different parts of the project by Digwuren, who suddenly took interest in all manner of things never related to his understandable niche of things Estonian:

• June 1 - Digwuren twice reverts my edits to Kim Jong-Il, an article he never edited before: [180], [181]–preferring to reinsert Juche as a religion...
• June 1 - Digwuren twice reverts my edits to Ilya Ehrenburg, a page he never edited before: [182], [183]–insisting on including an unsourced statement I deleted.
• May 27 through June 3 - Digwuren and Biophys show up on the talk page for List of Eastern Bloc defectors to support User:Mosedschurte against myself and User:Yaan in a content dispute [184]. On June 5, Biophys and Martintg help Mosedschurte revert addition of pre-Eastern Bloc and post-Eastern Bloc defectors, well outside the scope of an article dealing with defections from the Eastern Bloc. [185], [186]. Neither of these edited List of Eastern Bloc defectors before.
• May 24 - Digwuren reverts me at Benjamin (Animal Farm) [187], Squealer (Animal Farm) [188] (and 2nd revert - 27 May: [189]), and Old Major [190] (and 2nd revert - 27 May: [191]), neither of which he edited before.

From the very beginning of my stumbling upon this team, I asked members (specifically Biophys and Digwuren) not to stalk me around: [192], [193]. User:Vlad fedorov has also noted the stalking performed by Biophys on various occasions. [194]

Members of the mailing list defend each other from sockpuppet investigations

• Comments at the Molobo sockpuppet investigation by Digwuren: [195], [196]. Comments at the Molobo sockpuppet investigation by Radeksz: [197], [198]. Comments at the Molobo sockpuppet investigation by Martintg: [199], [200]. Comments at the Molobo sockpuppet investigation by Jacurek: [201]. Comments at the Molobo sockpuppet investigation by Piotrus: [202], [203]. Comments at the Molobo sockpuppet investigation by Poeticbent: [204]. Molobo's role as a sockpuppeteer was subsequently confirmed.

False accusations of sockpuppetry and persisting insinuations against myself by team members

Within a day of having discovered me after I submitted a Digwuren-made category for discussion in early May, Digwuren came to my talk page to inquire, in a very indirect way, whether I was a sockpuppet of User:Anonimu, who was notably targeted for elimination by team members in 2007: [205]. Being a relative newbie to much of the editing trends and unfamiliar with the drama, I reverted this, and, seeing no basis for Digwuren's accusations after his incivil comments in my address at a CFD, wrote in my edit summary for the talk page rvt: "Deleting bad faith edit" [206]. Digwuren instead came to the administrators' noticeboard, a very public place, with warnings of a "possible return of Anonimu" [207]. As one of his main items of "evidence," Digwuren wrote:

"When, after a little digging, I asked PasswordUsername if he might know Anonimu, he responded in a way rather uncharacteristic for a new user -- by deleting the question from his talkpage within about a minute, claiming it was "bad faith edit". When Anonimu was active, he was very aggressive in removing all criticism -- including warnings -- from his talkpage, going as far as to post a set of rules about how his talkpage should remain blank onto his talkpage."

Additionally, Digwuren misrepresented my editing pattern and contributions, simply trying to tie me to his own portrayal of Anonimu in any possible way, then proceeded to inform administrator (and ArbCom member) User:Newyorkbrad of his suspicions: [208]. After being told that Anonimu came from Romania, Digwuren did not withdraw his complaints from the noticeboard, but hedged his bets and began referring to the case as a "possible return of Anonimu or Jacob Peters." [209] Nobody, of course, took the episode of the ridiculous accusations thrown seriously: when I patiently explained to the admins reading the noticeboard what my reaction was [210] and that Digwuren's reading of my edits was completely and blatantly distorted [211], admin User:Hans Adler responded that Digwuren was abusing ANI and should "stop crying wolf and start apologising" [212]. Rather than having a well-deserved apology or even having the chapter close right there and then, the accusations continued when Biophys showed up to support Digwuren with questions about my editing as an IP (not something I ever denied); Biophys also posted at Moreschi's talk page, which prompted User:Unomi to ask Biophys to go to SPI if he thought the concerns were genuine and to stop with the admin blockshopping [213].

Despite having no case against me and in fact never bothering to go to the CheckUser, both Biophys and Digwuren continued their insinuations in messages to my talk page days after they were told that they had no evidence, both on talk [214], [215], [216], and in edit summaries: [217] (here Digwuren also manages to cleverly accuse me of "diluting the gravity of anti-Semitism" because of my inclusion of material regarding an instance of Estonian anti-semitism). From on-wiki speculation that I was Jacob Peters or Anonimu the current moved toward speculation that I was M.V.e.I. or somebody else–team member Ostap R betting "100 euros" that I was a sock of M.V.e.I.: [218]. Did mailing list members actually convince themselves that this was the case? While this is very representative of this cabal's campaign of Wiki-hounding, I am sure that off-Wiki evidence sheds light on even more material of this sort, and I have every reason there is to believe Alex Bakharev's summary of the nature of these editors' off-wiki conduct. Accusations like these are unreasonable, and there was no reason to be harassing me with them when there was a clear lack of evidence for doing so.

Cases of revert-warring by members of the mailing list

The following incidents and descriptions (which I picked so as not to overlap with the incidents described by others) is a partial representation of the problem, as my serious involvement with the project begins in May, whereas documenting and helpfully annotating every possibility of coordinated editing (I do not have access to the secret mailing list's archive) even from my period of involvement only would take up an extraordinarily Byzantine amount of time. (In any case, note also: [219].)

Anti-Russian sentiment: 8-16 May 2009

Following a chain of reverts of Offliner by Digwuren [220] [221] [222] [223] [224] [225], fellow mailing list mates Martintg [226] [227], Radeksz [228] [229], and Vecrumba [230] join in edit warring against Offliner, Beatle Fab Four, Kupredu, and myself.

Neo-Stalinism: May 10-18 2009, August-September 2009

May 10-18 - Digwuren and Biophys repeatedly edit war against me while discussion is ongoing, while the only uninvolved editor User:Magioladitis, takes my side at talk.

May 14 - After pointing out problems with the way Biophys edits to an admin, User:Hans Adler and Adler expressing his concern about Biophys' POV, Biophys (all the while telling Hans Adler that I am the one culpable of stalking him) writes that he does not care about neo-Stalinism [231], and actually leaves the page alone from then on. Subsequently, Biophys comes back in order to revert Russavia at August's end: [232], [233], [234]. Vecrumba helps out [235].

August-September 2009 - Edit war as Radeksz reverts my changes. Jacurek and Biophys help edit war. I do one other revert. User:LokiiT attempts to edit the article, but encounters further members of the team–Radeksz [236], Jacurek [237], and Vecrumba [238] (all perform almost identical reverts).

Timeline of antisemitism: 3-10 June 2009

3 June – I make an edit to Timeline of antisemitism [239]. Secret cabal member Digwuren, never having touched the article before, arrives to engage against me in an episode edit warring, removing my addition of an episode of Estonian anti-semitism from the timeline: [240]. Martintg, never having edited the article before, arrives in support of Digwuren: [241].

After edit warring between myself, Digwuren, Martintg, and Offliner, Biophys - never having edited the article before – joins in on 5 June to revert my edits to Digwuren’s version [242]. Dozens of reverts by Martintg, Digwuren, and Biophys follow. (see history [243])

Mark Sirők: 3-17 June 2009

3 June – Shotlandiya creates an article stub for Mark Sirők. Digwuren arrives within a half-hour, demanding a removal of the article based on Shotlandiya’s having misspelled “Russophone”: [244].

4 June – after Digwuren fails in having article deletion proceed, Sander Säde joins Digwuren in their attempts to discredit Mark Sirők -- [245]. Sander Säde and Digwuren begin combating Shotlandiya jointly. Finding the newly-created article, I only make one minor change: [246].

7 June – Radeksz arrives on the scene to make major changes, significantly altering content: [247]. Digwuren continues battling against Shotlandiya.

8 June – Martintg arrives to revert Shotlandiya: [248]. Digwuren’s further massive changes invite revert from Offliner: [249]. Digwuren continues warring: [250]. Offliner doesn’t revert further, but constant reverting by mailing list members against myself and Shotlandiya rages until the numerically weaker party leaves (allowing the last revert for Digwuren on June 17).

Moscow Victory Parade of 1945: 13-14 June 2009

After my initial edit to this page on 13 June, Digwuren [251], Martintg [252] [253], and Radeksz [254] all arrive to combat me, all reinserting the same piece of text. Neither Martintg, Radeksz, or Digwuren had edited the article at all prior to June 13-14.

Collaboration with the Axis Powers during World War II: 15-17 August 2009

In spite of ongoing discussion at talk (quickly concluded in my favor), Jacurek [255] [256], Vecrumba [257], Radeksz [258] edit war against myself over my removal of out-of-scope text about the Molotov-Ribbentrop Pact agreements from an article about pro-Nazi collaborationism, alongside an image inserted by Piotrus [259] in July.

Dc76 arrived on Rjanag's talk page to make unfounded accusations

Please look at the section PasswordUsername - here we go again in Rjanag's admin talk archive to get the complete picture.

In what appears to be coordinated team battling, Radeksz and Martintg arrived almost simultaneously at an admin's talk page to complain regarding my "edit warring" to Monument of Lihula, where, in fact, I had accidentally passed the 3RR rule but almost instantaneously reverted myself, long prior to these administrator user page reports: [260], [261]. (Apparently, they decided to lobby the administrator, User:Rjanag, in their favor, as a very similar "3RR report" where I had self-reverted was dismissed from the noticeboard a very sort time prior to that.) Rjanag, while noting that three reverts could be considered gaming the system, properly said that with regard to my reverts, no violation of 3RR had been committed and that my edits were compromise attempt. [262])

At that point, Dc76 (also a member of the team) arrived to back up Radeksz and Martintg with very hostile comments, accusing me of doing battleground behavior, making "ad hominems" in edit summaries (that no reasonable person would read from of them and which I never made) and making the accusation that my edit summaries were clear "challenge you"s. [263]. (Quite disingenuously, in the very same comment, Dc76 gives it away that he'd stopped editing the article a long time prior to my changes.)

These very nasty attacks on my edits made no sense at all. Dc76 simply backed up his team's members by accusing me with extraordinary slander: what was written against me was pure provocation, and provocation that occured after Rjanag clearly let everyone know that he wasn't going to sanction me for this, although Martintg's particularly aggressive behavior didn't look at all good for him. At this point, I asked Dc76 to explain his unfounded attacks [264], but received no answer, leading me to think that in all likelihood his characterization of my editing was either deliberately belligerent and frivolous or he doesn't normally arrive to peek at Rjanag's talk. (Both may very well be true.)

I believe that this was an episode of gaming the system in order to make myself look bad in the eyes of an admin; since Dc76 had only very limited contact with me and arrived to support Radeksz and Martintg with such outstandingly careless sophistry, I have no doubt that this was coordinated through the mailing list in e-mails that the members exchanged around September 4th. At least, if Dc76 cared about what I was reverting and did not simply want to be part of a team project, he would have made some actual arguments. And I have every reason to doubt that in the "innocent" scenario Dc76 would have arrived so quickly to make nonsense charges about me on Rjanag's talk page.

Evidence from the e-mail archive

Having now begun looking at the archive, I see that the bonanza of evidence is gigantic. Among other things:

• Martintg circulates an e-mail inviting people to complain about me to Rjanag (as–see section above–he himself, Radeksz, and Dc76 do): In Re: [WPM] PU escapes clear 3RR violation, 20090904-2019 (although it was not found to be a violation)
• Jacurek calls everyone on the list for help, noting that he's running out of reverts against Skäpperöd: In [WPM] HELP!! Radek , Piotrus, Tymek and others., 20090725-2229
• Tymek says that he doesn't follow my edits and he has no idea of what my edits are like, but that anyone who wants to file a report against me can use his username, as everybody on the list knows what his account password is: In Re: [WPM] PasswordUsername edit warring, 20090814-0455
• Vecrumba makes this edit [265], essentially reversing my two sequential edits [266] [267], where I deleted the anti-semitic contention that "Jewish Bolshevism" is an "objective" term. Vecrumba tells the e-mail group that this was designed as a provocation, and could be masked by his previous involvement in another article: In [WPM] PasswordUsername on Jewish Bolshevism, 20090615-0359
• Digwuren fashions a thick plot to have Piotrus blacken my block log with false accusations of WP:OUTING, along with coming back as a sock so as to create a clean record for himself: In Re: [WPM] blocked, 20090612-0943
• Vecrumba calls for team gameplay in response to my request for a more neutral article name at Talk:Nochnoy Dozor (group)#POV name: In Re: [WPM] PasswordUsername and Jaak Aaviksoo, 20090611-0225; Digwuren then suggests that the group try to block me should I keep persisting with attempts to get the article moved: In [WPM] PU move-warring, 20090614-1128
• Piotrus encourages team members to coordinate reverting Offliner to avoid breaking 3RR while waging edit wars: In Re: [WPM] tactics re Offliner and PasswordUsername, 20090606-0618
• Vecrumba issues call to arms on Ethnocracy: In Re: [WPM] tactics re Offliner and PasswordUsername, 20090606-1817
• Piotrus gives advice to Molobo regarding targeting User:Skäpperöd, suggesting that other team members file Molobo's RFC, listing Tymek or Radeksz as possible candidates–even as he notes in the same e-mail the likelihood of Molobo being banned for sockpuppetry: In Re: [WPM] RfC regarding Skapperod, 20090524-1506 (note Martintg's and Radeksz's defense of Molobo after this: [268] [269])
• Biophys sends e-mail supportive of User:Mosedschurte, an editor often discussed as an ally of the mailing list in other e-mails, at the Human rights in the United States RfC and a link to the request for comment : In [WPM] Human rights in the US, 20090525-2315. After supportive mailing list messages, team soon shows up en masse to support Mosedschurte.
  • (Although Biophys denies that this was an example of canvassing, just as other opponents misrepresent my editing and even this evidence as regards this ArbCom, Biophys forbade me from quoting verbatim from the e-mail when I prodded him regarding whether I may post a quote: [270]. (And he forbids Arbs from even reading it.) Arbitrators, examine and make your call.)
• Digwuren makes an advertisement regarding a proposed "community ban" for User:Petri Krohn, whose remarks were misconstrued as a "legal threat": In Re: [WPM] Estonian embassy interest in Wikipedia, 20090523-1324. The !vote majority that blocks Petri Krohn is made up of Petri Krohn's content opponents–most of them members of the mailing list. He had avoided interacting with Digwuren at all costs until being baited into conflict by on-Wiki action specifically designed to ensnare him, as discussed in the earlier e-mails of the list. Cabal member Miacek also sends an additional e-mail to Petri Krohn's enemies to encourage team !voting, lest anybody on the list missed the !banvoting campaign before then: In [WPM] banning Petr Krohn? [sic], 20090529-1210.

