Wikipedia:Requests for arbitration/Macedonia 2/Evidence

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Evidence presented by ChrisO

Actions by ChrisO

On 15 April 2009, I moved the disambiguation page at Macedonia to Macedonia (disambiguation) [1]. The only modification was the addition of "(disambiguation)" to the title of the disambiguation page, per Wikipedia:Disambiguation#Naming the disambiguation page, as I noted on the talk page.

On 16 April 2009, I moved the article Republic of Macedonia to Macedonia, deleting the redirect that I had created with the move of the disambiguation page [2]. I explained the reasons for the move on the talk page and will be expanding on those reasons in this arbitration. Note that the edit summary for the redirect deletion - "Deleted to make way for move (CSD G6)" is automatically generated by the software, not by the editor.

Both pages already had move permissions set to sysop only. I made no changes to the protection status - the protection settings were automatically transferred from the old titles to the new ones. I moved no other pages. I sought to minimise disruption by not changing the move permissions, thus averting the possibility of a move war between editors, and I urged administrators not to revert the move, to avoid any possibility of such an action being interpreted as wheelwarring.

Locus of the dispute

The locus of the dispute is the dispute between Greece and Macedonia over the latter's name, which has spilled over onto Wikipedia articles that mention Macedonia and Macedonians.

Summary of the Greek position

The Greek position is that Macedonia does not have the moral or political right to use a name that Greece regards as part of its own cultural heritage, and that the usage of the name represents a claim on Greek territory. The Greek government formally recognises Macedonia as "the former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia" or "FYROM" for short and seeks to have Macedonia change its name.[3] In popular usage, many individual Greeks reject any use of the term "Macedonia" in relation to the country and call it "Republic of Skopje" [4] and the inhabitants "Skopjans", "Fyromians" or "Pseudomacedonians" [5]. In practice, the Greek government also frequently avoids using the term "Macedonia" in relation to the country and often refers to it simply as "FYROM" without explaining the acronym.[6]

Summary of the Macedonian position

Macedonia identifies itself formally as the "Republic of Macedonia" and uses the common name "Macedonia", and its people identify as "Macedonians".[7]

Summary of international positions

Macedonia was admitted to the United Nations under the provisional reference of "the former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia" pending a resolution of the dispute. Most international organisations follow the same convention, following the UN's lead. Approximately one-third of UN member states use this terminology. Sources that specifically address the status of the provisional reference state that it is used as a descriptive term, not a name.[8] [9] The remaining two-thirds of UN members recognise the country as the "Republic of Macedonia" or Macedonia for short. All of the Balkan states except Greece and all of the major English-speaking states except Australia use this terminology.

Persistent vandalism and disruption

Macedonia-related vandalism and POV editing is widespread and frequent across Wikipedia, affecting any article that merely mentions Macedonia, even tangentially. It originates from a variety of signed-in users and anonymous IP addresses, very often tracing to Greece or Cyprus. Statements of overt ethnic hatred (e.g. "Fyromian fascists") are not uncommon. Such edits invariably seek to promote the Greek POV described above.

Abuse filter 119 was set up on 30 March 2009 to track instances of the name "Macedonia" being removed from articles. It has been triggered more than 200 times in less than three weeks, excluding bot edits. The following examples illustrate some of the name-related disruption that has occurred during this three-week period, falling into four general categories:

• Replacing all instances of "Republic of Macedonia" with "Former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia". [10], [11], [12], [13], [14], [15], [16], [17], [18], [19], [20], [21], [22], [23], [24], [25].

• Ditto, but replacing "Republic of Macedonia" with "FYROM", to remove any mention of Macedonia, even if there is no ambiguity or if the term FYROM is inappropriate in that context. [26], [27], [28], [29], [30], [31] (note edit summary), [32], [33], [34], [35], [36], [37][38]

• Ditto, but replacing "Republic of Macedonia" with invented POV or pejorative terms (e.g. "Former Yugoslavic Republic of Macedonia", "Vardarska", "Slavomacedonia", "Republic of FYROM"). [39], [40], [41], [42], [43], [44], [45], [46], [47], [48]

• Replacing the term "Macedonians" with POV or pejorative terms such as "Fyromians", "Skopjans", "Pseudomacedonians" or "Slavomacedonians". Also replacing mentions of the Macedonian language with related POV or pejorative terms. [49], [50], [51], [52], [53], [54], [55], [56].

