Wikipedia:Arbitration/Requests/Case/Armenia-Azerbaijan 3/Evidence

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Evidence Presented by Robert McClenon

Disputes over Armenia and Azerbaijan are contentious

Disputes over Armenia and Azerbaijan have a long history of being difficult. This is tragically not surprising, because the worst trouble areas in Wikipedia are often areas on the Earth that have been real battlegrounds, which results in nationalistic editing and battleground editing. Sometimes edit-warring is a refighting of twentieth-century or twenty-first-century wars.

There have been many disputes brought to the dispute resolution noticeboard. The most recent such case was:

• https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Dispute_resolution_noticeboard/Archive_227#Massacres_of_Azerbaijanis_in_Armenia_(1917%E2%80%931921)

This dispute had to be closed as failed because some of the editors disagreed with the volunteers at the reliable source noticeboard about the reliability and neutrality of sources.

The following were the three next most recent disputes at DRN concerning Armenia and Azerbaijan:

• https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Dispute_resolution_noticeboard/Archive_216#Anti-Armenian_sentiment_in_Azerbaijan
• https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Dispute_resolution_noticeboard/Archive_211#Shusha
• https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Dispute_resolution_noticeboard/Archive_201#2020_Nagorno-Karabakh_war

As can be seen, these cases involve some of the usual participants, including Grandmaster, Brandmeister, and the banned user Steverci, as well as Chipmunkdavis and CuriousGolden. I haven't reviewed the record to determine which side if either they were on.

Here are more disputes at DRN concerning Azerbaijan and Armenia:

• https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Dispute_resolution_noticeboard/Archive_197#2020_Nagorno-Karabakh_conflict
• https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Dispute_resolution_noticeboard/Archive_31#Armenian_Genocide
• https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Dispute_resolution_noticeboard/Archive_79#Photo_of_Azerbaijanis_in_Gyumri

I have not reviewed the record to determine which side the disputants were in for these cases.

The most recent dispute

One of the most recent disputes in the issue of genocide denial is involved is a request at DRN in which the requesting unregistered editor imposed conditions for a moderator to be accepted as neutral:

• https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Dispute_resolution_noticeboard#Burning_of_Smyrna

I did not moderate the case after the conditions were stated, and it will probably be archived without action. I closed the case after the filing unregistered editor was blocked.

Evidence presented by Alalch E.

Disputes seem to require widening community involvement but then the effort fails

I was mentioned during the opening stage due to my involvement with the massacres article, and its DRN (already linked above), which I became interested in after a deletion review. I can offer very little at this stage, but this is my "evidence":

Disputes in this topic area have sometimes required consciously widening community participation to resolve. Not a very fresh example, but the following 2021/22 merger discussion Talk:2020 Nagorno-Karabakh ceasefire agreement#Merging Zangezur Corridor (permanent link) had to be converted to an RfC as a DS remedy, after a stalemate had been reached. Because of how this was structured, it was impossible to ward off the imposed "factor of newness" from actualizing, and the dispute was able to conclude.

I would like to compare with this the failed massacres article DRN. The wider community (in a sense, RSN volunteers) was called upon to assist, but, this time, what it was able to deliver as the "factor of newness" was smothered by the forces of stalemate flooding the zone; there was no structure to avert this. So this dispute has not been able to conclude.

Evidence presented by Ixtal

ZaniGiovanni and Abravgl have repeatedly failed to constructively engage on AA articles with each other

Thanks to RMcC for the DRN links. I thought I'd add ANI+AE+talk page links from disputes between the two. They, especially Abrvagl, seem unable to handle disputes in a way which doesn't completely turn away other editors (with both me and RMcC at this point unwilling to moderate between them).— Ixtal ^{( T / C )} ⁂ Non nobis solum. 22:04, 1 February 2023 (UTC)

• February 2022, filed by ZG against Abravgl
• February 2022, filed by Abrvagl against ZG
• AE May 2022, filed by ZG against Abravgl (Abrvagl formally warned for EW)
• User talk:Abrvagl#RfC (permanent link)
• User talk:Abrvagl#Your revert (permanent link)
• User talk:ZaniGiovanni#Ruben Vardanyan (businessman) (permanent link)
• User talk:Rosguill/Archive 31#Question. (permanent link)
• User talk:Rosguill/Archive 30#Question 2 (permanent link)
• User talk:El C/generic sub-page22#Confusion (permanent link)

Evidence presented by Rosguill

Contributions to AA are more highly concentrated compared to other contentious topics

A particular nuance of disputes related to Armenia and Azerbaijan is that, presumably due to the relative obscurity of the conflict among English Wikipedia's userbase and the importance of non-English sources, authorship for articles in the subject area is more highly concentrated than for other contentious topics, and that concentration often includes the over-representation of problematically partisan editors.