Evidence presented by Piotrus

I will just address the appearance of my name. I am not presenting evidence against anybody else; the only person against whom the evidence should be provided is the person who hacked our computer(s).

Re:Deacon

Also, re:PU's "Members of the mailing list defend each other from sockpuppet investigations"

I want to be clearly state that I did not encourage Molobo's socking (and not having seen all the "sikret" evidence in that case I find the public evidence still unconvincing); I encouraged him to find ways to prove he is a constructive editor who should be unblocked.

Re:Offliner

re:my edit to Russian apartment bombings, and re:"Members of the secret email list appear to be involved in stealth canvassing of votes": I think the article was mentioned several times on our discussion list. At some point, despite my relative lack of interest in Russian politics, I decided to read the article. I read it, read the recent talk discussions, looked at the diffs in edit history and reverted to a version I considered better. I see nothing wrong with my action there. Similarly, sometimes deletion or other discussions are annouced; I always read the article in question and consider arguments of both sides before editing/voting, and I hope other members of our groups (and all other editors in all similar situations) do the same. Your argument would be more convincing if I my vote here was pure delete, instead of delete and merge (with rationale). Why don't you mention more examples where the members of our group disagree? Here, for example, Biophys votes keep, I lean towards deletion with my merge. Heck, here you can find an entire mediation with editors from our little group on both sides :) Oh, and here's another recent vote (on merger) I proposed recently and that I am pretty sure I mentioned on our discussion group, where I find myself agreeing with Offliner and disagreeing with Biophys: Talk:Web_brigades#Merge._again. We discuss, sometimes agree, but sometimes disagree (there are no "yes men" among us), and never tell others to do disruptive edits. What's the problem? That we dare to talk to each other off-wiki? That's not against the rules, what's against the rules, to cite our policies and arbcom, is aggressive propaganda campaigns, and that never took place on our group.

re:Early June edit warring

I did and do support limiting the number of reverts per person per day, and I do think that 1RR is a commendable policy to support. On multiple occasions I've suggested, on and off wiki, to various editors, that they should stick to 1RR. And that's wrong because...?

re:copyvio images

I recall I encouraged, on and off wiki, for editors to find sources for such images and to provide proper fair use rationales; I am currently involved in trying to obtain the permission for the entire archive to be made free (see Template_talk:PolandGov#Send_a_request_again). In the end, some images were deleted, some kept. See Wikipedia:Files_for_deletion/2009_August_12#File:1Comp_obwSambor_inspecDrohobycz_Burza3.jpg for example, or the new improved rationale at File:CaptMruk recce Soviet Aug1944 Rad-Kie.jpg. I see nothing wrong in discussing such issues.

re:Talk:Battle of Vilnius (1655)

Thanks for bringing this up. I do wonder why did Deacon arrive to vote there, on an article that is not part of his usual editing routine and interests? I am sure it was not because *I* initiated the move... I might have announced such a move on the discussion group (as well as on the various public wiki boards), and asked others to comment. I never ask people to "vote yes" or "vote no", and it is not uncommon for members of our group to disagree with one another (see above) or as happens in most cases, not to join the discussion/vote because they had no time to familiarize themselves with the topic, and our ethics discourage taking action otherwise (think for a moment while I, in the Top 50 active Wikipedians, often spending hours on this project, am so inactive on the Russian modern politics (a common subject in our discussion group)? The answer is simple: I don't consider myself to know enough about it to edit the subject, and even if I sympathize with certain side I won't edit the subjects they care about till I am sure I know what I am doing).

re:Members of the secret email list protect each other at admin noticeboards

Eh? We discuss wikipolitics, and are interested in one another wiki-wellbeing. What is that supposed to prove or disprove? Other editors, such as you (Offliner) and Russavia, for example, also agree with one another and support one another in such threads. Such discussions are not a vote, and admins making the decisions are not swayed by choruses (or at least, should not be), but by reasonable arguments.

re:Piotrus has made unfounded personal attacks

I don't see what this has to do with the email group, other than be a general jab at me; in either case neither comment I made and you cite is a personal attack. Saying that your evidence is "extremely poor" is not a PA (I will also say this again - your evidence here is "extremely poor" - and if any clerk thinks I am being uncivil, please let me know so I can moderate this comment...).

re:Piotrus has abused his admin status

After Jehochman's advice (not a warning), I no longer posted in the uninvolved admin section on AE but in the regular discussion section. At this time we also refined our definition of what an (un)involved admin is (this should be somewhere in the AE talk archives, I think), although I still think this merits more clarifications (my previous understanding of uninvolvement meant no involvement in a given article content dispute, now our practice seems to extend this to interactions with certain users, which makes sense, but needs more refining).

re:Piotrus has abused his admin powers

Re: Battle of Konotop. If anything, power (to protect). But plural sounds better, doesn't it? Anyway, it's simple: I was informed that an article is being disrupted by anon's/reds (whose sudden influx suggests socking or real single purpose canvassing by somebody somewhere...), I looked at it, there was reverting going on, with no discussion on talk from non-estabilished editors who have written most of the article. It's a really simple case; was it reported to ReqForProt it would have been granted quickly. It was reported to me, I was not involved in the editing of the article, I protected it. Nobody complained about my protection since... what's the problem? That this was discussed on our group? If I was informed about it by email, nobody would care. If I was informed on talk, same. But since it was discussed on our group, a normal action becomes evil. QED :)

re:Piotrus -- as usual -- arrived to support Martintg's unblock

Well, yes, I disagreed with it and still do, per my comment and reasoning there. So?

re:Russavia

re:my posting the Wikipedia:Administrators'_noticeboard/Archive191#Ethics_of_sharing_an_account

If it was a harassment thread, don't you think somebody would have spotted it sooner? Investigating if somebody is sharing an account is not harassment, not unless unfounded accusations are repeated over and over. This was brought up once and once analyzed, dropped.

re:my edits to web brigades

See my reply to Offliner, first re. In addition: I am interested in this article due to the Tygodnik Powszechny Polish connection, so I have it on my watchlist, which is an exception as far as the area of "modern Russian politics" and my interest go. I see nothing problematic with me editing that article and discussing it with others.

re:Piotrus defending Biophys

I disagree with the rationale behind his block; but while my judgment wavered for a moment, I decided not to unblock him as. No admin power was abused, so what's the problem here?

re:Response to evidence by Piotrus

Yes, we talked about you a few times. So????

re:More recent battleground created by email list members

[271]: LOL. I am sorry, I think I'll stop replying to those accusations, they are becoming ridiculous enough that anybody can judge for themselves what merit they have.

re:PU

image

I am not sure what kind of argument you can build on my single edit that replaced an unfree and now-deleted image (File:German Soviet.jpg) with a free one (File:Armia Czerwona,Wehrmacht 23.09.1939 wspólna parada.jpg). At least, I am not seeing any argument that the mention of "Piotrus did this, it has to be evil" :>

re:DonaldDuck

DonaldDuck (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · nuke contribs · logs · filter log · block user · block log) was and still is indef blocked for his disruption (edit warring, block evasion and sockpuppetry), unblocked only to participate in this discussion. His edits to tsarist autocracy where on the verge of vandalism (removal of referenced text in violation of WP:V, refusal to discuss issues on talk (particularly in December), edit warring - I don't recall the details but he was breaking 5/6RRs a day at some point, if not more (!)). He single-handedly went ballistic on the tsarist autocracy, caused a major disruption in that article and got himself banned due to his refusal to edit constructively. Yes, this article was discussed on our group, as it fits the interest of most members. We have discussed the issue extensively on Talk:Tsarist autocracy as well. Members of our group have helped to prevent disruption in the article, expanded it into a well-referenced DYK (to the obvious benefit of our encyclopedia-building project), and the vandal got blocked for his own actions, after multiple warnings from many editors. Nobody baited Donald, he was given plenty of opportunities to engage in discussion and work on a compromise version instead of reverting, he refused them and kept reverting and reverting to his own version (WP:OWN, anyone?). Vandal edits (removing refs), vandal gets reverted. Discussions on talk are held, vandal refuses to accept edits of others. Vandal edit wars, vandal gets blocked. I see nothing wrong with this picture. Donads' insistence on not seeing any errors in his behavior, even now, and on attacking those who disagree with him makes it quite obvious who is the dedicated edit warrior here. I am curious, however, who asked Donald to participate in this discussion?

PS. Found it. The final revert spree Donald went on that led to his indef had 17 reverts. SEVENTEEN REVERTS. Who are we going to see next, WheelyOnWheels? :) I rest my case.

Re:Donald: I expect every editor to read the article, read the discussion, and edit (revert, vote, whatever) only after they are familiar enough with the topic. I am assuming good faith and trusting now, just like I did in the past, that those few editors who joined in editing/discussing this article did so. You can ask them about that.

Re:Shell Kinney

My apology and explanation.

Re:Skäpperöd

Our discussion group did not exist prior to late 2008 (December I think?), so it could've hardly have influenced prior ArbCom cases our members were involved before 2009 (and I cannot think of any between Dec'08 and now).

Re:Crotalus horridus

Discussing article of interest to editors is not against policy, per my expectation (based on past experiences) that they would read/discuss, I won't rehash what I said above. Anyway, I want to make an important admission here: I am sure that I have, on occasion, informed of wiki-related discussion (including various votes) not only the "Eastern European" mailing list, but also the following closed lists with no publicly available archive: 1) for Poland-related articles, "Polish Studies List" run by Polish Studies Association 2) for sociology of the Internet article, CITASA list (Communication and Information Technology Section of the American Sociological Association) 3) for social movement articles (such as the one mentioned by Crotalus horridus), CBSM list (Collective Behavior and Social Movement list of ASA) and 4) for Pittsburgh-related articles, various University of Pittsburgh email lists. On other occasions I've informed of such discussions other institutions, in an attempt to increase their interest in Wikipedia (such as Polish Ministry of Foreign Affairs), as well as individual scholars and experts. On occasion I make comments on such discussions on semi-public Internet fora (for example, I inform members of Baen's Bar of 163x- and Honorverse- related Wiki developments). It was always my expectation that individuals frequenting those lists would be interested to see how such issues are discussed on Wikipedia, and possibly they would offer comments either to me or join the discussion itself, and I would be quite disappointed if I ever found out they were joining those discussion just to support me, without reading the article/discussion and forming their own opinion. Still, if you want to add all of the above to my stealth and evil "sikrit" canvassing, please do.

Re:Thatcher

Discussing content off-wiki is allowed. If you hadn't put an editor on half-a-year 1RR for 3 reverts on one article... in two weeks - a pretty bad judgment call - we wouldn't have discussed your decisions. If you feel offended about comments we made in our private correspondence - hmmm, perhaps you should not be reading it?

Final question

I see lots of comments about stuff allegedly said in private email. Shrug. I have written 22 FAs, ~300 DYKs and a ton of other content during my 5+ years and >100k edits, mostly in article space. Show me one article that because of my involvement in this discussion group was made worse. Well?

Concluding remarks

Regarding some emails quoted here, I have doubts about their authenticity. I'll discuss those doubts with the Committee.

Anyway, if this is all the nasty cabalist stuff that is being brought against me, I guess I don't have to worry much :) --_{Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus| talk} 01:48, 22 September 2009 (UTC)

Evidence presented by Shell Kinney

I was made aware of this mailing list via private email several days ago mainly because someone reviewing the "leak" noticed several of my emails had been forwarded to the mailing list. I can confirm that the emails forwarded to the list by Piotr were not forged or tampered with and I can provide the original mail to ArbCom if needed. This was done without my permission or knowledge and I am frankly outraged that Piotr not only broke trust in this manner, but has yet to offer any reason or apology for such behavior. This is not the sort of conduct I would expect from an administrator. Shell ^babelfish 17:30, 22 September 2009 (UTC)

• Possibly relevant/helpful report in my userspace User:Shell_Kinney/EEreportsreview. Started in response to a number of simultaneous AE reports to examine behavior of many of the parties named here. Covers January through June of this year and outlines actions across a number of articles; may help in comparing against email archives. Shell ^babelfish 22:57, 25 September 2009 (UTC)

• Another bit to consider: during my review of the AE reports I was contacted multiple times via email by those listed as begin part of the mailing list; some were being reviewed, some were not. At the time I didn't think much of it, but I think it would be appropriate for ArbCom to review whether or not this was coordinated and intended to influence the outcome of any sanctions. Shell ^babelfish 04:19, 26 September 2009 (UTC)

Evidence presented by DonaldDuck

Edit war, wikistalking and block-shopping by the members of secret mailing list team

On 31 December 2008 User:Piotrus writes to the mailing list asking for help dealing with me in Tsarist autocracy article. Piotrus explicitly writes that this help is needed to circumvent Arbcom warning to him to stop edit warring. On 2 January 2009, when I make edits in this article, coordinated action from the team follows.