These edits are often done using indiscriminate search-and-replaces which break internal links (see [57] or [58] for examples). Vandalism has also come from official sources in Greece, including the Greek Parliament [59], [60] (IP 195.251.32.42).

Ethnic polarisation

This dispute is characterised by the role of a block of editors who reject the use of the self-identifying name of Macedonia. These editors are predominately self-identified Greeks, use Greek usernames, identify as native speakers of Greek, edit anonymously from networks in Greece and/or edit largely or exclusively on Greece-related articles. Editors who support the use of the self-identifying terminology are from a broad range of nationalities, only a small minority of whom are Macedonians. As Heimstern says, there are clearly "two separate consensuses, one consisting almost entirely of people with a vested interest in a certain nationality, the other consisting of more or less everyone without any vested interest in that country." Wikipedia's policies do not have any ethnic bias. The polarisation is clearly due to the importation of an outside political dispute in which one national group has a strong vested interest.

This dynamic is visible in a recent straw poll on the use of the name "Republic of Macedonia" (rather than the descriptive term "former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia") in the article Greece. User:Husond has presented the polarisation in graphic format here and User:Future Perfect at Sunrise has summarised the outcome here.

Timing and rationale

This move was prompted by Fut. Perf's draft of a new proposal on Macedonia naming issues (WP:MOSMAC2) and a straw poll at Talk:Greece/Naming poll. The original WP:MOSMAC proposal, which I drafted, tried to strike a balance between policy and the political demands of Greek editors (mainly by letting them use their favoured terminology on Greece-related articles). The proposal did not achieve consensus and edit-warring continued on numerous articles. The straw poll showed that a block of mostly Greek editors would agree only to using the Greek government's preferred terminology and demonstrated the futility of further debate in the face of politically motivated stonewalling. Although I had previously defended the naming of the article as "Republic of Macedonia", when I reevaluated the policy basis for this approach I found that it could not be justified either by policy or with reference to common English-language usages. The approach set out in Fut. Perf's proposal was broadly in line with my own analysis of the policy position and convinced me that our approach did not meet basic policy and content requirements.

I boldly sought to cut the Gordian Knot by implementing a policy-compliant name for the article and inviting the parties to discuss the policy issues in a setting - an already-scheduled arbitration - where a decisive outcome could be reached. The objective was primarily to implement a name that was consistent, intuitive for readers and compliant with policy, and secondarily to move the debate to a forum that would produce a binding outcome and resolve the dispute permanently. I stated that I would voluntarily revert to the article's former name if the policy rationale was found to be defective. I did not unprotect the article because I did not want to trigger a move war or make any more than the absolute minimum use of sysop abilities. The fundamental issue in this dispute is the name of Macedonia - this has to be resolved definitively, and the move provides an opportunity to determine whether or not article naming policies are meant to be followed.

Evidence presented by Radjenef

ChrisO's conduct

On the 25 March 2009, ΚΕΚΡΩΨ decided to conduct a poll on renaming the article from "Republic of Macedonia" to "former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia". ChrisO was one of the first to react by closing the poll [61] (use of administrative rights), requesting arbitration enforcement [62] and claiming that the poll was going against a six year consensus. The arbitration decision confirmed the view that there has been a long standing consensus [63].

On the 16 April 2009, ChrisO moved Republic of Macedonia to Macedonia [64]. This was in direct violation of the long standing consensus, which by the way happens to be a binding wikipedia policy. He defended his actions by, amongst other things, invoking the editorial guideline WP:BOLD [65]. Here is what the other editors had to say about this boldness in the talk page [66], [67]. ChrisO decided to use the talk page only after he had moved the article [68]. Ironically, he replaced the text that said "changes to the name without discussion [...] will be reverted" with his announcement of the move. See [69] and [70] for reactions to the move. Finally, even when people had clearly expressed their arguments against his move, ChrisO responded by [71].