Consider the statistics for the following pages:

Armenia Azerbaijan

• Massacres of Azerbaijanis in Armenia (1917–1921),

  Top 3 by edits: Olympian (57%), Alalch E. (16.9%), Dallavid (11.9%)

  Top 3 by content Olympian (72.7%), Abrvagl (12.1%), Plandu (7.6%)

• 2022–2023 blockade of the Republic of Artsakh

  Top 3 by edits: Humanatbest (24.1%), Jargo Nautlius (16.4%), Grandmaster (14%)

  Top 3 by content: Humanatbest (37.6%), Grandmaster (12.4%), 5.191.67.213 (9.3%)

• First Nagorno-Karabakh War

  Top 3 by edits: MarshallBagramyan (39.4%), Yerevantsi (19.7%), Aivazovsky

  Top 3 by content: MarshallBagramyan (42.4%), Yerevantsi (13.9%), Polluxian (11.3%)

• Second Nagorno-Karabakh War

  Top 3 by edits: Solavirum (36%), Johncdraper (11.4%), Beshogur (11.3%)

  Top 3 by content: Solavirum (67.8%), Starzoner (6.7%), Գարիկ Ավագյան (6.7%)

Other conflicts

• 2022 Russian invasion of Ukraine

  Top 3 by edits: ErnestKrause (14.8%), Davide King (14.2%), Jr8825 (13.2%)

  Top 3 by content ErnestKrause (22.3%), Rlink2 (11.8%), Mindaur (9.7%)

• Indo-Pakistani War of 1971

  Top 3 by edits: Saroshp (19.7%), PeerBaba (16.7%), Ragib (15.9%)

  Top 3 by content: PeerBaba (33.2%), CX Zoom (14.4%), Towns Hill (14.1%)

• Second Intifada

  Top 3 by edits: Timeshifter (25.5%), Jayjg (12.5%), Tewfik (11.9%)

  Top 3 by content: Timeshifter (20.3%), The Mark of the Beast (12.9%), Tiamut (12.9%)

Analysis

The higher concentration of authorship within AA makes the decision to topic ban a specific editor a higher stakes decision than other topics because it could have the effect of significantly changing the balance of the topic's presentation on Wikipedia. I'm a bit surprised to not see the current parties to this case included as prominently in the above statistics as I would have expected, which somewhat reduces my hesitancy to sanction them specifically. However, other usual AA suspects are well-represented above, and the current parties do often show up in the top editors list just below the #3 cutoff I used for the above examples.

Evidence presented by ZaniGiovanni

Off-Wiki canvassing/meatpuppeting

As I said in my opening comment, the users I've identified canvassing and meatpuppeting through social media/off-wiki groups are Abrvagl, Solavirum (indeffed for socking), Qızılbaş and Rəcəb Yaxşı. Several bits were removed because of outing, full version emailed to ArbCom:

The “Azərbaycanca Vikipediya” Facebook group:

1. User Abrvagl opened a talk discussion on Petroleum industry article and shortly after that does this edit, link
2. I checked the public Facebook group of the openly canvassing pro-Azeri users (there are many other canvassing posts indexed below), and found a post directly asking others to "remove this wrong information" from that article, link (archive, picture). Abrvagl edited the article 5 hours after the post has been made.

Subreddit

1. From the largest official Azeri subreddit, a campaigning post (archive, pictures) with various instructions on how to "stop Armenian propaganda”, with over 140 comments. Second screenshot highlights all the info Abrvagl reworded themselves not so recently [1], [2], [3]. Third screenshot is regarding the 2020 Ganja strikes article lead section, and highlights the exact info Abrvagl argued to remove vigorously (discussion), and even launched an RFC over it (RfC, diff) – which closure I tried to challenge on AN but couldn't provide canvassing evidence because of outing). Prior to being sock indeffed, Solavirum argued to remove the exact information. Not only Abrvagl was acting upon Facebook off-wiki requests along with indeffed Solavirum, Abrvagl also acted upon the Reddit propaganda recruitment post to remove information and even launched an RfC over it, while the RfC itself was being canvassed by at least the 2 users I mentioned earlier (Qızılbaş and Rəcəb Yaxşı) which I'll elaborate below.

Conclusion

Based on the presented multi-source evidence, I hope the Arbcom is able to see the wider picture of coordinated disruption of English Wikipedia by editors affiliated to Azerbaijan, their using of RfC and other such occasions as ballot, outvoting everyone by sheer outnumbering and hoping the third party closer would not look into their contributions to see whether they vote ideologically, their intended promotion of the views of Azerbaijani government, and to present Armenia and Nagorno-Karabakh under negative light.