1. 03:54 IP user reverts my edits [272] Contributions from this IP from Estonia. This IP was active only from 31 December 2008 to 15 January 2009.
2. 12:18 Second revert from different IP [273]. This is the only edit from this IP from Estonia. No other edits.
3. 13:22 Mailing list member User:Digwuren joins the edit war.
4. 14:21 Mailing list member User:Hillock65, who never edited this article before, joins the edit war, makes 2 reverts 1 2 and places warning at my talk page [274]
5. User:Piotrus reports me to the administrators noticeboard. I am blocked by User:Spartaz. Efforts to block me are discussed in the several emails in the mailing list. Spartaz fails to notice teamwork, although it is quite easy (appearance of 4 new editors in one day, 2 anonymous IP edits, editor who never edited this article suddenly coming to make reverts), blocks me for a week and warns me of further indefinite block.

On 6-12 May 2009.

1. Piotrus starts new edit war against me, making 2 reverts 02:20 06:00. He writes to the mailing list, asking for help in edit war. He writes that he would like to avoid more then 2 reverts a day.
2. Mailing list member User:Radeksz, who never edited this article before, joins the edit war
3. User:Digwuren joins the edit war
4. On 9 may 2009 Piotrus writes another letter to the list, reminding that I am still a problem.
5. I am avoiding 3RR violations, but at last after repeated provocations by members of the team I make 4 reverts in a 24 hours on 9-10 of May. User:Radeksz places a warning at my talk page [275]. After this warning I self-revert my last edit. Technically, I did not even break a 3RR rule in this case
6. Piotrus reports me to the administrators noticeboard. Two members of the secret team: User:Biophys and User:Digwuren support this report by Piotrus. User:William M. Connolley ( recently desysopped for abuse of admin tools by ArbCom decision) blocks me for 2 weeks, but noticing previous warning of indefinite block by Spartaz, in 5 minutes changes his decision and indefinitely blocks me for edit war that did not even amount to 3RR. He fails to notice offwiki communication between the members of the team.

June 2009.

1. After some negotiation, William M. Connolley unblocks me. Mailing list member User:Biophys tries to intervene to keep me blocked. My unblock is discussed in the mailing list, there are calls to "look out" for me.
2. On 9 June I am included to the "fresh enemies list" by members of the mailing list.
3. User:Biophys runs a campaign to block me again. On June 23, Biophys wrote offwiki email to User:Thatcher. On this secret offwiki request I was again blocked indefinitely by User:Thatcher. Such offwiki block-shopping is strongly discouraged by Blocking policy

In this way, organized edit wars, stalking and block-shopping against me, started by Piotrus despite previous warning by ArbCom to him to stop edit wars, and carried out by Piotrus, Digwuren, Hillock65, Radeksz and Biophys, coordinated through this secret mailing list, resulted in my indefinite block.

Edit war in this aricle quite clearly illustrates methods, employed by this secret group. It was not group vs group, cabal vs cabal. Several commited and experienced edit-warriors attacked single editor, primarily because he did not fit their political agenda.DonaldDuck (talk) 02:22, 23 September 2009 (UTC)

Block-shopping by members of mailing list team (Petri Krohn case)

In May 2009 User:Petri Krohn was blocked for a year after WP:ANI diccussion. Out of 7 editors supporting block of Petri Krohn 4 (Martintg, Miacek, Biruitorul and Biophys) were members of the secret mailing list team, while 4 users opposing the block were mostly uninvolved editors.

1. 20090523-1324-[WPM] Digwuren informs mailing list of this discussion.
2. 20090529-1210-[WPM] Miacek writes another email canvassing the votes to ban Petri Krohn and recommending not to vote in block to avoid suspicions. Very important revelation is that he writes that Petri Krohn did not made much trouble lately. This proves that goal of this group was not even protection of preferred articles versions by the coordinated edit wars, but primarily stalking other editors and driving them out of wikipedia.

Mailing list is serious evidence that this WP:ANI discussion was affected by stealth canvassing of votes by this team.

Re:Piotrus

Hillock65 and Radeksz did not make a single edit in Tsarist autocracy before you called them to join your edit war in your letter to the mailing list on 31 December 2008 (by the way this was already your third letter to the mailing list asking to deal with me). And after I was blocked on 12 May, Digwuren, Hillock65 and Radeksz also did not make a single edit in this article. This proves that they came to this article not to improve it, but with single purpose of taking part in edit war.

I can not believe your expectations of good faith from members of your team or your own good faith after my inclusion into the "enemies list" by member of this team. You did not report creation of this list to administrators. DonaldDuck (talk) 03:52, 23 September 2009 (UTC)

Re:Biophys

I have no connection to User:Russavia beyond his 5 public messages at my talk page, and 2 my responses to this messages. And I have absolutely no connection to User:Miyokan, I have first known about this editor from Biophys posts.

This is something new, It looks like it is veiled legal threat by Biophys right at the arbitration page.

Re:Radek

Radeksz statement includes direct legal threat to Arbitration Committee and all involved parties.

Re:Vecrumba and others

You constantly accuse others of being pro-Putin/extremist/chauvinist/Stalinist/neo-Nazist. But your political motivations are only of secondary importance in this case, whatever this motivations may be. Every editor has his own views and has some bias. The problem is major disruption of collaborative editing process and consensus building done by members of mailing list group.

IP editors

Can someone check IP editors 62.65.238.142 and 90.190.58.112 ? Was it Digwuren or some other member of the mailing list or not?

Evidence presented by Radek

Preliminaries and clarifications

Yes, there is a mailing list. No it's not a cabal. No it's not "anti-Russian"

The mailing list in question does exist. However the purpose of the list is not nefarious plotting, but rather frank discussion (the kind that is impossible on Wiki) of Eastern European politics, culture and history, and how these topics are treated on Wikipedia. I very strongly want to stress that the list was not “anti-Russian” or that its purpose was “to make Russia look bad” – one of the members of the list is Russian, we generally agree with many, uninvolved, Russian editors and I’m pretty sure that all of us want Russia to become a strong, prosperous, peaceful country.

Rather, what probably characterizes the list members – the thing that I think we all have in common – is a general opposition to extremist ideologies and in particular the POV pushing of extremist ideology in Wikipedia’s Eastern European articles. This means opposition to all kinds of extremist POV; Neo-Nazism, Neo-Stalinism, and various kinds of extremist nationalism, which unfortunately often make their appearance in this general subject area.

Whistleblowing or hacking. And hey!! There's still privacy issues here.

At the moment I do not know how the supposed “archive” was obtained and distributed; whether through the hacking of one of the members computers, or if it was done by one of the members of the list (personally, I consider the first possibility more likely). I want to note however that either way, under the Electronic Communications Privacy Act of 1986 (ECPA), Pub. L. No. 99-508, 100 Stat. 1848, third parties are forbidden to read private e-mail [276]. Obviously, this has already been ignored by many folks.

I want to restate that I believe that, per above, upon receiving the link, the people who received them had no right to read them. At most they had a right to forward the link to ArbCom. Further dissemination of the emails, as was done by Alex Bakharev and perhaps some others, was not only unethical, but in clear violation of Wikipedia rules on Outing [277]. At no point has permission to read what very well may be my private emails full of personal information, been given by myself to anyone except Durova.

I also want to note that ALL members of the list signed an explicit statement that none of them was the “leak”.[278] Of course the possibility exists that somebody’s lying. But if that is indeed the case - why should the ArbCom put faith in material which has been supplied by someone who obviously has no second thoughts about lying their ass off? Someone like that would very clearly have no moral compunction about also doctoring the emails.

Another good reason to think that this had to be an outside hacking is that the “archive” apparently contains files from Jan until September. This, combined with the verified fact that there was no real archive means, that the “archive” – based on actual emails – had to be leaked through one of the original members of the list. And these are the individuals who are THE LEAST LIKELY out of the group to have been the leak, given that they started the list in the first place and all.

As a result I believe that outside hacking is the more realistic scenario.

A copy of the supposed "archive"

I posses a copy of the supposed “archive” a link to which was sent to me by Future Perfect. I have not looked at the “archive” in any significant way (I opened up couple of the messages to see if there was anything obvious that would jump out at me). I have not studied this archive for two reasons

• The ArbCom has stated that it intends to inquire about specific episodes and conversations. Since I wish to answer these inquiries to the best of my recollection, I do not want my memory of what was discussed to be colored by the material that’s inside this potentially faked archive
• If there are some signs in the emails in the supposed “archive” that give away tampering or alterations, at this point, I would much rather that these are discovered by an outside person, like an ArbCom member, rather than by myself or a member of the list, as I think this will help establish my credibility here. I want to note that this has already happened in one way – Future Perfect figured out on her/his own that the list has no “real” archive since it was deleted in April.[279]

I am still considering if I should carry out an analysis of the supposed “archive” myself and might do so in the future.

I also want to clarify one important point which I think a lot of people are completely not getting. No one says that the entire archive is fake. Rather it is more likely that some, perhaps a large number, of the emails were altered in ways which were designed to make the participants look bad. These alterations could’ve been small in terms of word length, but substantial in terms of content. If you’ve ever seen somebody POV a Wikipedia article by inserting or removing various “nots”, adding some “spice”, you should know exactly what I’m talking about.

I am led to believe that this is indeed the case, based on the description of the contents of the “archive” by Alex Bakharev and Deacon. Their descriptions are so widely inaccurate in relation to what was actually discussed on the list that I can only conclude that either they’re making stuff up or they’re looking at something that has been significantly altered.

Misconceptions

I also want to address another silly misconception(s) which I have seen bandied around, although I will deal with it further when I address specific accusations that have been made. This misconception(s) is that:

• If something was discussed on the list and something relevant happened on Wiki that proves that the “archive” is real.
• If something was discussed on the list and something relevant happened on Wiki that proves that there was conspiracy/canvassing/coordinating/etc.

Both of these notions are false. The first one is obviously false because as has already been stated, part of the purpose of the list was to discuss things which were going on Wikipedia. So of course there’s gonna be some connections between list discussions and Wikipedia happenings. That doesn’t mean that these discussions haven’t been tampered with to appear them to make something that never was said.

The second notion too is false. The members of the list, as I’ve stated before, do have some opinions in common – even though they disagree (sometimes very strongly) on many others. No one was compelled or canvassed to do anything. At most the list discussions served as a notice board for the existence of particular articles or discussions. In many cases, I recall, I’d go edit an article I found some problems with, or to a AfD and vote a particular way, and only a few days later would someone say “look, there’s a vote going on”. All members took their actions individually and are responsible for them as individuals.

The basic error here is the very common mistake of confusing ‘’’correlation’’’ with ‘’’causation’’’.

• It was NOT the case that members of the list edited in the same area, participated in the same votes, opposed the same POV pushers and edited similar articles BECAUSE they were on the mailing list.
• Rather it’s that the members of the list were on that list BECAUSE they had similar interests, had already been editing articles and topics related to one another and had already run up against various disruptive users individually.

A clear proof of the above is the fact that according to some of the evidence presented by Offliner, HistoricWarrior and PasswordUsername (not to mention Deacon) I have supposedly coordinated my edits with the members of the list before I was even on the mailing list.

In the remainder of the evidence I am going to present I will focus on answering general accusations, specific accusations made by others, as well as the disruptive behavior of some of the accusers.

Against general accusations

Will be expanded later.

Against specific comments

Re DonaldDuck

In response to the section beginning with "On 6-12 May 2009..."

I was not on a mailing at this time and had no off wiki contact with any of its contemporary or future members. How did I come to edit Tsarist autocracy? Simple. DD showed up at Białystok pogrom, an article I had created, and began making very POV edits, removing sources and sourced text and edit warring, against other editors as well [280]. I did what I usually do when I have a significant interaction with an editor - I checked their contribution history to see where else s/he's causing trouble. And I saw that indeed, DD was edit warring like crazy on Tsarist autocracy.

This is a fairly trivial accusation to respond to but I choose to do so because I think it illustrates an important point. Three, actually:

1) All kinds of banned and disruptive users and notorious POV pushers are crawling out of the woodwork here to somehow claim that their bad behavior which led to their blocks and bans was not their fault at all! It was the evil cabal that made them do it! Glad to see that individual responsibility is alive and well on Wikipedia.

2) What a lot of people are objecting to here is not any kind of a mailing list, but simply that some users had the gall to disagree with them in regard to the their editing behavior. This is a straight up attempt to milk this ArbCom for all it's worth in order to get your way in content disputes - delete many painstakingly written articles, POV to the point of absurdity many others and incorporate fringe, extremist views all across this particular subject area (Eastern Europe)

3) Agreeing with other users, and editing the same pages as them is not "coordination" nor is it due to CANVASSING - as this example clearly illustrates. As I've said before, the people on the list were on the list because they edited the same articles, they did not edit the same articles because they were on the list.

Will be expanded later.

Re PasswordUsername

1. Supposed swamping of AfD discussions.

Internet operations by Russian secret police – the thing to note about that article is that list members actually disagreed with each other on a proposed merger [281] and voted on the opposing sides. On the delete vote (I did not take part in it) note that Alex Bakharev also voted keep, as well as two other editors (DGG, Narking). The only people voting delete were Russavia and ellol. If anything this only shows up the common practice by Russavia and co. of making spurious AfDs out of articles they don’t like.

Neo-Stalinism Digwuren-created Neo-Stalinism (nominated 9 April 2009). Voting keep: Digwuren, Dc76, Martintg, Biophys, Miacek. (No uninvolved users participated; the semi-involved Petri Krohn – a relatively pro-Russian editor – was subsequently chased off Wikipedia by the same crowd.)