Another issue that needs to be pointed out is that ChrisO carefully planned and performed the move to coincide with the Orthodox Easter holiday [72]. Later, he further mocked the religious convictions of users by making this statement [73].

Finally, I want to point out this [74] statement of his, which doesn't disambiguate whether his use of the term "Macedonian" refers to Macedonia (ancient kingdom), Macedonia (Greece) or the Republic. So far, he has been advocating the use of the word "Macedonia" for the Republic without any disambiguation, so I believe it is logical to assume that he is referring to the Republic. I find this Gordian Knot statement deeply offensive towards all Greek people as this is exactly the kind of irredentist propaganda and illegitimate claim to ancient history that Greeks have been concerned about since this dispute began. This prescribes instead of describing and goes against WP:NPOV.

I feel that, because of ChrisO's partisanship, Macedonia-related articles would be better off without his administrative interference.

On ethnic profiling

The crux of my argument against ethnic profiling in wikipedia is presented in the workshop [75]. The UN's definition of ethnic discrimination is [76].

I would like to begin by illustrating my views on why this practice is counter-productive by means of an example: The speculation on the ethnicity of User:Girisha-jin in [77], [78] and [79] on the grounds that "Girisha-jin" means "Greek" in Japanese. I am a reader of the English Wikipedia, I don't speak Japanese and before reading that statement I had no idea that the said user might somehow be connected to Greece.

Many people have suggested that this practice constitutes WP:OUTING: [80]. Regardless of whether the practice of ethnic profiling does or doesn't constitute WP:OUTING per se, I believe that hunting these things down in the archives, speculating and aggregating everything is definitely bordering WP:OUTING. It is an unhealthy attribute for a wikipedia editor. Clearly their time could have been better spent.

In more recent news, on the 25 April 2009, ChrisO attempted to change the wording of WP:OUTING so that it wouldn't apply to his case: [81]. My comment on this incident is in the policy's talk page [82].

On POV and nationalism

A lot of mudslinging and labelling of people as nationalists has been going on, so to set things straight I would like to explain what the different points of view are:

Party involved	The party's POV
Nationalists in Greece	"should not contain the word "Macedonia" or any of its derivatives"
Greek	"Republic of Northern Macedonia"
The Republic	"Republic of Macedonia"
Nationalists in the Republic	"Macedonia"

In order for the republic to join the United Nations, both countries agreed on the provisional reference of "former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia". Note that this is not a name; it's a provisional reference that doesn't agree with the POV of any of the two countries. This provisional reference is to be replaced with a proper name for the republic as soon as the UN mediated talks lead to an agreement. This adds the following entry to our former table:

Provisionally, the UN

"former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia"

Reading Macedonia naming dispute will confirm these things that I'm saying.

How the article should be named

My case for policies vs guidelines is very eloquently presented in the workshop. I sincerely believe that WP:NCON should be taken with a grain of salt in this issue. One additional reason in support of that, is the fact that WP:NCON contains a controversial "self-identification" clause, that was introduced by ChrisO himself (note the involvement and conflict of interest here). I am not suggesting scrapping WP:NCON altogether; all I'm saying is that it should be taken with a grain of salt.

I also provide evidence in support of the view (some have called it the pro-UN side) that "former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia" is more commonly used that "Republic of Macedonia":

The term "former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia" is the one most commonly used by international organizations as evidenced by:

UN [83] EU [84], NATO [85], WTO [86], IMF [87], WHO [88], ICC [89], Council of Europe [90], WIPO [91], WMO [92], IOM [93], Interpol [94].

Google search also verifies this result:

Google search	Hits	Link
"former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia"	1,480,000	[95]
"Republic of Macedonia" -"former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia"	821,000	[96]

Most recent data as of --Radjenef (talk) 10:33, 24 April 2009 (UTC)

Gaming the system to freeze the name of the Republic's article

According to Future Perfect [97] and ChrisO [98], the move was performed by ChrisO prior to the arbitration case in order to have "his action checked (and, if necessary, confirmed or reversed)". Further to that, ChrisO claimed that reverting his move would constitute wheel-warring [99]. These clearly show that, sort of seeking help from ArbCom, there was no way of reverting his move without causing considerable disruption to the project. ChrisO knew that ArbCom would either revert his edit or freeze it indefinitely and that is what he was aiming for.