Response to Abrvagl

Moreover, I don't even use Reddit so I couldn't possibly have seen those old Reddit postings. Hence, the allegations that I supposedly received instructions based on a Reddit post are completely baseless. Mentioned Reddit post is 7 months older than my edits ([6]) on the 2020 Ganja missile attacks article and more than a year older than my edits ([7]) on the Khojaly massacre article. Moreover, I made a large number of edits to the Khojaly massacre article, of which none were challenged; snipping some of them in order to link it to a Reddit post from over a year ago does not constitute evidence of anything. – Regarding 2020 Ganja missile attacks , the exact same info Abrvagl edited, discussed vigorously, and launched an RfC over is highlighted in the Reddit campaigning post, and it was a campaigning post with huge engagement hence the dates don't really mean much when one edits the same 1:1 information then launches a canvassed RfC over it when fails to gain consensus. Earlier in AN, I tried to bring light at least to the canvassing RfC, but unfortunately I couldn't provide the off-wiki evidence at the time (outing) and ended up being tbanned for 2 months for highlighting the ethnicity of participants. Regarding Khojaly massacre, Abrvagl didn't actually make "a large number of edits", only totalling 12 (from 8-12 November), and among which are the exact same information highlighted in the campaigning post on Reddit.

For instance, user ZaniGiovanni, whose first edit was accusing the editor Golden of being an SPA (how could a user who had just registered on Wikipedia know what an SPA is, let alone Golden in particular?) – Dear Arbs, please note that the user has gone as far as my first edit in their evidence which is concerning. For the record, I meant what I said in my edit summary in literal terms (one purpose account), I was not aware about WP:SPA at the time. If Abrvagl implies that I'm a sockpuppet by this (without explicitly saying it), it would be a subpar and baseless accusation hence a personal attack.

On top of this, there's more evidence to address. This is ANI report raised against ZaniGiovanni 21 months ago... – The user is presenting a nearly 2-year-old ANI report in their evidence. The report didn't result in anything, neither was Abrvagl editing at the time. How is this an evidence of anything or relevant to AA3? Just searching an ANI archive from years ago and including it here, isn't this kind of evidence subpar for any venue, let alone AA3?

Here's a recent example of edit warring by ZaniGiovanni ([10]). Here's the example where ZaniGiovanni changed "claims" to "allegations" even though source was stating "claims", and when I changed it back, they reverted that edit referring to it as Rv disruptive edit.. ZaniGiovanni even came to my talk page saying that I should read some English Dictionary definitions, although just a month ago ZaniGiovanni was arguing that these words aren't synonymous. – I reverted the user, leaving an explanation on their talk page. The full discussion, where I already commented on Abrvagl's irrelevant snippets from different article/context, and at the end, Abrvagl simply conceded the discussion by saying "I have no desire to engage with you further on this topic" and made baseless accusations (diff).

Response to Brandmeister

Similarly to Abrvagl, Brandmeister passive-aggressively hints that I'm sockpuppeting and shows no evidence for it, which is a baseless accusation hence a personal attack.

Regarding Pazyryk burials, Brandmeister never replied to my last comment on talk and did this revert months later (15 September 2022) in spite of talk discussion on February same year which they still didn’t reply to. What’s more concerning is not only they didn’t engage on talk or edit the article for months, they only reverted me the day I was tbanned when I have no means to interact with the article... Later, I restored the status quo version with additional sources and actual per talk [4]. If Brandmeister had a problem with my sourced edit afterwards, why haven't they replied on talk yet or challenged it? Why is this being brought up in AA3 of all places after almost a year of no engagement by Brandmeister? There are valid questions to be asked to Brandmeister here, especially their months absence on talk/article and only reverting in the article again when the opposing user has no means to interact, not replying on talk and falsely claiming ‘per talk’ in the revert, then bringing up their own WP:CIR, WP:TE against me as ‘evidence’ here without providing the slightest context.

Evidence presented by Abrvagl

Addressing off-Wiki canvassing/meatpuppeting allegations

I am inactive on Facebook - I've never seen that Facebook post before, nor it mention my name/username, and neither am I familiar with any of the involved persons. I can provide my ID/profile to ArbCom for verification if necessary. Here's how this coincidence is explained: while browsing Twitter I came across a post similar to the one on Facebook highlighting the inaccuracies in Petroleum industry article. It piqued my interest, so I conducted research and confirmed that there were inaccuracies, hence I corrected them ([5]). I even left the explanation on the talk page ([6]). I'm not sure how that fits off-Wiki canvassing/meatpuppeting?