Oy, this statement’s so full of falsehoods its hard to know where to start. (Note that PU/Anti-Nationalist redacted his "evidence" section after I posted this reply)

• First, Digwuren did not create the article Neo-Stalinism. Rather it was created by user GCarty (no idea who that is) on September 16, 2005. [282]. Digwuren didn’t actually get involved with the article until March 2009.

• Second, here is the link to the actual delete discussion [283] (funny, how PU didn’t bother to actually provide links to support his claims) from March 2008. 6 users, none of whom has anything to do with this case, voting keep. Only nominator supporting deletion.

But maybe PasswordUsername is talking about the category, not the article. The category just went up for deletion again (perhaps someone trying to milk the present situation for their own ends) [284]. Let’s see, 4 editors, uninvolved in this case voting “keep”, only PU voting delete.

• Third, Petri Krohn wasn’t chased off by anyone. He was banned for making threats to Digwuren and refusing to take them down. [285] (again, funny how PasswordUsername failed to provide the relevant link). He was banned for 1 year by a completely neutral admin, in fact, despite Piotrus’ advice to limit the ban to a few months.

Previously he had also been banned [286] for 1 yr.

Another attempt to excuse some very serious disruptive behavior on the “the evil cabal made me do it” grounds.

Derzhava – this one might have been before I joined the list (and had no off Wiki contact with anyone). I voted keep simply after checking for sources [287], as I pointed out at the discussion page.

Soviet-run peace movements in the West – I was not involved in this one. But a clear example of PU making stuff up again: ‘’Most uninvolved users favored deletion’’. Yeah, right, uninvolved users like DGG and Randy2063 voted “Keep”. If it was true that “Most uninvolved users favored deletion” this would’ve been a delete or at least a no consensus. Wonder why PU didn’t link to the actual delete discussion?

2. False accusations of Stalking by mailing list members

A completely ridiculous and wholly irrelevant section, which doesn’t involve me at all. I choose to comment on it because it very clearly shows the quality of PU’s “evidence”.

PU begins by saying Various users, all part of the mailing list, appear to have stalked me at various points in the past six months.

Ok, who are these various users? It appears to be that they are … Digwuren.

And how did they "stalk" PasswordUsername?

Digwuren twice reverts my edits to Kim Jong-Il, Ilya Ehrenburg, List of Eastern Bloc defectors, Benjamin (Animal Farm) (and other characters)’’

Oh no! PasswordUsername’s disruptive edits were reverted! I think this little piece of "evidence" makes it pretty clear that PU believes that he should have carte blanche in his edits, and not be subject to the scrutiny and oversight of the larger Wiki community. Can I list every single instance where somebody reverted me as "evidence"?

Anyway. Since all of this has essentially due to with just Digwuren, how is it in any way relevant to this case? Is PasswordUsername claiming that Digwuren was a one-man cabal?

Generally what PU calls “stalking” is just one or two users disagreeing with him.

3."Members of the mailing list defend each other from sockpuppet investigations"

Uhhh… what? Molobo’s SPI was based on “secret evidence” and many people object on principle. And they were right to do so.

For the record, as far as I recall Molobo never admitted to any sock puppetry on the list. I still don’t know whether or not he is guilty of it since he was “convicted” based on ... “secret evidence” (which, strangely enough, was also made available to Deacon) so I have no idea what the actual evidence consists of.

But while we're here, note the dishonest impression that PU's heading tries to give. Members of the mailing list defend each other from sockpuppet investigations makes it sound like several members of the list were subject to SPI which is completely false. They weren't.

4. False accusations of sockpuppetry and persisting...

Again, an entire section that appears to be entirely about Digwuren and maybe Biophys. Again how is this at all relevant? And the complaint seems to be that some established users noticed a supposedly “new” account which was causing a lot of trouble and wondered aloud about his behavior. ??? As I said before, to clear up all these accusations of sock puppetry going around, everyone listed as an involved party should be subjected to CheckUser. Maybe we'll get some answers.

5. Edit warring by PasswordUsername/Anti-Nationalist and Offliner

• Anti-Russian sentiment: 8-16 May 2009

This one was before I joined the list. Note though how others are “edit warring” but PU conveniently skips all the edit warring that he and Offliner engaged in. [288]

Offliner: May 8th [289] May 9th [290] May 12th [291], [292], [293], then he “tags” PU in order to avoid violating 3RR [294]

And my “edit warring” is the reverting of a sock of banned user Jacob Peters! (Kupredu) So PU is just defending the edits of one of the most notorious sock puppet masters around: [295] and then he “tags” Offliner back in: [296], [297]

This basically goes on and on. Note that my two reverts are just reverting Jacob Peters sock. Then in June, PasswordUser name and Offliner tag team again (note the pretty standardized method of operation – PU does three reverts, then Offliner takes over) PU: [298], [299], [300], and then Offliner takes over: [301], and then back to PasswordUsername, once the 24 3RR restriction expires: [302], [303] (using the reverting of an IP to hide that this is a revert).

And so on. Of course I don't know if this "3 reverts then you take over" was coordinated off Wiki. I also don't think that makes an ounce of difference.radek (talk) 02:42, 27 September 2009 (UTC)

Statement/Evidence by Vecrumba

The evidence and statements and defamation presented in these proceedings which purport to indict myself and others for all Wiki-collusion crimes imaginable—I won't belabor these—consist mostly of pontificating diatribe, rehash of alleged historical iniquities, and putting Bandags on stale evidence presumed to be relevant to the "list".

I do not yet have the alleged archive to comment on and have asked for an extension based on PL priorities, but I do feel obligated to put a stake in the ground as a good-faith gesture of intent to present evidence regarding that as well when it does come available. Therefore my first presentation of evidence is limited to the "evidence presented" and comments associated with these proceedings and protagonists.

Let's start at the very heart of the matter. If I am blunt, don't blame me. I didn't start this.

These proceedings and Russavia

This is not about cooperation off-Wiki. This is about an opportunity created by one "side" illegally hacking the accounts of their "opposition", finding something they could misconstrue as a vile cabal assembled for the sole purpose of an attack upon themselves, and thus launch their own self-righteous indignation-filled counterattack to once and for all wipe out any editor that stood for fair and accurate representation of reputable sources, i.e., dared stand in their way.

Hacking is not an extraordinary claim. Indeed, "hacking" is the most logical claim as it is the one that fits the only logical representations of events surrounding the Russavia meltdown on The Soviet Story. As we are floating conspiracy theories, mine is that Russavia's "meltdown," the hacking of the archive, the purported "attack of conscience" on the part of a "member" outing the "list" as if it were a criminal enterprise, are related events. Unfortunately for all concerned, I shall have to wait until I obtain and analyze the archive to see if my supposition is borne out. I postulate two possibilities:

1. Russavia had his melt-down and pro-Official Russia swung into action to find a bargaining chip to use against the opposition, the goal being to save Russavia, or
2. pro-Official Russia finally succeeded in hacking the opposition, after which Russavia had his calculated meltdown at an article guaranteed to bring out all the opposition to comment, at which point the "cabal" was conveniently revealed, the goal being to eliminate the most persistent WP thorns in pro-Official Russia's side. Of course, we then have the campaign to save Russavia as it was he who was "provoked," not the other way around.

Stay tuned.

For now, let us examine some of the lobbying and lobbyists surrounding Russavia:

Editor	Pro- Pro-Russia + Pro-Soviet legacy (i.e., anti-"revisionist" per Medvedev's commission) POV Pushing: Most recently, the campaign to circle wagons around Russavia to save him from his own conduct and to invite past perpetrators of similar poor conduct to return in apparent anticipation of the demise of their opposition as the outcome of these proceedings
Giano	his Messianic return from the wilderness: requests un-banning Russavia and solicits the "return" of Irpen and Ghirlandajo and makes a blunt comment against the blocking admin which can only be taken as a threat of retribution (per Russavia thread) and regularly practices insults and even Jehochman is more interested in protecting tranquil waters than offending Giano...follow the conversation: (1) (2) (3) (4) (5) (6) (7+8) (9): "If Giano is too controversial to block, so be it."
NVO	if Russavia is un-banned he'll be "lynched" in an hour (per Russavia thread)
FeelSunny	Russavia has been "provoked", "clearly" not all his guilt (per Russavia thread)
HistoricWarrior007	"I remember Russavia's edits when I first met him on Wikipedia, and his edits of today. He was clearly, and blatantly provoked. Either that, or he was abducted by aliens, schooled in bashing, and returned by E.T." (per Russavia thread) [As HistoricWarrior007 has seen fit to bring up a perceived change in Russavia's editorial conduct and postulated that it is because he was either "blatantly provoked" or abducted and schooled by aliens, I consider this fair grounds for postulating a third alternative in this regard without threat of sanction for expression of my personal opinion.]
Deacon of Pndapetzim	Per his statement "The last, before he left, was statistically Wikipedia's top content contributor! Irpen joined Ghirlandajo after the case in the long list of productive wikipedians who have been driven off the project. They are volunteers and don't need to put up with this kind of abuse if ArbCom, the only body who could have protected them, refused to and instead victimised them." It was, in fact, Irpen and Ghirlandajo who drove off their opposition: Irpen vociferously denouncing any challenge to his representation of sources as a personal attack; and any contradiction to such receiving warning from Ghirlandajo that, if one pressed the issue, one "will not like the results." WP content control through invective and intimidation, a time to recall with fond reminiscence, at least for Deacon. As both Deacon and Giano have introduced Irpen as evidence, I shall respond. Where past grievances against Baltic and Eastern European editors are concerned, normal WP rules of evidence do no apply; here grievances as evidence mature like a fine wine to relish, never to go stale and grow green mold like bread.
Anti-Nationalist née PasswordUsername	(Wish I had thought of that one, confuses Google to no end) I need say no more than his new user name, ostensibly the result of losing his password: Anti-Nationalist. When I placed an "anti-Stalin" userbox on my page stating: "This user refutes post-Soviet Stalinist propaganda" (later adding " by rigorous application of fact" for clarity) I was attacked for my "inflammatory" comments by Grafikm_fr: "He has an inflammatory userbox on his user page ("This user refutes post-Soviet Stalinist propaganda") [304] Such a userbox is divisive and inflammatory." Yet PasswordUsername's new user name, a clear provocation and insult, is tolerated without comment.

Evidently: One is not responsible for one's conduct. Under the guise of being "provoked," even the most heinous conduct is to be excused—if the editor is on your side (pro-Official Russia).

Giano returns from the wilderness

I welcome the long lost Giano. His gracing of these proceedings with commentary and threats (as documented above) underscores their significance to those promulgating the pro-Official Russia position on WP.

I've read Jehochman's user page. He offers sound advice, for example, Kiss and make up. But under threats and incivility, this becomes kiss-kiss "let's not stir the waters." Jehochman will indulge me if I bring up Lord Chamberlain's "Peace for our time"—I am dismayed that a calming spot of tea is preferable to the conflict Jehochman predicts to result from standing for integrity. Questions such as these:

"Why are you folks trying to drive Giano away or provoke him further?" (Blocked for incivility thread)

leave me questioning our priorities. This is not a reflection on Jehochman, I've read his off-Wiki interview regarding the lack of due process on Wikipedia—it's thoughtful and informative. This is a reflection on the WP environment that has been allowed to fester, albeit through good intentions on the part of many.

Evidently: Conflict avoidance outweighs defending integrity.

Actually, I won't indulge you to compare me to Chamberlain, nor I will let you compare Giano to Nazi Germany. May I politely ask you to refactor the above. This page is for evidence, not rhetoric. Jehochman ^Talk 14:07, 27 September 2009 (UTC)

Threats and intimidation

And why is it that Giano is so feared? That his overt and sneering thuggery is treated with kid gloves? Perhaps I should ask who else he has threatened (as per the clear example provided above) with demonstrated impunity? Perhaps even Jimbo himself?

• 21:49, February 8, 2009 Jimbo Wales (talk | contribs) unblocked "Giano II (talk | contribs)" ‎ (Be good)

Giano addresses Jimbo in the same derisive and derogatory manner he addresses everyone he disagrees with. And Jimbo says: "Be good." ἰχθὺς ἐκ ṯῇς κɛϕαλῇς ὄζɛίν ἄρχɛṯαί.

Evidently: Treat everyone you disagree with as a useless worm and threaten to squash them into the hereafter, and you will be respected—even by Jimbo.

Reverence for Irpen

I dealt with Irpen extensively on a number of topics. We even cooperated on Janis Tilbergs. More than once I stated that even though I diametrically disagreed with Irpen, at least he sourced his opinions and I had to respect him for that. Over time, however, his defense of the "Russian position" and insistence on a more positive view of the Soviet legacy shifted. Beyond increasing allegations of tendentious editing and cherry-picking sources, he pushed amelioration of Soviet acts by milquetoasting titles and content. For example, one could not say the Soviet Union "occupied" the Baltic States, even if a source used that word, because "occupied" was a "judgemental" term. This escalating POV pushing eventually came to a head at Holodomor, where Irpen intentionally misrepresented Davies and Wheatcroft's seminal work:

• That Conquest was discredited and obsolete; no, Davies and Wheatcroft praised his work particularly in the area of personal testimony; that D&W studiously avoided any discussions of intent regarding the Holodomor was their conscious decision in the creation of their work.
• That Stalin took a personal interest in the victims; no, D&W actually wrote about a unique case where an official in Stalin's favor lobbied on behalf of their home town for relief—the only case during the Holodomor where a specific request for aid was granted while other pleas went unheeded.

When I corrected the "personal interest" contention to represent the source, Irpen deleted it, note his edit comment:

"please don't add info to the sentence referenced to a source that is just not there" [my emphasis].