Response to Heimstern's evidence

My comment on the Muammar al-Gaddafi talk page had nothing to do with the naming of the Republic's article. I threw a policy-based idea on the talk page and someone else agreed with it and decided to implement it as a redirect. To say that it was a retaliatory move on my behalf is a blatant assumption of bad faith.

As far as the WP:SPA accusations go, given that I am a relatively new user, I believe that my contributions are quite varied and include math, tv series, hair styles, mushrooms and debate. The increased number of talk page submissions on Macedonia-related articles is a testament of me being cautious, acknowledging that this is a controversial subject and wanting to discuss things before making any changes. Also read this [100].

Evidence presented by Reaper7

Macedonia needs to go to a disambiguation page

Firstly at the top of the this page 'International positions' This section is false. It states Australia as the only major English Speaking nation to call ROM FYROM. In fact South Africa and New Zealand both officially call Fyrom Fyrom. Also this section states all the Balkan states do not use Fyrom. This is also false as Albania is undecided on the matter. All this information is availiable on the Macedonia naming dispute page. It is misinformation like the opening of this page which adds confusion to an already confusing matter. ChrisO is a Fyrom nationalist in my own humble opinion and how he became an admin working mainly on the pages of his disputed nation's name is a sad crime. I also believe Taivo, one of ChrisO's biggest supporters, is completely bias, I did not understand just how much at first, but I later decided to show the type of words and phrases he used to describe Greeks and Greek related subjects and their translations on this page [[101]] for newer editors. [[102]] and [[103]]:

• Greek nationalists & parochial interest groups = By this Taivo means an editor of Greek origin.
• that village in Greece & some town in the southeastern corner of Europe = Taivo when describing Athens, Greece's capital.

Taivo, has a lot to learn about neutrality.

This page needs a rethink

ChrisO's edits should be ignored and the page moved to a disambiguation as the word Macedonia describes the ancient state - not connected with the modern slaviv nation of the same name, the Greek province, with the majority of citizens who call themselves Macedonians and also other regions. Macedonia is an open word that should not be hijacked by one editor for one nation. Reaper7 (talk) 20:35, 23 April 2009 (UTC)

ChrisO hands out illegal warning

I just got a warning from ChrisO for 'Original Research.' I was editing the list in the Macedonia Name Dispute page and I had just removed a reference used fort he Dutch position as it was a dead link. Then I noticed the two GOVT references on this page: [[104]] both point to Denmark using FYROM or FYR Macedonia yet Denmark was in the list under 'List of countries to be sorted.' I moved Denmark to countries which use FYROM, ChrisO immediately reverted stating you need a source that states how Denmark uses the name, not infer it yourself from a random document. I then informed him, the 'random document were two Danish Govt Pages that were already there as references concerning Denmark and reverted. ChrisO then proceeded to revert and dish me out with an 'Original Research Warning.' This time he changed his story and stated: you are inferring Denmark's position, but the documents you cite do not say anything about whether Denmark recognises the constitutional name or not. This is interesting. Most of the list is made up of Embassy pages using the word Macedonia, and immediately they are on the list, under countries who recognise the Republic of Macedonia. I wonder how many of those editors received warnings from ChrisO? I am going to make this action of ChrisO stick as his behaviour in general has downgraded the neutrality Administrators are supposed to have. He has put the case down here:[[105]] Reaper7 (talk) 13:58, 2 May 2009 (UTC)

Evidence by Shadowmorph

Discrimination

Honestly, I'm a Macedonian (Greek) and relatively new here. No one's ethnicity should be considered WP:COI and marginalized for any reason.