Moreover, I don't even use Reddit so I couldn't possibly have seen those old Reddit postings. Hence, the allegations that I received instructions based on a Reddit post are completely baseless. Mentioned Reddit post is 7 months older than my edits ([7]) on the 2020 Ganja missile attacks article and more than a year older than my edits ([8]) on the Khojaly massacre article. Moreover, I made a large number of edits to the Khojaly massacre article, of which none were challenged; snipping some of them in order to link it to a Reddit post from over a year ago does not constitute evidence of anything.

While reading I analyze the articles and attempt to fix the inaccuracies I found. So, it's no surprise that I noticed a fringe statement in the 2020 Ganja missile attacks article. Initially I rephrased it([9]), but later I determined that it was a UNDUE retaliatory statement not supported by the vast majority of the sources. The same is true for the Khojaly massacre article, in which I not only corrected POV/incorrect/OR information/unsourced material, but also improved sources and rewrote some sections.

the dates don't really mean much when one edits the same 1:1([10]) - This is untrue, and the dates do matter. it’s ridiculous to be accused in serious violations because a fraction of the edits happen to partially correlate with a 1-year-old Reddit post which I’d never seen before. The printscreen shows two statements removed and one added to the 2020 Ganja missile attacks article, while my edits related only to the one of them it is already not "the exact same information". Moreover, the Reddit post shared by ZaniGiovanni shows examples of 4 articles, however, the printscreen hows only two of them. Snipping parts of a one-year-old Reddit post and some my edits to fit them into "evidence" is unacceptable.

Response to ZaniGiovanni

I tried to challenge on AN but couldn't provide canvassing evidence because of outing([11]) - How is alleged impossibility to provide evidence of canvassing connected to the argument made by ZaniGiovanni that the RfC should be amended to a no consensus because literally every single user that voted Option 2 is an Azeri user ([12]). That doesn't appear to be the case, especially given that ZaniGiovanni did not mention the word "canvassing" once during AN ([13]) or on the closer’s talk page ([14]).

...their intended promotion of the views of Azerbaijani government, and to present Armenia and Nagorno-Karabakh under negative light. - I think ArbCom should pay special attention to this. This comment reveals ZaniGiovanni's battleground/POV perspective of Wikipedia. It explains persistent battleground behavior and incivility against editors, who ZaniGiovanni believe to be ethnic Azerbaijani editors who came to Wikipedia "to present Armenia and Nagorno-Karabakh under negative light".

Additional evidences

In addition to the evidences I presented to ArbCom privately, I'd like to draw attention to a concern over the long-term tendentious editing by some users that hasn't been addressed in a timely manner and that, in my opinion, critically contributes to the prevalent problems in AA2. For instance, user ZaniGiovanni, whose first edit was accusing the editor Golden of being an SPA (how could a user who had just registered on Wikipedia know what an SPA is, let alone Golden in particular?), displayed tendentious editing, edit-warring and battlefield perception from day one, and continues to do so despite a number of warnings/bans/Tbans(listed at the end). As such I'd like ArbCom to pay special attention to the last AE report I made that demonstrate the fact ([15]).

On top of this, there's more evidence to address. This is ANI report raised against ZaniGiovanni 21 months ago ([16]) where an editor was complaining about ZaniGiovanni making editing environment unnecessarily toxic, often resorting to personal attacks, and making no effort to come to a compromise. User VersaceSpace politely explained and urged ZaniGiovanni to stop edit-warring, telling him to stop calling edits that aren't vandalism, vandalism. Yet despite the time that has passed and the numerous warnings and bans, ZaniGiovani continues to conduct very same behavior that numerous users have complained about. Here's a recent example of edit warring by ZaniGiovanni ([17]). Here's the example where ZaniGiovanni changed "claims" to "allegations" even though source was stating "claims", and when I changed it back, they reverted that edit referring to it as Rv disruptive edit.. ZaniGiovanni even came to my talk page saying that I should read some English Dictionary definitions, although just a month ago ZaniGiovanni was arguing that these words aren't synonymous. Explaining the difference between "allegation" and "claims" didn't help, so I backed off just like I'd done in many other discussions with Zani - because every discussion with ZaniGiovanni either gets dragged out through dispute resolution or you're forced just drop it, because it's impractical to take every small thing to the dispute resolutions.

List of warnings, bans, and Tbans ZaniGiovanni received withing 2 years of editing Wikipedia:

1. 14 March 2021 - blocked for 1 week for personal attacks ([18])
2. 28 November 2021 - blocked from Uzundara for 72 hours for edit warring ([19])
3. 2 February 2022 - warned against edit warring and is expected to be more diligent in pages covered by the AA2 DS. ([20]; [21])
4. 13 July 2022 - informal warning at AE, specifically for incivility in this topic area. ([22])
5. 15 September 2022 - 2 month TBan for engaging in persistent battleground behavior. ([23])
6. 21 December 2022 - was reported for 3RR violation. The enforcing admin stated that ZaniGiovanni and the other involved user should have been p-blocked, but closed the report as stale because reverting stopped. ([24])

Evidence presented by Grandmaster

This is not really evidence, but rather some thoughts that arbitration committee may wish to consider.