As I had based my edit on an extensive book review of D&W which specifically discussed the Stalin passage, but did not have the source itself, I could not dispute him. $140 later to buy the text, and there it was, exactly what I had written, and what Irpen had deleted as an outright lie because it appears on page 218, not 217 (the ref being to <ref name="DW217">). Irpen had the book, his misrepresentation (Irpen was a master of technically not a lie, it wasn't on page 217) was completely intentional and relied solely on a disputing editor not having the entire source.

That Irpen left is not because he was "run off." Irpen left because editors would not stand for his increasingly blatant misrepresentation of sources to suit his increasingly strident POV.

Evidence: That Irpen is held up here as an avatar of lost WP grace is a searing indictment of those who do so and of those who blindly parrot that contention without checking the record.

More to come

on Russavia's alien abduction, an aside on Offliner, et al., my apologies that PL circumstances limit the time I can devote to this

Proposed principles as evidence

This is with regard to Coren's posting of September 24, 2009.

Consensus

1) Wikipedia relies on consensus as its fundamental editorial process. Consensus develops from agreement of the parties involved. To ensure transparency, consensus cannot be formed except on Wikipedia discussion pages. "Off-wiki" discussions, such as those taking place on other websites, on web forums or on IRC, are not taken into account when determining consensus.

Consensus as "agreement" is meaningless. Consensus only has meaning when it has as its basis reputable sources, where consensus is the collective editorial representation arrived at through discourse conducted in good faith. Where and how individuals choose to discuss something is immaterial. What is material is that when discourse is conducted on Wiki discussion pages, it is regarding fair and accurate representation of reputable sources, not of personal opinions or political pronouncements.

Participation

2) The determination of proper consensus is vulnerable to unrepresentative representation of the community. Because of the generally limited number of editors likely to participate in any given discussion, an influx of biased or partisan editors is likely to generate an improper illusion of a consensus where none (or a different one) would exist in a wider population.

This does not address that consensus is a numbers game, per the above, absent of reputable sources forming a basis for discussion.

Consensus in internal processes

3) Processes internal to the functioning of the Wikipedia project also rely on consensus. Given the more decisive nature of the discussions, and the greater likelihood of harm, it is important that discussion leading to a decision be as representative as possible. In particular, discussion on the deletion boards, arbitration enforcement, and noticeboards are especially vulnerable to biased or partisan participation.

Internal processes are designed not to mediate content disputes, that is, have been specifically constructed as to be content and source agnostic. Agnostic consensus serves as the model for edit-warring on article content; those who edit war using this model cannot be countered based on their "editorial" contentions. This promotes content control through attacks on editors, as whether or not the content being proposed, created, or deleted is a fair and accurate representation of reputable sources is, for the purpose of WP conflict resolution, completely immaterial.

Canvassing

4) While it is acceptable to notify other editors of ongoing discussions, messages that are written to influence the outcome rather than to improve the quality of a discussion may be considered disruptive. In particular, messages to fora mostly populated by a biased or partisan audience — especially when not public — are considered canvassing and disrupt the consensus building process by making participation lopsided.

In an atmosphere of bad faith, any notification of any other editor is automatically attacked by the opposition as canvassing. There is no on-Wiki means of notification which is not so attacked.

Not a battleground

5) Wikipedia is not a battleground. It is not a place to hold grudges, import personal conflicts, or nurture hatred or fear. Making personal battles out of Wikipedia discussions goes directly against our policies and goals. In particular, 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.

"Metrics drive behavior." When consensus requires no demonstrable basis, when arbitration cares only about conduct, what other result would we expect. BTW, I hold no grudge against any editor, but it is clear there are those who do.

Gaming the system

6) Using Wikipedia policies and guidelines in bad faith to thwart the aims of Wikipedia and the process of communal editorship deliberately is gaming, and a disruptive abuse of process. Activities such as coordinating around policy such as the revert rules, or any other attempt to subvert the spirit of any policy or process in order to further a dispute is disruptive.

Same as 5)

Meatpupettry

7) Requesting that another editor perform an action that, if one would have done it oneself, would have been clearly against policy is meatpuppetry and is a form of gaming the system. While it is possible that more than one editor would have independently chosen to act the same way, attempts to coordinate such behavior is improper on its own as it seeks to subvert the normal consensus building processes.

Same as 6)

Presumption of coordination

8) When a group of editors consistently and repeatedly participate in the same discussions to support the same point of view — especially when many or most of the members of that group had little or no prior participation in the underlying dispute — it is reasonable to presume that they could be coordinating their actions. Evaluation of consensus in particularly divisive or controversial cases need to carefully weigh the possibility and avoid ascribing too much weight to the number of participants in a discussion — especially when policy enforcement or sanctions are considered.

This supposes that editors do not track changes of interest in their sphere of interest and do not check what editors who share their position on one issue might contribute elsewhere on WP. My own involvement on Human Rights in the United States is a classic example, where I unknowingly waded into Viriditas' ownership issues and was denounced as a single purpose account by Hiberniantears. The issue had nothing to do with the editorial veracity—or not—of my position. The issue was solely that—per the points above—that: the basis of my editorial position was in fact immaterial, the only thing that mattered to the warring editor Viriditas and to admins was (a) timing and (b) that I happened to agree with someone other than Viriditas. The litmus test being, had I arrived and supported Viriditas, I would have been welcomed with open arms. "Presumption of coordination" institutionalizes at WP's very foundation that WP assumes bad faith.

Eliminating this principle would force editors to address points regarding content, not who arrived when.

Off-wiki communication

9) While discussion of Wikipedia and editing in channels outside of Wikipedia itself (such as IRC, mailing lists, or web forums) is unavoidable and generally appropriate, using external channels for coordination of activities that, on-wiki, would be inappropriate is also improper. That such conversations can, or are, done in secret makes it more difficult to detect but does not reduce the impropriety of holding them.

Identical to 8). In the end, the points I've made regarding consensus and arbitration are the key ones. The issue is not who arrives to an article when. The issue is, does it even matter if there is fair and accurate representation of reputable sources regarding a topic in conflict? No it does not, hence the need—as here—to build in assumptions of bad faith throughout the rest of the system. Hence the ease with which another can be accused of bad faith. I submit Viriditas' harassment at my user talk page as evidence regarding 8) and 9).

Exclusion of evidence

10) Evidence that has been obtained through unethical or illegal means cannot be used or examined by the Arbitration Committee.

Support: Evidence obtained through unethical or illegal means reflects on those obtaining and using such evidence to their purposes. Use of such evidence rewards unethical or illegal conduct, and given the means by which it was acquired, is likely to be for unethical or illegal purposes.

CLOSING regarding Principles

I hereby submit that:

As long as fair and accurate representation of reputable sources remains:

• immaterial to the concept of consensus, and
• outside the scope of WP administrative conflict resolution,

and, in particular,

• principles include those which are based on an assumption of guilt, not innocence

there will be no extracting ourselves from the quagmire.

Evidence/statement presented by {Miacek}

Statement

There was a mailing list and I participated in it from March to July, 2009, there's no denying of such facts. I left the list when I was running short of wikitime in June-July. I am sure the mails were not obtained via whistleblower, so hacking remains the only plausible way e-mails got leaked and are now circulating on the net, so to say. I became familiar with a number of users in that list, Biruitorul and Dc being especially impressive due to their intellectual level, some of the participants have remained relatively unknown for me, too, since many edit only Poland-related articles that I am not interested in.

What we had in common was the threat of neo-Stalinist/Russian chauvinist POV pushing by accounts like Irpen, Petri Krohn or Roobit (all now justly banned or forced to leave by real consensus). Please don't even try to argue that e.g. departure of the prolific yet extremely biased user Ghirlandajo had something to do with our list. (The editing trio Irpen-Ghirlandajo-Grafikm_fr had their own misdeeds, as already pointed out by others).

On the other hand, issues with users like Russavia or, say, Alex Bakharev, who are constructive yet posed problems for some of the participants of the list - they were discussed, too (as were many different facets of world politics, too, btw), but there were dissenting opinions on which position one should take wrt to them. I personally did not take part in en bloc voting, as far as I remember. Despite having left the list in August, I do not regret my participation. I left for a number of reasons (1) I have very little time for Wikipedia (2) my editing pattern was rather different from that of the other participants (3) while editing Wikipedia I tended to disagree with the participants, e.g. more nationalistic Poles and also Biophys, and wished to be completely independent and to avoid useless arguments within the list. Regardless, I never gave out anything about the list to third parties, neither IRL nor on-line and am perfectly sure no-one else did.

Also, please note I am not going to take part in this arbitration process in any depth. Regards, User:Miacek 17:09, 24 September 2009 (UTC)

Evidence presented by Crotalus horridus

AFD canvassing on the mailing list

Someone else posted above that they suspected canvassing on Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Soviet-run peace movements in Western Europe and the United States. I looked at the underlying article and determined it to be a mess of original research by synthesis and POV-pushing. The allegations of canvassing looked plausible, since many/most of the Keep !voters were list participants. I obtained a copy of the list and quickly found a thread discussing this article. In a message posted on "Fri, 17 Jul 2009 13:32:23 -0400," User:Piotrus engaged in explicit canvassing, with the following words: "Much weaseling in the article, and the AfD is still ongoing and can use some votes" (followed by a link to the AFD). Note that this had been discussed on the list for several days prior, so even before the explicit canvassing, votes may have been tainted by this participation.

Evidence submitted by Hiberniantears

This is mostly a placeholder for the moment, as I'm late to this (thanks to Viriditas for the heads up). For the moment, I will direct you to the extended threads (many of which placed under a hat by me) on this archive of my talk page. I got into it with many of the editors on this mailing list back and May and June, and have encountered the feeling of a well coordinated group of editors behaving in a tendentious manner. I will readily admit that this entire experience burned me out, as evidenced by my increasing grumpiness around here since then. It was not one of my finer moments, but it does represent the impact that the mailing list editors are having on the project.

I'm not taking sides on content, or behavior, as I believe there is a great deal of antagonism between two groups of editors who are simply talking past each other. I can only speak to the experience of trying to tamp down this bad behavior, and feeling utterly overwhelmed, and lacking any meaningful remedy as an admin. I've directed some generalised vitriol at ArbCom recently, and this stems largely from what I perceive as our inability as a community to contain the types of things that this mailing list was coordinating. I would be most interested to know if there are any emails relevant to my dispute with this group back in May and June.

Again, this is post is rushed, and I will try to expand later this evening if there is still time. If any members of the committee require further background from me, please reach out to me on my talk page, or let me know if I should check my email.

Thanks. Hiberniantears (talk) 18:26, 24 September 2009 (UTC)

Difs

It may be worthwhile for those doing the leg work to cross reference the email archive for activity relating to some of the following diffs:

• Anything relating to my first post at Talk:Occupation of the Baltic states
• My split/move/protections of Occupation of the Baltic states
• Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Baltic states and the Soviet Union
• Marting talk page

In each case, there was something of a swarm by the editors who appear to be members of the mailing list. Out of fairness, this is not entirely a surprise since the same editors would have probably had this set of related articles on their watch list, and a swarming reaction would have been somewhat expected with or without a mailing list. Hiberniantears (talk) 21:41, 24 September 2009 (UTC)

Looking at my talk page, it appears that my interaction with this group of editors really kicked off on, or shortly after April 26, 2009 following this post from User:Dojarca. My talk page was then a battleground through most of May and June. Hiberniantears (talk) 22:58, 24 September 2009 (UTC)

Email concerning me

So I went ahead and downloaded the emails. I will not disclose specifics, since ArbCom can simply verify my assertions by searching "Hiberniantears" in the zip file's "String to find" search function. That said, the 50,000 ft view of things as they concern me in the emails are as such:

• 38 emails are in regards to me, discussing ways to get me or desysopped or disciplined.
• Comments range from cuationary to incendiary.
• There appears to be one current admin present in the discussion concerning me. I found a number of instances where this admin was asked to use his admin rights, and he either agreed, or declined depending on whether said action would expose him as part of the group.
• The date range of the emails corresponds to the difs I included above (4/29/09 - 6/28/09).

On one hand, this is somewhat bothersome. On the other hand, it was pretty obvious to me at the time that something like this was going on given the fact that an entire group of editors were able to act in unison without any apparent on-Wiki coordination. As someone who has long tried to neutralize nationalistic editing, I have always encountered combative groups of like minded editors. However, that there is an administrator present in the emails is something of an outrage. As an administrator, you are supposed to prevent things like this, not be a part of them.

Admins should never be a cabal themselves, but when an admin is part of a cabal that actively seeks to undermine objective neutrality, you do considerable harm to the project. Hiberniantears (talk) 18:50, 26 September 2009 (UTC)

Evidence presented by Commodore Sloat

Canvassing on Communist Genocide and Communist terrorism AfDs

I have not had a lot of interaction with the people on this alleged cabal list but I wonder if their actions during the AfD of Communist genocide and Communist terrorism were coordinated. The latter may be too old to be covered with the evidence here but the former is more recent, and both display the same symptoms - a sudden burst of activity from a significant number of members of this list (apparently 9 of the 11 available members voted on the Communist genocide AfD, all at roughly the same time). Both votes were close and contentious, with several of the people named in this arbitration jumping on board at roughly the same time and making arguments almost as a chorus. Arbcom should look into whether this vote was canvassed and coordinated, and whether the discussions of this vote included any suggestions to go after certain users or anything like that.

Canvassing and other illegitimate actions by Biophys

I have had interactions with one of the listmembers in the past, User:Biophys, and was amazed how several times when he was losing an argument someone who had never edited the article before dropped in to "help out" in an edit war -- I'm particularly thinking of interactions over this article in the past, but I also wonder about this article as well as the Suitcase nuke article. There were several times I wondered at the coincidences. I now wonder how much of this activity was orchestrated, and whether Biophys in particular or some of his compatriots on this list singled my account out for any particular harassment or other games. I have always felt Biophys was playing games, and have even called him out on his annoying habit of denying that he made edits that he has just made. I don't know whether this super secret email list coordinated such attacks as the burst of activity on the Communist terrorism AfD or the Communist genocide AfD or the sudden appearance of Piotrus on this discussion or Vecrumba's similar appearance on this discussion but I do think that anyone familiar with the evidence and the list archives should take a close look at these things.