Bad manners & imposing deadlines

Future Perfect

Macedonians (Greeks) was blanked by Fut.Perf - during the arbitration - twice [106] & [107] - against AfD consensus[108] and I was forced into hard work[109] to rescue the article in addition to writing evidence for this page. He abstained only after I've rewritten it under stress[110]

Non transparent intimidation of new editors[111]

Calling people stupid[112][113] even inside this very arbitration (I'm not too stupid to know what "Inane", "obtuse" and "clueless" mean when used altogether[114])

ChrisO

In a Yom Kippur War manner (figuratively), ChrisO did the move before an Orthodox Good Friday (festivities last 4 days). It imposed massive stress on Orthodox editors (Greeks/Bulgarians) that had objections.

When objected officially, ChrisO then scandalized us saying (exclamation by him):"so much for the Orthodox Easter, it seems!"[115]

From the above I extrapolate the bad, to say at least, behavior of those parties. Note: I was unassisted in learning applied WP:Polices in few days so that my opinion won't to be "lost in time"

Authoritarian actions by ChrisO

Against the five pillars, the involved administrator ChrisO caused chaotic disruption of Wikipedia. His controversial move, later made cross-country news in TV[116] and news-blogs[117]. It was interpreted by both as an endorsement of the name by Wikipedia, braking the NPOV principle. In real life, as ChrisO knew, the Macedonia naming dispute was already in the news[118] and his action only furthered it here. It could be resolved soon; there is no deadline.

He acted without consent, and no recent prior dispute for justification. He lied[119] when timely called to explain the first move. It was a prerequisite to the second so if he hadn't lied, another admin could have moved Macedonia (disambiguation) back to Macedonia thus effectively ruining his plan. Between his two moves, it was me who moved Macedon to Macedonia (ancient kingdom) after discussion and consent[120]. That new WP:Naming conflict should have been discussed, but was ignored.

He explained only subsequently his actions in a "president-of-the-cabal" manner. The very status of the move-protection was to prevent vandalism of the consensus name "Republic of Macedonia" to either "FYROM" or "Macedonia". It was not to endorse or impose the second (even temporarily until ARBCOM) by an involved administrator. In order to not manipulate ARBCOM, he was suggested by uninvolved User:Husond to revert it[121] but he didn't

Vandalizing problems and edit wars are not addressed by the article move, but are rather mathematically sure to worsen if this move is endorsed.

• The move broke all three[122] of ARBMAC principles related to Macedonia
• ARBCOM stated area of conflict is the Balkans[123]
• ChrisO has a history of similar bad conduct[124],[125][126] in Kosovo and was warned

On "Ethnic polarization"

The above is an invented term of outstanding creativity by ChrisO that hides the ethnic/racial connotations of his remarks. Here is a better analysis of POVs: ChrisO's main argument on "Ethnic polarization" is controversial or even borderline racial. He has accused with Ad hominem arguments the pro-UN (using F.Y.R.O.M) pro-WP:CON (using Republic of Macedonia) positions deliberately mixing them with the pro-Greek (using Skopje, or Fyrom but not as an acronym).

Well I'm intimidated to say out loud what authoritarian actions ("I am cutting the Gordian Knot") plus "ethnic polarization" spells out. Yet against odds I can still assume his good faith. Shadowmorph (talk) 02:58, 24 April 2009 (UTC)

English usage of the word Macedonia

ChrisO's rationale is fallaciously affirming the consequent. In English language the word Macedonia has a long history of use to refer to: the ancient kingdom, the region and the Greek part and since 1992 the country. See Britannica

Britannica

In Britannica , all four Macedonias have the same title (impossible in Wikipedia) "Macedonia", "Macedonia", "Macedonia" and "Macedonia". Furthermore, Britannica student's edition lists three (no subtitles whatsoever): "Macedonia", "Macedonia" and "Macedonia"

Literature

In almost all literature & history books, "Macedonia" is used for the ancient kingdom and the word ancient is not even added in the name (examples:[127],[128],[129], [130], [131], [132], [133]) not "Macedon", not even "Ancient Macedonia" in all the above examples

Internet users

With new legitimate tools we can determine context around internet searches. A Google tool lists "Macedonia" search terms

• In the US[134], in Australia[135], in Canada[136].