I believe Alalch E. and Rosguill pointed out the main problem in Armenia-Azerbaijan related articles, i.e. that this topic gets very little involvement from third party editors. And it is very important to have a wider community involvement to resolve many disputes that regularly arise in this topic area.

Often the disputes are about whether the information is due or undue, if certain sources are reliable or not, etc. It is impossible to take every minor issue to dispute resolution, which also takes time, and is often unsuccessful. I find traditional dispute resolution boards not to be very effective in AA area. Often the requests at NPOV or BLP boards remain unanswered, or all the commenters are the same people who were involved in the dispute that led to the request. As others mentioned, there are objective reasons for that. South Caucasus region is quite obscure for most of the world, and often people from outside the region do not have sufficient knowledge or desire to get involved with an unfamiliar topic, which is understandable.

What could be really helpful is a more effective and quicker dispute resolution for a highly contentious topic such as this. Since two groups of editors are often unable to reach a consensus, outside intervention, i.e. third party user involvement is very helpful. It is impossible to have an RFC on every disagreement, but maybe it is possible to find a way to increase the wider Wikipedia community control and involvement in the most contentious articles in the area? As a possible solution, maybe the arbcom could appoint a group of trusted and experienced Wikipedia editors who would provide a third party opinion and advice at the request of the parties involved in a dispute?

Response to Dallavid

The information in that edit is properly attributed to Toronto Sun. There is nothing extraordinary about it. The fact that the Red Cross and Russian peacekeepers deliver humanitarian aid is confirmed by separatist leader Ruben Vardanyan: At present we receive nothing but the help of the Red Cross and Russian peacekeepers. [25], Russian peacekeepers themselves in their daily bulletins: example, Red Cross itself: [26] and a number of international media, such as Eurasianet: With the vital link closed to civilian traffic, around 100,000 residents are dependent on humanitarian aid delivered by the Red Cross and Moscow's troops. [27], RFRL: Before the blockade, 400 tons of goods were delivered from Armenia to Karabakh daily, and now, according to the state minister, only a small part of what is needed is supplied by the International Committee of the Red Cross and Russian peacekeepers. [28], Le Mond: Along the Lachin corridor, the blockade is not total and a few vehicles from the International Committee of the Red Cross are managing to move around, carrying medicines and patients. Goods are sometimes transported by the Russian peacekeeping forces. [29], Amnesty International: The blockade has resulted in severe shortages of food and medical supplies, as humanitarian aid delivered by the International Committee of the Red Cross and Russian peacekeepers has been insufficient to meet demand. [30] France 24/AFP: AFP witnessed an unhindered movement of Russian military transport along the Lachin corridor. The reporter also saw that the road was blocked near a Russian checkpoint, some 15 kilometres from Stepanakert. The blockade has led humanitarian aid groups to bring goods to the enclave. Zara Amatuni, a spokeswoman of the Red Cross office in Armenia, told AFP on Monday that the group had delivered 10 tonnes of aid provided by Yerevan's government. [31] There are also many video reports about Russian peacekeeper and ICRC trucks moving along Lachin road.

In addition, presidents of Armenia and Azerbaijan both confirmed that 400 vehicles mostly with humanitarian cargo passed the Lachin road in the first 40 days, so there cannot be any reasonable doubt that some humanitarian cargoes get delivered, and it is confirmed by all parties.

So what exactly is fringe in Canadian journalists' report, who saw passage of humanitarian cargoes? If that particular source is not good enough, it could be replaced by another. I have no problems with that. Contrary to what Dallavid says, I did not argue that there is no blockade. According to sources, the humanitarian supplies are insufficient, but are delivered in certain quantities. But Dallavid never raised any concerns about this source with me or at talk of the article, for some reason he decided to bring it up here.

Regarding Dallavid's own conduct, he has recently received a logged warning for edit warring and battleground behaviour, as result of this AE report: [32], and 2 previous blocks within the last 2 years for edit warring and personal attacks. [33]

Evidence presented by Dallavid

Using genocide denying sources

Recently there was a controversy with Olympian who had been using multiple genocide denying sources on an article they created. These sources included a Turkish Tourist Map website that denied the Armenian genocide. When the unreliability of this source was pointed out to them, Olympian replaced it with an "academic source" that was actually infamous genocide denier Justin McCarthy. Another genocide denier included in the first diff was Maxime Gauin.[34][35] Olympian had also added several contentious claims in the article that were not supported by the sources attributed to them, such as everything removed here after the failed verification was pointed out. In the enforcement discussion, Olympian was given a logged warning for using genocide denying sources, but still does not seem able to identify them because they tried the justify using a source that has lines such as "reports brought to light just how subjective in character are the claims of Armenian genocide" and "Reports of attempted destruction of the Armenian race [...] were unsubstantiated, being founded on information given only by Armenians."