Frankly, if even a portion of what is alleged to be in these archives is actually there, it is a substantial problem at least as worrisome as the CAMERA scandal, if not more so.

Evidence presented by Viriditas

I have expanded upon the event briefly described by PasswordUsername concerning the incident at Human rights in the United States. Particularly noteworthy is the presence of the Eastern European mailing list group from May 24-26 involving their support of User:Mosedschurte during an article RfC and an ANI report, and their participation in an RfC/U from June to July. To the best of my knowledge, these editors had not edited the Human rights in the United States article before this incident.

As the allegations show below, User:Biophys helped defend Mosedschurte's position by announcing the Wikipedia discussion on the closed Eastern European mailing list and inviting its members to join the discussion during an ongoing RfC. User:Piotrus used the same thread to announce the existence of the ANI report against Mosedschurte. In all cases, user talk pages, an article RfC, multiple ANI reports, and an RfC/U were soon flooded with responses from list members, skewing the discussion. While this kind of e-mail announcement is generally classified as stealth canvassing, it at first appears harmless. However, the tactics and strategies described on the mailing list go against the fundamental, core policies of Wikipedia, and the results of the RfC and ANI reports were neither a fair representation of a broad spectrum of editorial opinion nor actions indicative of good faith discussion.

Human rights in the United States

See also: Wikipedia:Administrators%27_noticeboard/IncidentArchive541 § Mosedschurte, and Talk:Human rights in the United States/Archive 13 § RfC: Article scope

The following information concerns an incident that occurred in late May, early June on Human rights in the United States and played out on its talk page in the form of extended discussions and an article RfC.

Timeline

• 2009-05-21 - 05:56 - User:Mosedschurte arrives on Talk:Human rights in the United States.[305]
• 2009-05-23 - 11:45 - User:Viriditas (myself) submits an ANI report on Mosedschurte[306]
• 2009-05-23 - 13:25 - Mosedschurte blocked for 3rr on Human rights in the United States.[307]
• 2009-05-23 – 18:30 - User:Biophys arrives.[308]
• 2009-05-24 - 14:59 - Biophys reverts and removes disputed material supporting Mosedschurte[309]
• 2009-05-25 - 15:22 - Biophys reverts and removes disputed material supporting Mosedschurte[310]
• 2009-05-25 - 19:54 - Mosedschurte votes on the RfC[311]
• 2009-05-25 - 23:06 - Biophys votes on the RfC[312]
• 2009-05-25 - 23.15 - On the EE mailing list, Biophys invites the list to comment on Talk:Human rights in the United States, noting that he finds favor with comments made by Mosedschurte, but wonders if commenting on the talk page will be worth it [20090525-2315]
• 2009-05-25 - 23:28 - On the EE mailing list, User:Radeksz responds to Biophys' message, and says he will attempt to participate at Talk:Human rights in the United States, adding that he is interested in deleting content due to what he perceives is fringe material [20090525-2328]
• 2009-05-25 - 23:32 - Radeksz arrives.[313]
• 2009-05-25 - 23:41 - User:Martintg arrives and votes on the RfC.[314]
• 2009-05-26 - 01:42 - Radeksz votes on the RfC[315]
• 2009-05-26 - 06:41 - User:Digwuren arrives.[316]
• 2009-05-26 - 07:46 - On the EE mailing list, User:Piotrus responds to the Human rights in the US thread, and notifies the list about the ANI report (see above at May 23 - 11:45) filed previously against Mosedschurte [20090526-0746]
• 2009-05-26 – 16:21 - User:Vecrumba arrives.[317]
• 2009-06-05 - 14:33 - Vecrumba votes on the RfC.[318]
• 2009-06-12 - 22:13 - Radeksz reverts to Mosedchurte version of POV tag[319]
• 2009-06-14 - 03:17 - Radeksz reverts to Mosedchurte version of POV tag[320]

RFC/U

See also: Wikipedia:Requests for comment/Viriditas

Timeline

• 2009-06-29 - 11:30 - RfC/U created by User:Mosedschurte on User:Viriditas (myself).[321]
• 2009-06-29 - 12:29 - On the EE mailing list, User:Biophys invites list members to comment on the RfC/U one hour after it is created by Mosedschurte. [20090629-1229]
• 2009-07-03 - 20:00 - User:Vecrumba comments at the RfC/U.[322]
• 2009-07-11 - 23:02 - On the EE mailing list, User:Dc76 asks the list about Mosedschurte. [20090711-2302]
• 2009-07-11 - 23:20 - On the EE mailing list, Biophys responds to Dc76, describing Mosedschurte in favorable terms and points Dc76 to the RfC/U. [20090711-2320] This was the second time Biophys referred list members to the RfC/U. (see above at 12:29, June 29)
• 2009-07-12 - 01:46 - Dc76 comments at the RfC/U several hours after being pointed to it by Biophys.[323]
• 2009-07-12 - 13:01 - User:Radeksz comments at the RfC/U.[324]
• 2009-07-14 - 14:44 - Biophys informs the mailing list that he had sent e-mail back and forth with Mosedschurte, because, according to Biophys, Mosedschurte needed help dealing with Viriditas (myself).[20090714-1444]

Evidence provided by Poeticbent

My evidence is short and to the point for two reasons. Firstly, I joined the list at the very end, and have no knowledge of earlier contributions. Whatever exchange of email took place before late June remains unknown to me. Secondly, my name is being mentioned here only on a few occasions. – The examples are laughable nevertheless, shedding the light on the quality of the so called evidence dumped on this page by some of the most aggressive POV pushers I’ve ever met.

Response to evidence by Offliner

I’m being accused of voting at AfD to keep the article which I expanded with several book references, how amusing. Meanwhile, Offliner was badgering every single person who voted the same way, with his numbingly repetitious comments (nine, in all) including the totally uninvolved admins; canvassing to have it deleted, and so on.[325] Please, look at the article history for more revelations. Book references are being deleted from the article and the level of manipulation is staggering to this day. Consequently, nothing of my research remained.[326]

The same user Offliner accused me of trying to defend an image I myself uploaded with a rock-solid license (soon confirmed by the admin).[327] It doesn’t get any worse than that in misrepresentation of fact. – What coordinated action did I take, I ask?

Response to evidence by PasswordUsername neẻ Anti-Nationalist

My interaction with user Molobo dates back to the early days of Wikipedia. Molobo lost it somewhere along the way, and is temporarily banned from editing due to his unwillingness to close the eyes to POV attacks on Poland–related articles which he was unable to defend by the rule. The clerk in his investigation duly noted that his German opponent’s evidence was in some cases only masquerading as evidence.[328] There’s no connection to the above mailing list whatsoever. I would like to advise those who provide misleading and dishonest evidence to please quit playing with smoke and mirrors, because you’re making yourself look foolish. --Poeticbent talk 22:37, 24 September 2009 (UTC)

Evidence presented by Martintg

Preamble

There is nothing in Wikipedia policy that prohibits groups of similar minded people to meet and discuss any issues in any venue, be it via email or meet-ups; nor can there be. To communicate is a fundamental human need and right. Nor can it be assumed that other groups do not maintain mailing lists or some other communication media of their own. The rational assumption must be that everyone communicates offline, whether it is via a maillist, forum, or other means. To crucify one particular group will not discourage such communication amongst others in the least, but will only ensure that one particular POV will dominate after the elimination of that group. There real question here is whether this is detrimental or beneficial to content quality.

Supporting the "Whistleblower" meme endorses WP:OUTING as okay

We all live under the rule of law, and current legislation prohibits third parties from reading emails. ArbCom had the opportunity to take a mature and principled approach when Alex Bakharev made sensational claims of a list that contains 1500 emails about "getting Russavia". They could have reminded people that under law, and ethically, it is unacceptable for third parties to read illicit copies of email lists and that the authenticity would be suspect in any case; therefore they have no interest or desire to view them. They could have over sighted the initial discussion before it got out of hand. Instead the equivocal stance on the issue may have been seen as an encouragement to the continued distribution, including re-posting this maillist to the public site WikiLeaks for all to read. In opening this case, the ArbCom has ensured that this maillist would become the required reading by a wider group of people than would not normally have been the case. Even DonaldDuck apparently has a copy of this list.

This, in turn has effectively resulted in the OUTING of the personal identities of a number of people, including that of Russavia himself, apparently.

Many have promoted this "whistleblower" meme, perhaps partly to sooth their qualms over indulging in the mild pornographic delight of viewing peoples private affairs, perhaps partly in the belief that there is some kind of "whistleblower" provision in the Electronic Communications Privacy Act. But lets not kid ourselves, this is not the email of some foundation, corporation or governmental organization, but the personal correspondence and private property of a group of people. In real life, a "whislteblower" generally acknowledges their identify publicly, but this has not happened.

For those people who promote and applaud this "whistleblower" meme overlook one thing, this alleged person effectively OUTED the real life identities of many of the participants. I hope the ArbCom is not endorsing the notion that it is okay to OUT people's personal real life identities if it reveals the imagined "vote stacking" of some obscure AfD that the majority don't care about nor have interest in. One was already been threatened with possible prosecution if their identity would ever be revealed. I hope that this case is not seen as an endorsement or the encouragement to people to commit felony crime due to the resulting pay off.

Some quick responses

Hiberniantears initiated a serious content dispute on the article Occupation of the Baltic states that had been stable for over a year, taking unilateral action to split the article then using his admin tools to enforce the result by page protecting his preferred version, he even initiated an ANI report on himself knowing his actions was a serious breach of policy, which he neglects to post a link to. I regret now an RfC was not opened to examine his appalling misused of admin tools in a content dispute he was intimately involved in, but this ArbCom case will be a suitable venue I suppose. --Martintg (talk) 00:55, 25 September 2009 (UTC)

Attempt to inject ultra-Nationalist POV

There is a core group of two editors, Offliner and PasswordUsername, that seem to be intent on disrupting Estonian articles by inserting text that supports two Russian ultra-Nationalist memes:

1. that Estonia as a country and its people are sympathetic with Nazism and as a result
2. Estonia commits human rights abuses against Russian speakers with in that country.

The intent of this meme appears to be to polarise Russian speaking editors against Estonian speaking editors, creating the illusion that there is some kind of wider Russian-Estonian battle going on. This has worked to some degree with editors like Shotlandiya, FeelSunny, Igny and Russavia incited to battle across a whole range of Estonia related articles.

• Note that Petri Krohn was banned for a year in a previous ArbCom case for attempting to incite similar ethnic hatred using similar claims of Nazi sympathies, and has apparently created an anti-Estonian hate-speech site on the internet during his ban.

To see that this campaign is focused on Estonia, one has to look no further than the absence of activity in Latvian and Finnish articles. Latvia had not one, but two Waffen SS divisions, and its veterans march through downtown Riga every year[], while the Finnish President parades a "Nazi flag", yet these editors have never disrupted those articles as they are with Estonian related articles. Nor have they contributed anything of substance or value to the Estonian topic space, only continued and chronic aggravation.

Russavia

In general I have no real issue with Russavia, apart from his disruptive editing, and note that I didn't participate in the recent ANI discussion that lead to his ban for wikilawyering and making legal threats, though I do support his topic ban in Soviet and Baltic states topics due to his past disruptive behaviour. Generally I applaud his efforts in building the encyclopedia. However it seems that he swallowed the "Russia vs. Estonia" meme after being drawn the circle of Offliner and PasswordUsername. Russavia's WP:POINTish creation of the article ESStonia was highly disruptive in addition to being extremely offensive to a great many editors, both Estonian and Russian, earning him the epithet RuSSavia from one Russian editor.

Chronic POVFORK creation

Neo-Nazism in Estonia

Shotlandiya recreates this previously deleted POVFORK[329] on June 5, PasswordUsername expands the fork on June 6th[330], admin User:Chase me ladies, I'm the Cavalry, changes it into a redirect[331] and salts it against disruptive recreation[332]

ESStonia

More to come.

Discrimination against ethnic minorities in Estonia

Offliner creates this POVFORK on June 1, PasswordUsername, FeelSunny and Shotlandiya assist expand the fork over the next couple of days. POVFORK merged into Human Rights in Estonia after AfD discussion.

Discussion and planning of new POVFORKs

Offliner suggests to PasswordUsername creating a new article Criticism of Estonia's attitude towards nazism[333], PasswordUsername responds by suggesting a title like Rehabilitation of fascism or even Fascism in Estonia. This draft article, posted to Offliner's userspace but since deleted, containing text like "According to organization X, there is considerable glorification of the country's nazi past in Estonia, with parades of former SS-officers taking place in the capital Tallinn annually" which is total fabrication to the degree that it was seen as an offensive attack page by an Estonian editor[334]

BLP violations against Estonian public figures

Jaak Aaviksoo

PasswordUsername inserts a BLP violation claiming Jaak Aaviksoo wears Nazi symbols on June 5[335], Inserts another BLP violation claiming Aaviksoo attended a Waffen SS event[336], PasswordUsername then COATRACKs material unrelated to Aaviksoo's biography and removal of sourced text related to his viewpoints[337] and again[338], Shotlandiya comes out of the blue to assist UsernamePassword's reverts[339], again[340], then PasswordUsername steps in to revert[341], again[342] and again [343], then Shotlandiya steps again[344], despite attempts to discuss on talk[345].