Related search terms by popularity	meaning of "macedonia"
1.map macedonia	Macedonia (region)
2.ohio macedonia	Macedonia, Ohio
3.ancient macedonia	Macedonia (ancient kingdom)
4.greece macedonia	Macedonia (Greece)
5.skopje macedonia	Republic of Macedonia
6.macedonia church	a baptist church in US

• See also: "Macedonia" places (represented by cities)[137] by Google (zoom in/out,click update)

• Net usage about antiquity (lang=en)

• Macedonia +ancient -Macedon: 2,270,000
• Macedon +ancient -Macedonia: 184,000

Books & Wikipedia

Another Google tool digs into archives to find the temporal context, i.e. the time period around various citations the word "Macedonia". They show that the Macedonia in antiquity(a big bulk of the citations) and Pre-Balkan wars Macedonia region (spike in 1912) are common uses of "Macedonia". Therefore the non-country citations are more

• "Macedonia" timeline, Wikipedia[138]
• "Macedonia" timeline, Google Books[139]

Official sources

• Usage by neutral official parties suggest F.Y.R.O.M. term (expanded) is more common [140] (verified by Fut.Perf)[141]

Maps

• Usage in online interactive maps: "FYROM" (4): Microsoft[142],Google[143],Multimap[144],Mapquest[145]."Macedonia" (2): Infoplease[146], Yahoo[147]

• Usage in printed maps, however respectable, are inconsistent affected by political decisions
  • University of Texas collection (CIA maps).George Bush 1st term:"F.Y.R.O.M."[148]. George Bush 2nd term:"Macedonia"[149]. In printed maps by major US maps publishers (data by User:Taivo)."Macedonia" (2), National Geographic, Rand McNalley."FYROM" (1+2), Hammond, NATO maps, UN maps. All minor publishers use "Macedonia" (after 2003?)

How Wikipedia treats other conflicts

There is no debate on Luxembourg no name is disputed and no regional conflicts. In all other conflict areas except Azerbaijan the main page is never about a country:

Common name article	what it is about:	countries	provinces of countries
America	disambiguation page	United States of America
Micronesia	greater region	Federated States of Micronesia, other non-federated countries
China	cultural region	Republic of China and People's Republic of China
Taiwan	island (region)	Republic of China	Taiwan Province
Ireland	the island (region)	Republic of Ireland	Northern Ireland
Korea	a formerly unified...	Republic of Korea and Democratic People's Republic of Korea
Central Africa	core region	Central African Republic (similar name)
Nagorno-Karabakh	landlocked region	Nagorno-Karabakh Republic
Abkhazia	disputed region	Republic of Abkhazia redirects to disputed region
Azerbaijan	a country	Republic of Azerbaijan	Azerbaijan (Iran)

Note that Republic of Macedonia is also partially recognized with that name. The above suggest the compromise of making Macedonia (region) main topic at Macedonia and move back Republic of Macedonia to its previous location. Reminder: there is also Macedonia (ancient kingdom)

Response to Taivo's evidence (about Google)

Wikipedia:DAB suggest using Google not say it's broken. My links illustrate possible main topics. I assert there is no main topic Since these are new Google tools, arbitrators can refer to Google help pages Google related searches and News archive search help

Response to Taivo's evidence (about top hat link edits)

My edits were[150][151][152]. Taivo believes my edits like this: "for the the kingdom in ancient Greece see Macedonia (ancient kingdom)" is nationalistic POV pushing. I think it is NPOV because the accurate time period & cultural heritage of the kingdom is ancient Greece. However failing to distinguish Macedonia and Republic of Macedonia as two different things would be wrong[153]. The top dab link gradually became complex only after ChrisO's move[154]...[155]...[156] before becoming too vague[157] Shadowmorph (talk) 17:57, 28 April 2009 (UTC)

The complexity of the hat link only attests the need for having a disambiguation page rather than using a compromised hat link. Shadowmorph ^{^"^} 06:16, 14 May 2009 (UTC)

Response to Taivo's evidence (about Macedonia: the ancient kingdom)

In almost all books "Macedonia" is used not "Macedon", not even "Ancient Macedonia", check the examples in the literature section of my evidence. Also you can check any English-language movie, any English-language documentary, any Encyclopedia uses Macedonia.