Using blogs/tabloids/obviously unreliable sources

A few months ago, Grandmaster got their topic-ban appeal granted with reluctance, with a comment from one of the admins: "Grandmaster has been around long enough to know that further misbehavior in this area will very likely lead to reinstatement of the sanctions (at minimum), and that third chances are a whole lot harder to get than second ones". In the enforcement discussion where Grandmaster was topic banned, one of the main concerns was Grandmaster presenting a blog website that re-posts Facebook comments as representative of Armenian media. And now recently on the 2022–2023 blockade of the Republic of Artsakh article, Grandmaster made this edit which promotes a fringe view of Azerbaijani government’s position ('the road isn't blocked, everything is fine, eco protesters are genuine, Armenians are complaining only to spoil the good name of benevolent leader Aliev'). Even more alarming however, is that the article is an opinion piece by a certain Dave Gordon who is also cited in Azeri media saying, "There is no any problem on the Lachin-Khankandi road, I did not see a blockade". The source Grandmaster cited is not only a fringe opinion piece of a single person (added in a tabloid), it's just plain propaganda and Gordon himself parrots fringe nonsense. Grandmaster could've at least tried to attribute it (which still wouldn't warrant inclusion of Gordon's fringe propaganda), but they didn't even do that.

Response to Grandmaster

There had already been a talk page discussion that pointed out none of the sources actually confirm humanitarian cargos were delivered by Russian peacekeepers, nor do any of the sources mention Russian peacekeepers passing through the blockade with cargos. The Le Monde article only says "some" offhandedly, and the other sources point out the aid is insufficient as well. But Grandmaster continued to try implying that there is no blockade with an opinion piece.

Response to Olympian

At no point was I ever accused of tedious editing on this article, as Olympian claims. On the contrary, there was strong consensus to remove the content because the WP:ONUS was on Olympian.[36][37][38] The AFD result cannot be described as "solid" at all, most users acknowledged the article was in bad shape (Olympian nominated the article for GA after creating it but a AfC reviewer deemed it was not even B-level) but were optimistic it could be improved. There was also much support to merge it into another article,[39][40] which I had been to first to point out that the new article is a mirror of.

Yes, I filed an AE report against Olympian for using multiple different genocide denial sources in different edits, for which Olympian was given a logged warning and warned that thrice is a pattern. Not sure what point Olympian is trying to make against me by bringing this up.

And those three editors had all arrived in the AFD at around the same time, making identical comments that all personally attacked me, and an admin even warned one of those editors for personal attacks. I wouldn't have reported them if an admin hadn't given that warning. I have pointed out that an admin warned this user before in a previous discussion with Olympian, so if Olympian is still trying to frame this as a witch hunt, it's difficult to assume good faith.

Evidence presented by Olympian

Dallavid's conduct

Dallavid engaged in a tendentious editing campaign by deprecating and dismantling the article that I authored in December 2022. Immediately after its creation, instead of initiating a talk page discussion, Dallavid nominated it for an AfD (during which they made numerous misrepresentations as expounded in my replies); the AfD closed in a solid consensus to keep the article. Not getting the outcome Dallavid had hoped for, they proceeded to delete a third of the article (over 10K bytes), vaguely citing two Wikipedia policies, without gaining consensus in the talk page nor explaining themselves in the talk page (until directly asked numerous times). Dallavid's reasoning for deleting content (that cited 14 different authors) referred non-existent consensuses and unfounded genocide-denialism claims (WP:SOURCEGOODFAITH). Dallavid also added multiple unexplained tags to the article and another article I recently authored in an act of disruptive editing per WP:TAGBOMB.

It's also worth pointing out that Dallavid filed an AE report against me for mistakenly using those denialist sources (which I had already deleted immediately after they were pointed out), 4 days after opening the AfD. Following this, Dallavid engaged in a WP:WITCHHUNT against 3 dissenting editors (Rəcəb Yaxşı, RadomirZinovyev, and Manchou) after they made "Keep" comments in the aforementioned AfD, thereby reporting the trio and accusing them of casting aspersions and canvassing so as to invalidate their input to the AfD.