Neo-Nazism

June 9th, PasswordUsername inserts BLP violation claiming that a certain Ministry of Justice official was the leader of Estonian neo-Nazis[346]. Reinserts Matter reported to BLP notice board on the same day[347]. PU reinserts the BLP vio[348], again[349], and again[350] Aug 10, Offliner reverts deletion of unsourced material and the same BLP violating material from the Jaak Aaviksoo article above[351], claiming in edit summary it was sourced. Oflliner COATRACKs material that has nothing to do with the article[352], reverts[353], and again[354], despite attempts to discuss on talk[355]

Monument of Lihula

PasswordUsername inserts text contrary to what the actual monument states[356]. More to come.

Kaitsepolitsei

Offliner adds the WP:UNDUE opinion of a neo-Nazi Risto Teinonen in regard to the Estonian Police service[357], reverts[358], Russavia (never having edited the article before) reverts[359], Offliner reverts again[360], Russavia reverts[361] and again[362] and again[363]. Offliner reverts[364] and again[365] and again[366] and again[367]. PasswordUsername steps in to revert[368], and Russavia[369], and so it goes, on and on, despite attempts to discuss on talk[370]

Crime in Estonia

PasswordUsername inserts of undue[371] and out of scope material (coatracking)[372],[373]. An edit war ensures despite attempts to discuss on talk[374], culminating in the insertion of the text "Children are often molested" and resulting in an ANI report and 72 hour block.

Ethnocracy

PasswordUsername WP:POINTishly inserts totally irrelevant link in "See also" (Estonia isn't even mentioned in the article) Shotlandiya arrives out of the blue and reverts[375], again[376], again[377], again[378], and again[379], and so on[380], and on[381], and on[382], and on[383], and on[384], and on[385].....

In the meanwhile an attempt at discussion on talk[386],[387] goes unanswered.

The madness only stops when Shotlandiya is reported to AE and topic banned [388]

Failure of the community to curb this chronic disruption

More to come

The intent of the maillist

More to come

What's to be done

More to come

Evidence presented by Vlad_fedorov

Operation Sarindar saga

To follow

Alleged "coded death threats" by Biophys

I would like to pay the attention of the Arbitration committee to the following obstacles. Biophys claimed that by this diff he has got a threat from user Ellol.

1. Biophys has claimed here that:

Then he {Ellol - my note} reacts by posting the following message using Russian criminal slang and claiming that he only wants to understand my "level of modern colloquial Russian language". After a couple of meaningless phrases, he wrote the following continuous text:

"Everything can be done for money. "I do not like Putin". Coming to an agreement at the court of thieves is better than to be killed by Stiletto. [Your] creativity is shit. Author is fu...er. One must be punished for making too much noise. Fate of Yukos has been decided [by Putin] based on the laws of criminal world, not state laws. [You] pissed someone off by promoting nonsense"

2. The problem is that Biophys has incorrectly translated what was written there and ommited substantial parts of the message. And namely he ommitted the following (I am translating from the slang): "How many megabytes does you video card has?", "I am in extasy over your chick and car".

3. Translations done by Biophys are incorrect. For example "Бабки рулят" he traslated as "Everything can be done for money", while "Money rule" would be more correct. Further he translated "Пацанские распальцовки на стрелках -- всё-таки цивилизованнее, чем заточка в бок" as "Coming to an agreement at the court of thieves is better than to be killed by Stiletto", which is even more weird. He also added missing [You]'s in the text to aggreviate and to heat the situation, to create impression that these phrases are in the second person, e.g. are addressed to him personally.

4. His claim that this is Russian criminal slang is nonsense. While that slang originally was a criminal slang, nowdays it is widely used by everyone, even by Putin - "замочить в сортире" (to bump off in WC).

5. The question by Ellol cannot be really interpreted by Russian as an offense. And Ellol has repeated crystal clear in his last sentence of the message, that he intends to check the proficiency of Biophys in modern Russian slang.

6. Statament of Biophys about "continuous" text, of course, as you could see yourself is not true, since he ommitted some text.

Biophys behaviour in Institute of National Remembrance

In the article Institute of National Remembrance there was a heated debate over lustration laws of Poland, where all professors at the university should undego lustration. Because I have been studying law at Warsaw University and knew that law, I had found this text and inserted to the following text based on the law http://www.ipn.gov.pl/download.php?s=1&id=7967

"Current lustration by IPN is obligatory for 53 categories including all teachers, journalists, diplomats, ministers, members of parliament, public notaries, local government officials, judges, prosecutors, tax advisers, attorneys, all academics (pracownicy nauki i szkolnictwa wyzszego)".

Hence article 4 of this Lustration law currenty retains that all academics are subject for obligatory lustration.

Polish users Piotrus, Lysy, Balcer, Darwinek immediately appeared and began to harrass me at talk page claiming that my Polish is very bad, hinting that I had inserted this incorrecly. They have repeatedly deleted this sourced text and I was forced to mark the article as disputed.

And there suddenly, Biophys who is not proficient in Polish language appeared and deleted this flag, claiming No reason to dispute factual accuracy was provided at talk page. Everything is well sourced..

I wonder, the only person who has cited Polish sources in talk page and translated them was only me. How Biophys suddenly learned Polish and has became an expert in Polish law?

Moreover, suddenly IP 83.27.114.106 arrived from Wroclaw, who was actively reverting me. Could anyone check against the abovementioned parties this IP address? This IP also vandalized Japan WP article link http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Institute_of_National_Remembrance&diff=125864975&oldid=125864890.

Accusations of KGB agents, web brigades present in Wikipedia

I think that this crap accusation in crime alone is enough. Maybe Piotrus haven't showed him his morsel of wiki-wisdom If editors are disagreeing with you, consider that the most logical explanation is that you are wrong and/or in violation of the site policies (and if you don't even want to consider this, you have a problem), not because there are evil cabalists bent on getting you...? Vlad fedorov (talk) 07:55, 25 September 2009 (UTC)

Stalking by Biophys

This and this hasn't been evaluated by the Arbcom. I have been editing Freedom House article where Biophys never was engaged. But he arrived to other editors of this article pages evidently stalking and harrasing me.

User Biophys also openly acknowledged his personal stalking of me (user Vlad fedorov) here http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User_talk:Colchicum#Thank_you:

I cite Biophys confession published on the talk page of Colchicum:

Please note that it perfectly appropriate to follow logs of other users. 
We can do it. WP:STALK policy says: "The term "wiki-stalking" has been 
coined to describe following a contributor around the wiki, editing the 
same articles as the target, with the intent of causing annoyance or 
distress to another contributor. This does not include checking up on an 
editor to fix errors or violations of Wikipedia policy, nor does it mean 
reading a user's contribution log; those logs are public for good reason. 
The important part is the disruption - disruption is considered harmful." 
Obviously, it was Vlad who disrupted our work in Wikipedia. 
Biophys 21:24, 17 February 2007 (UTC) 

It could be easily seen that users Biophys and Colchicum conspired against me not because of stalking, but because my edits and contributions present other point of view, which they do not tolerate and make everything possible in order to harass and intimidate me.

Biophys also confessed in his message to me, that his articles indeed have mistakes [389], but he demanded that I should not correct his mistakes which is outrageus.

As could be seen from the following history pages, my edits are reverted or deleted by user Biophys in less than 24 hours after my edits:

http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Active_measures&action=history

<cut begin> (cur) (last) 16:56, 17 January 2007 Biophys (Talk | contribs) (everything was supported by refereces; this is personal attack by two partisan users) .... (cur) (last) 08:37, 17 January 2007 Vlad fedorov (Talk | contribs) (→Promotion of terrorism worldwide - You haver to prove the 'worldwide' character) (cur) (last) 08:15, 17 January 2007 Vlad fedorov (Talk | contribs) (→Promotion of terrorism worldwide - This statement is a blog entry and violates Wikipedia policy. The statement is also unsourced and not supported by where the citations were taken from.) <cut end>

http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=David_Satter&action=history

<cut begin> (cur) (last) 15:07, 9 February 2007 Biophys (Talk | contribs) (this is description of his books (read them!) - supported by references) (cur) (last) 07:59, 9 February 2007 Vlad fedorov (Talk | contribs) (This is unsupported defamatory statement against ethnic Russians) <cut end>

http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Glasnost_Defence_Foundation&action=history

<cut begin> (cur) (last) 17:33, 18 January 2007 Biophys (Talk | contribs) (cur) (last) 08:15, 18 January 2007 Khatru2 (Talk | contribs) m (→Funding - disambig) (cur) (last) 12:45, 17 January 2007 213.184.225.28 (Talk) (→See also) (cur) (last) 12:45, 17 January 2007 213.184.225.28 (Talk) (cur) (last) 08:12, 17 January 2007 Alex Bakharev (Talk | contribs) (→Funding - see talk) (cur) (last) 07:52, 17 January 2007 Vlad fedorov (Talk | contribs) (→Funding) <cut end>

It is therefore evident, that it's not me, but Biophys traces my contributions, for it is always Biophys who reverts my edits in no more than 24 hours often without any explanations.

I have edited Freedom House article and have a nice disscussion there. But Biophys is stalking me clearly by inserting the following texts: [390], [391], [392], [393].

BLP violations by Biophys

I would like to discuss here just the typical case. In the article dedicated to Russian security agency GRU[394], it was written that terrorist Shamil Basaev and Said-Magomed Kakiev, Said-Magomed Kakiev are 'Chechen GRU agents'. I have deleted these phrases, because there are no any evidence and sources that support these statements. Moreover, there are just allegations that Shamil Basaev was trained by some Intelleigence service long before the Chechen Conflict arised. Biophys however wrote a list of Chechen GRU agents, thereby presenting these pure allegations as established facts.

In less than 30 minutes my edits were reversed by Biophys,

<cut begin> (cur) (last) 05:18, 19 February 2007 Biophys (Talk | contribs) (rv vandalism by Vlad Fedorov - this is supported by refrences 4,5,6, and the content of Wikipedia articles that are provided as links) (cur) (last) 04:48, 19 February 2007 Vlad fedorov (Talk | contribs) (→Chechen GRU agents - False unsupported statements removed) <cut end>

who has cited the following source: Land of the warlords, by Nick Paton Walsh, Guardian Unlimited as evidencing that Said-Magomed Kakiev and Said-Magomed Kakiev are Chechen GRU agents. However, in the article the following is written about these individuals:

"Alkhanov rang for the help of Said Magomed Kakiev", the powerful head of the "West" 
battalion of 900 Chechen fighters under the control of Russian military intelligence, the GRU. 

Zair said Alkhanov has gained the support of not only Kakiev but Sulim Yamadayev, the 
head of the "East" battalion, 800 hardened special forces Chechens also under the 
control of the GRU. 

It could be clearly seen that newspaper article doesn't say these individuals are GRU agents. It says just their battalions were under control of GRU which is a different thing at all. It follows therefore, that Biophys has repeatedly and intentionally reintroduced false disinformation by these edits into the article [395], [396] and [397]. And as such violated repeatedly Wikipedia policy.

Disruptive editing by Biophys

Deletion of pertinent information from the article dedicated to Yevgenia Albats. And specifically deletion of the information that her father has been GRU spy during the WW II. http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Yevgenia_Albats&diff=108373818&oldid=108344491 Please note that Biophys has never actually presented his arguments on deletion of this information on the talk page http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Talk:Yevgenia_Albats. According to the Wikipedia policy deletion of sources material is vandalism. It was evident that the information about Albats father compromises her neutrality as a researcher appointed on Parlament commission for the investigation of KGB activitites and compromises reliability of Albats claims. That's why Biophys initiated campaign for the deletion of such material.

Biophys also claimed on the talk page that the following sources: Boorishness as a World View by Yelena Kalashnikova (in Russian) Full Albats by Oleg Kashin, business newspaper Vzgliad, October 26, 2006 (in Russian)

violate BLP policy, because they are: 1) not neutral 2) controversial 3) Allegations of crude and extremely uncivil behavior 4) Unsubstantiated accusations of fraud

However Biophys failed to show how these materials violate Wikipedia policies. There are no facts, evidence, whereabouts and so on. Again Biophys undertook the same false accusations campaign against sources and information he personaly dislikes and the same false flag campaign he was waging on the Boris Stomakhin. Just empty and unsubstantiated accusations.

I have reverted deletions by Biophys of well-sourced materials published by another author on the article Mitrokhin archive. This deletion could be seen here cur http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Mitrokhin_Archive&diff=107010834&oldid=106018891 I have reinserted these well-sourced statements, since they are reliable and definitely should be mentioned in the article. I have deleted Biophys's unsourced defamatory statements on Russians as ethnicity which incite ethnic hatred in the article David Satter. Please note that Biophys reinserts unsourced statements inciting ethnic hatred by following edits cur http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=David_Satter&diff=prev&oldid=107021411.

Deletion of good sources

I would like to notice that Biophys deletes well-sourced materials not for the first time. For example Biophys has deleted good source in the article State sponsored terrorism http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=State-sponsored_terrorism&diff=102543018&oldid=102542124 Revision as of 23:23, 22 January 2007 (edit) (undo) Biophys (Talk | contribs) /* United States - reference to blog removed, non-working reference corrected) deleted the working link to [398]. I ask you to read his comments with attention, first Biophys claims that it is a blog, and second he claims the link is broken. But how he could say it is a blog if the link is actually broken? By the way, the source is not a blog and the link always works.

Every edit is explained and supported with specific arguments. FSB cannot be described as a secret police, since this term according to the respective Wikipedia article refers to the totalitarian states. I have corrected Biophys POV to NPOV, since CIA is not described as a secret police. As to the Human Rights article, I have employed the same approach which Biophys has taken in regard to the Izvestia article in Boris Stomakhin case. Biophys uses unconfirmed allegations of Anna Politkovskaya which is said was publishing her materials without verifications and presents them as facts and not as unconfirmed allegations.Parfitt, Tom (2006-10-08). "Assassin's Bullet Kills Fiery Critic of Putin". The Observer. Retrieved 2006-10-09. Moreover, in the cited sources on Russian there are no allegations of Politkovskaya that people were detained because of their religion, while Biophys inserted these claims into the passage dedicated to the freedom of religion, which is evidently is not appropriate. Vlad fedorov (talk) 08:07, 25 September 2009 (UTC)

Counter-reply to Biophys re Stomakhin and inciting

First of all, claims by Biophys that passage written by Stomakhin "Kill, Kill, Kill" is poorly sourced are false. This passage was indeed written by Stomakhin, which is confirmed by (1) his personal article, containing this and published on the website of his Radical organization named Radical Contact Organization (RKO) (http://rko.marsho.net/articl/mashadov.htm ) and, (2) citation of the same passage in respectable newspaper Izvestia http://www.izvestia.ru/sokolov/article3098675/ .