Response to Dallavid

Despite me admitting my mistake and learning from it, Dallavid continues to try to get me sanctioned to the utmost by bringing up a genuine, good-faith error I made when writing the Massacres of Azerbaijanis in Armenia (1917–1921) article and that I was already duly warned for by the two admins in the AE thread. Previously, I hadn't properly researched the reliability of those sources as I hadn't had much experience writing non-stub Wikipedia articles from scratch (my early edits consisted of adding statistical tables to district articles); since the warning, I've been careful to vet the sources I use, and even asked one of the admins who warned me if a passage from particular Routledge-published source precluded the use of that book (for citing unrelated things, e.g. diplomacy) was appropriate for use or if it "skirted the line" in regards to Armenian genocide denialism, thus I thanked them and elected not to cite it. Full disclosure: I come from a family of genocide survivors (originating from the cities of Van and Trebizond) so I find Dallavid's implication that I support Armenian genocide denialism extremely disrespectful and a complete misrepresentation of myself.

Evidence presented by Guerillero

I am examining these threads as evidence and I would like parties to be aware of it when presenting analysis

AE threads 2021–2023 in the AA topic area

Thread	Date	Outcome
ZaniGiovanni	5 January 2023	Consensus that this be referred to ArbCom at WP:ARCA.
Dallavid	15 January 2023	Dallavid warned for edit warring and battleground behaviour.
Olympian	17 December 2022	Olympian is warned (logged) against using subpar sources that are genocide denialist or lean towards it (whitewashing, etc.), for the Armenian genocide and beyond. Further issues of that nature will likely result in sanctions up to and including topic bans from related topic areas (WP:AA2 and beyond).
Kheo17	5 October 2022	No Close
Kheo17	15 October 2022	Kheo17 and Dallavid are warned for edit warring, and advised to use resources like the reliable sources noticeboard rather than reverts to help resolve disputes over source reliability in the future.
Grandmaster	14 October 2022	There is a consensus to lift Grandmaster's topic ban from the AA2 subject area.
Dallavid	18 October 2022	No Close
Dallavid	18 October 2022	No Close
Golden	1 August 2022	Golden is warned that his actions in the Armenia-Azerbaijan topic area have been disruptive as per this report, and that the next minor infraction will result in a topic ban, block or both. This warning is a type of sanction, and will be logged in the AE logs.
Zenzyyx	14 August 2022	Zenzyyx is indefinitely topic banned from the subjects of Armenia, Azerbaijan, or related ethnic conflicts, broadly construed.
Armatura	8 July 2022	Indef block as a standard admin action, with more info on their talk page.
ZaniGiovanni	13 July 2022	There is no bright line violation that justifies AE sanctions at this time. ZaniGiovanni does exhibit some problems with WP:CIVIL that need to be reined in, but they haven't risen to the point of sanction. Yet. As the core of this dispute is about content, I suggest all parties return to editing, read WP:BRD, use the talk page, and POLITELY and PATIENTLY find consensus on these pages.
Grandmaster	23 July 2022	No violation
Abrvagl	12 June 2022	Abrvagl is formally warned for edit warring. Any further instances, including slow motion edit warring, will result in sanctions.
Grandmaster	18 February 2022	Grandmaster is indefinitely topic banned from AA2
Interfase	28 November 2021	Interfase blocked 72 hours, ZaniGiovanni blocked from Uzundara for 72 hours, both for edit warring.
Steverci	3 November 2021	Steverci's previous topic-ban from topics related to Armenia and Azerbaijan as well as ethnic conflicts related to Turkey is reinstated.
Grandmaster	4 November 2021	Retaliatory filing, no action taken.

Evidence presented by Brandmeister

As a long-time AA contributor since 2005, I can attest to a new round of unhelpful and/or suspicious behavior, this time from some newer accounts.

ZaniGiovanni

ZaniGiovanni is a relatively new AA editor time-wise, having started editing on 11 March 2021. Yet their earliest edit summaries already show some familiarity with Wikipedia's inner workings, despite stating they are new to it, e.g.:

User "CuriousGolden" is a one purpose account, adding unrelated naming to a foreign territory. Reported for constant changes to the page (11 March 2021)

Further vandalism attempts will be reported (12 March 2021)

ZaniGiovanni has been blocked twice and topic-banned in September 2022 for 2 months due to "persistent battleground behavior". After the ban expired, ZaniGiovanni returned to habitual behavior, e.g. by reverting again in the article where they had reverted before: [41], [42].

KhndzorUtogh

KhndzorUtogh is another relatively new account in the AA area, having started on 1 April 2021 and already demonstrating similar advanced knowledge of Wikipedia in edit summaries:

The reason for my previous edit was to undo vandalism by a user who was blocked for abusively using multiple accounts... (3 April 2021)

Included secondary sources (6 April 2021)

WP:OTHER (2 July 2021)

On 29 July 2021 KhndzorUtogh was notified of AA discretionary sanctions, but some reckless editing persisted since then, e.g. repeated removal of a sourced part in an apparent attempt to whitewash Armenia: [43], [44].

Evidence presented by Red-tailed hawk

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

In the weeks following Golden's logged warning on 1 August 2022, Golden was taken to ANI twice for Azerbaijan-related topics, and an administrator topic-banned Golden due to evidence presented in the second discussion.

1. Golden was given a logged warning in the AA2 area by Dennis Brown on 1 August 2022, following a discussion at WP:AE. The warning stated that that the next minor infraction will result in a topic ban, block or both.

After edit warring in Azerbaijanis to insert a population estimate, LechitaPL posted extremely weakly supported allegations of edit warring against Golden in an ANI post on 9 September 2022

1. On 2 September 2022, LechitaPL added content to the infobox of the article Azerbaijanis that claimed only 17–25 Azerbaijanis existed.
2. Later on 2 September 2022, Golden reverted the edit, correctly stating that the number was not in the cited source.
3. On 8 September 2022, LechitaPL re-inserted the material at 19:55, citing the Laurousse Encyclopedia and the Ukrainian Encyclopedia. Less than five minutes later, Beshogur removed the estimate from the infobox as outdated. LechitaPL responded by re-inserting the material and alleging that Beshogur was vandalizing the page by removing the estimates.
4. On 9 September 2022, Beshogur once again removed the material from the infobox, saying the estimates were outdated. LechitaPL again reverted Beshogur, saying Beshogur was committing acts of vandalism.
5. Following Lechita's third re-insertion of the contested material into the article Golden gave LechitaPL an edit-warring warning on 9 September 2022 and reverted with an edit summary asking LechitaPL to take the dispute to the talk page.
6. Instead of discussing the content on the talk page, LechitaPL took the discussion to ANI and alleged that Golden had participated in an [e]dit war in article on the Azerbaijanis, despite Golden both having only made a single revert on that day and explained why the reversion was made in their edit summary.
7. The ensuing ANI discussion was archived on 15 September without sanctions being issued against users, though El C took a DS action to semi-protect the page.

Second ANI Thread

To kome.

Tamzin topic-banned Golden on 16 September 2022

1. On 16 September 2022, administrator Tamzin topic-banned Golden from conflicts involving Armenia or Azerbaijan, broadly construed, citing evidence presented in the second ANI thread.

{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.

Evidence presented by GeneralNotability

Golden previously topic-banned as an unblock condition

Completely forgot about my involvement here. Golden (at the time named CuriousGolden) was blocked in April 2021 for sockpuppetry (see the SPI archive). In October 2021, I unblocked Golden with a logged ARBAA topic ban (unblock discussion). I lifted the TBAN in April 2022 following a request from Golden on my talk page (request).

Evidence presented by KhndzorUtogh

Brandmeister

I am responding to Brandmeister's accusation: “On 29 July 2021 KhndzorUtogh was notified of AA discretionary sanctions, but some reckless editing persisted since then, e.g. repeated removal of a sourced part in an apparent attempt to whitewash Armenia: [1], [2].” He calls my editing “reckless" and accuses me of "whitewashing Armenia” based on the Attack on the Azerbaijani Embassy in Tehran, even though:

1) a third party reviewer already raised a concern on talk page that what Brandmeister was trying to push as valid background info was “rather extreme”, as A) Armenian protest was all about just throwing eggs (rather than an “attack” to be mentioned in background info of an article about real armed attack and premeditated murder), B) the source is a Turkish state-run Anadolu Agency (which is considered generally unreliable for topics that are controversial or related to international politic by Wikipedia community and C) no relevance between an Armenian protest and the armed attack in Iran. I would say it is best to remove it.

2) I removed the content that was entirely unrelated to the article and appropriately started a talk topic to highlight that there are other events in the background section of the article that are also irrelevant to the topic, [4]

Yet, Brandmeister's subpar response was the attempt to restore his extremely poorly sourced and irrelevant text, and mild cosmetic cover so he could keep the text he is eager to push against the reviewer's suggestions and my explanation. They did not respond to the talk page discussion but decided to bring their anger here instead, in the form of unfounded accusations. This eagerness of tying up unrelated events in order to create negative publicity for Armenians is highly disturbing and creates concerns about Brandmeister's competency to edit Wikipedia neutrally.

Brandmeister also demonstrated lack of competence in his recent contribution [45]. In this case, an anachronistic edit to show to a non-suspecting reader as if “Shusha - an Azerbaijani city was hit by Armenians” whereas it was the opposite - Shushi, under Artsakh control, was hit by Azerbaijan during the Second Karabakh War [46].

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.