I just wonder why Biophys is so stubborn in denying respectable journalists, Stomakhin himself and a newspaper?

This citation is necessary in the article to acknowledge people with the activities of this so-called "dissdent", because thanks to Biophys the whole article is filled only by the statements from human rights activist organization and etc. (I am not against of these present in the artucke too though) defending Stomakhin and painting him as innocent dissendent, while he is not, which is creating WP:UNDUE and diverting the reader from the barefeet facts. Stomakhin indeed issued public calls to exterminate all Russians, which is obviously not a feature of dissident.

Biophys has written in the preamble unsourced original research that Stomakhin was punished by state, because Stomakhin criticized government's action in Chechnya, which do not correspond to the facts. While I agree that this is explanation by human rights organizations and should be cited as such in the article, I think such opinions should not have place in the preamble.

Goodness, people in the UK are jailed because they issue death threats via e-mails (http://www.tomsguide.com/us/Teen-Jailed-Facebook-Britain-Threat,news-4493.html), and this is not the first precedent. Here we have an individual who has supported Chechenian terrorists like Basaev, naming them "heros", and called to kill all Russians.

Secondly, no one pays attention to the fact, that in Russian wikipedia the article about Stomakhin is absolutely opposite to the English WP article written by Biophys. We have two absolutely different opinions on who is Stomakhin. I am not saying that all WP article should be the same or shouldn't have different POV's. But agree, it can't be that in the US article Osama Bin Laden is named terrorist and a dissident in Russian article, it can't be that Donald Trupm is a fatcat here, and the "US evildoer" in Russian WP. There are many Russian WP users present in English WP, who are more, in general, objective and knowledgeable about life in Russia and Russian politics than Biophys, and who would disagree with him.

Thirdly, Biophys in "coded death threats" incident has clearly shown his inproficiency and absence of knowledge at least in modern Russian. He even couldn't correctly understand what is written to him on Russian. See above for the evidence.

I urge the Arbcom to investigate this matter thorougly and involve independent Russian translators and recheck all the texts and link texts. From the very beginning my arbcom was very quick and surface, because no one has vaded into the evaluation of Russian sources, and, hence, no one established numerous violations of Wikipedia policies which were done by Biophys (deleting sourced texts, creating undue weight, inserting blog links as reliable sources, revert wars and etc.). Yes, I have violated WP policies too, since I lost my patience and Biophys is craftful guy (I need to acknowledge) in that, after all (we see this from his e-mail list and Russavia witchhunt). However, this doesn't diminsh the fact that my mistakes were done because of a reason. And that reason was - actions of Biophys.

As for inciting of ethnic hatred, I have cited the diff and you could evaluate yourself if it is. I think this citation from David Satter, which says that psychology of every Russian is influenced by criminalization, e.g. criminal psychology, is unscientific, bandwagon and simply incorrect. Every lawyer, specilizing in criminal law knows that the US have the highest crime level in the world, if not the highest Russian crime level is a way less. However, none has ever claimed that the US citizens have criminal psychology in WP. We may just rephrase this citation which is insulting, but we can't leave it as is, IMHO. Vlad fedorov (talk) 19:05, 26 September 2009 (UTC)

Evidence presented by Sander Säde

As a first thing I would like to say that I felt honored when I was invited to the list in June (not re-joined like Offliner claims). I still feel the same, the list accomplished a lot, including unofficial (and much more effective) mediations between various groups/editors - which on-wiki would undoubtedly caused a lot of drama and possible blocks of hard-working editors. The second purpose of the mailing list was to create a high-quality NPOV content in which I think the list was extremely successful.

None of my decisions or actions on Wikipedia have never been something I would have not done without the mailing list. If an AfD or content dispute was mentioned on the list, I was only involved if I had an opinion about the article/issue. I do believe all others did the same. In many cases of AfD's mentioned in the list, I would have noticed them or changes in articles - as I monitor edits by Vecrumba, Martintg and some others (none of whom is a member of the pro-Soviet cabal) - and I have scripts that allow me to monitor all changes in WikiProject Estonia articles.

Unlike what Russavia claims, no one list never sought to eradicate pro-Soviet/anti-Baltics propaganda from Wikipedia. We wanted to balance it by introducing alternate viewpoints (and remove obvious lies, see below), always using valid sources - something that was always a very sore point for the pro-Soviet cabal, as their sources often were... shall we say, lacking.

In this stage, I am not going to address every single claim made by said cabal - quite frankly, I have a life outside Wikipedia and simply have no time to edit three days in a row like some of the pro-Soviet cabal members apparently can. I am just going to point out the most glaring errors and issues - either intentional or logical.

However, I feel... shocked is the best expression - that Arbitration Committee allows private e-mails containing highly personal information to be openly discussed and shared. Let us not forget that no matter what our imagined or real wrongdoings, nothing of this is even closely comparable to the hacker releasing the archive, committing a mass outing - especially as some of our list members have already received death threats. I propose that owning and use of the archive is allowed only by ArbCom, mailing list members and persons whom the mailing list members allow to analyze the archive. All references by others to the e-mails must be removed and any attempt to use the archive should be followed by an indefinite block. No matter what rules apply to the members of ArbCom, there must be an extremely strong message that hacking or using hacked material to "get" your opponent is not allowed.

AfD's

I would like to remind everybody that AfD's are not voting. Closing administrator will read the opinions and arguments - and decide then. So all claims about canvassing on list are moot - not to mention, I don't have the said archive, but I don't remember ever seeing an e-mail saying "Nnn is in AfD! Vote keep!!!". Considering the high personal integrity of list members, I find claims of such conduct a nasty attempts to discredit us.

Amusingly, in his list of AfD's, Russavia brings an example of canvassing where I had given my opinion already before the e-mail in the list. Russavia also misspells my name there. In the same AfD Russavia calls Kaitsepolitsei "Estonian KGB", a highly insulting comparison - and refuses to remove it after it has been pointed out.

There are many examples by Russavia and Offliner where they accuse us of cabalism and canvassing in relation to AfD's. Let us see those AfD's they mention from the other side:

• Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Russian influence operations in Estonia: delete by Offliner, Russavia, DonaldDuck
• Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Russian influence operations in Estonia (2nd nomination): delete by Offliner, Russavia, PasswordUsername
• Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Putinjugend: delete by DonalDuck, Russavia
• Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Evidence of FSB involvement in the Russian apartment bombings: delete by Russavia, DonaldDuck, Offliner
• Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Evidence of FSB involvement in the Russian apartment bombings (2nd nomination): delete by Offliner, Russavia, PasswordUsername
• Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Russian influence operations in Estonia: delete by Offliner, Russavia, DonaldDuck
• Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Discrimination of ethnic minorities in Estonia: keep by PasswordUsername, Russavia, Offliner,
• Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Communist genocide: delete by Offliner, Russavia, PasswordUsername

I think comments are unnecessary.

Edit warring

Again, arbitrators must not be deceived by simply presented diffs, but must actually look at the content being removed/added. Otherwise you might see reverts of such material as "Children are often molested" inserted by PasswordUsername to Crime in Estonia ([399], one of the most shameful edits I have seen all of the time I've been in Wikipedia. Do look at his edit spree on that article and draw conclusions yourself) as simply edit warring.

Let's have some other examples.

• Mark Sirõk

BLP article includes personal health information sourced to a web forum (something that is very much against BLP rules - and also illegal). Shotlandiya, Offliner and PasswordUsername edit war to include blatant BLP violation.

In his "evidence" PasswordUsername claims he had only one edit in the article. Strangely I count 18 of them, including at least four attempts to reinstate BLP-violating health information: [400], [401], [402], [403].

PasswordUsername accuses me on this very page of joining "Digwuren in their attempts to discredit Mark Sirok" - which was inserting well-sourced material about Sirõk. In effect, he accuses me of an attempt to improve the article.

And I invite everybody to read two comments by Shotlandiya on the talk page, [404]. This is what we are dealing with almost daily.

• Jaak Aaviksoo (Estonian Minister of Defense, high-profile BLP)

Shotlandiya and PasswordUsername attempt to portray Jaak Aaviksoo as neo-Nazi, by misrepresenting an extremely poor source: [405], [406], [407], [408], [409], [410], [411], [412], [413], [414], [415]. The quality of the source can be deduced from the fact that as it came out, Jaak Aaviksoo did not even participate in the event at which PasswordUsername and Shotlandiya attempted to have him wearing Nazi symbols (see Talk:Jaak_Aaviksoo#Controversy_section) - but even that source did not have him wearing Nazi symbols. That was a misrepresentation of the source.

• Kaitsepolitsei

[416], [417] - PasswordUsername attempts to insert material equating Estonian Security Police with Nazi Political Police, based on the similarities of a translated name. That despite the fact that all Kaitsepolitsei members were murdered by Soviet forces during their occupation before the Nazi occupation.

Russavia and Offliner edit war to include critizism based on a blog post and a self-published book by Johan Bäckman: [418], [419], [420], [421], [422], [423] (I probably missed quite a few, as the mess is hard to untangle).

I do hope that this shows clearly with what Eastern/Northern European editors have to put up with. I have brought examples only from three articles - but there are dozens that have suffered a similar fate. I hope other editors and arbitrators will look at the articles and edits very closely before making any decisions.

Evidence presented by William M. Connolley

Emails from me on the list

It has been said to me that at least one email sent by me to a list member has appeared in the archive. Since I haven't seen the archive I cannot verify this, but I'm including below a copy from my gmail archives of the message said to be present (I was not asked, and I did not give, permission for this mail to be forwarded).

 
From: William Connolley <wmconnolley@gmail.com>
Date: 2009/2/2
Subject: Re: Regarding [removed - WMC] 3RR report
To: [removed - WMC]


This is all very well, but if you care to fix up the report to show
why the reverts really are, please do. If not, its not really a 3RR
problem and needs to go to DR

-William
[email I was replying to, and my sig, removed - WMC]

This is of vague relevance as it may demonstrate that (a) at least portions of the archive are genuine and (b) that some member of the list has been rather less scrupulous about respecting the privacy of other peoples mail than they appear to be about their own. Note that part of my sig contained my phone number, which was therefore posted to the list. This contradicts the assertion that No any private information was disclosed in emails, except information about the participants themselves and information that was openly posted by others in wikimedia space.

•  Confirmed that the above email was posted, with WMC's phone number intact, to the list on 2 Feb 2009 as message 20090202-2236-[WPM] Fwd_Regarding Russavia's 3RR report. Thatcher 01:58, 27 September 2009 (UTC)

Evidence presented by Thatcher

My "controversial" imposition of 1RR

Following a request for Arbitration Enforcement, I imposed a 1RR restriction on a broad range of editors whom I felt were "involved" in the Eastern European disputes. This action was vigorously protested, then appealed. Following another lengthy discussion, a request for clarification was filed. Two arbitrators and several admins, in the various discussions, commented on the need for "doing the paperwork" of posting a formal notice and warning before imposing the 1RR limit. Therefore I rescinded the 1RR limits.

Please note

• The parties had been coordinating their reverts for months
• The parties had discussed using 1RR limits against other editors
• The parties coordinated their response to Shell Kinney's offer to "analyze" the EE situation and find out what the problem with EE articles was
• The parties coordinated their responses to my imposition of 1RR
• The parties complained on-list because I vacated all the 1RR sanctions I had imposed instead of just the ones they wanted removed
• Radek thinks I'm a crybaby and writes a long draft complaint about how I undermined the process, and wants to get the sanction against Russavia, Offliner and PasswordUsername reinstated.
• Piotrus suggests sending the complaint to Kirill (I wonder why)

The entire episode is breathtaking in its duplicity. I think a few people ought to have egg on their faces, and I think anyone who answers any complaint at WP:AE involving any of these people is an idiot. Arbcom can clean this mess up.

Digwuren

Digwuren has "retired" in order to reincarnate with a clean record. (20090707-0759)

The attention of the Arbitrators is specifically drawn to these messages

Proof of intent to coordinate reverts

• 20090402-2239 reference
• 20090621-1920
• 20090603-1647
• 20060605-2009

Edit warring at Tsarist autocracy

• 20090506-1615 [424] [425] [426] [427] [428] [429]
• 20090507-0101 [430] [431] (never edited prior)
• 20090509-0513 [432] (full history with that article)

Nope, no improper cooperation here, nothing to see, move along

• 20090619-1800

File under "wishful magical thinking"

• 20090619-2134

Pest control

• 2009621-2047 et seq.[433]
  • Note especially the construction of a "cover story" about the above diff could have innocently come to certain users' attention
  • [434]
  • kind of funny, in retrospect
  • Good recap here

We can haz ur mail but U kant haz ours

• 20090622-0539
• 20090202-2236

1RR is favorable to us because we have the numbers

• 20090622-1805

Piotrus proposes to create socks for reverting

• 20090701-0204

Misc evidence of bad faith

• Compare 20090616-1120 and [435]
• 20090615-0607 ORLY?
• Compare 20090618-1441 and 20090618-1933, ROFL [436] [437]
• 20090619-0038 and 20090619-1112 Soup?

Evidence presented by {your user name}

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

{Write your assertion here}

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

{Write your assertion here}

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