The important fact is that the literature used and still uses (as accustomed) "Macedonia" to refer to the ancient kingdom. Macedon is a variant English name but not the accurate one. The use of Macedon is only in specialized situations like for person titles, in "Phillip II of Macedon". Especially prior to 1992 there was not the need to use ancient to disambiguate with a modern independent country or a modern city (like in the cases of (Egypt vs ancient Egypt, Rome vs ancient Rome). Shadowmorph ^{^"^} 06:16, 14 May 2009 (UTC)

Response to PMK1's and Man with one red shoe evidence (about WP:Outing)

What if I said that man with one red shoe is a spy, because of his (movie) nickname? What if I said that PMK1 is in fact a nationalist because of his (irredentist) nickname. With far fetching analysis I could say that ChrisO'Donnel (movie) is a spy(!) He does seem to know a lot about Gazimestan speech[158] and Israel-United States military relations‎[159] and Quneitra[160]. Jesus, who knows about all that? So let's make a list of CIA editors of Wikipedia. Of course not, all the above are totally absurd!

Conspiracy theories aside, this case should not be decided with Ad hominem arguments. I have been personally very sentimental on the issue, I moved my arguments here. In short: we shouldn't make lists of of editors. Any kind.

Response to chandler's evidence

Hypothetically with no Chinese editors: Republic of China would be moved at China (self identification), or Taiwan (common usage). The word American has universal common usage to refer to US citizens, yet it is still a dab page! The fallacy: Referring to the country, "Macedonia" is common, so when we say "Macedonia" it always refers to the country. When evidently: Macedonia ==> ancient kingdom / country / greater region (at least). Oh, and you said no context, doesn't the "...to hold elections" constitute a modern-country context? News & media context is biased to recent events

About the common use about "Macedonia" in antiquity

Search term in "quotes"	results
"empire of Macedonia"	4,270 results [161]
"empire of Macedon"	2,470 [162]
"empire of ancient Macedonia" / "ancient empire of Macedonia"	0 / 5 [163] / [164]
"tomb in Macedonia"	198 results[165]
"tomb in Macedon"	2 [166]
"tomb in ancient Macedonia"	0 [167]
"Aristotle was born in Macedonia"	234 results[168]:
"Aristotle was born in Macedon"	4 [169]
"Aristotle was born in ancient Macedonia"	5[170]

Response to Fut.Perf's evidence (about myself)

Apparently Fut.Perf thinks I'm stupid or illiterate (I did have to look "obtuse" in the dictionary). I stand in support of all that I said in the diffs about me[171]. I see this as a personal attack and I moved my personal answer to the talk page.

Future Perfect also included me, Shadowmorph, a new user, in a "stable core of a handful of editors". I only made 10 edits of NPOV nature in one article (Macedonian language) in 2008[172]; then I resurfaced only in April's Fool 2009[173][174] so I guess I'm a fool. I edited only a mere handful of disambiguation pages when I was caught in the middle of this with ChrisO's moves. ChrisO said in the workshop page: "the only people protesting are all members of a clearly defined ethnic faction". Well since I made the statement of being Macedonian (Greek), I guess he included me just to prove that all Greeks act the same. Of course, I could also be American [175], Bulgarian[176] ore even Finnish(?). Here is me referring to the Greeks in the third person, here[177] and here[178]. Maybe he is suggesting me to change my nickname and from now on be known in Wikipedia only as Shadowmorph the Greek(!) Maybe User:John Carter should do the same :D "We are all Greeks"[179]; too romantic, like this user. Shadowmorph (talk) 11:26, 28 April 2009 (UTC)

Response to Fut.Perf's evidence (about Wikipedia page hits)

demographics of hits

I just wanted to point out to the arbitrators where the hits mentioned by Future Perfect come from. Here is a graph from Google; Google is a major source of organic traffic to Wikipedia. The graph is about the demographics of worldwide searches with the keyword "macedonia" and can be seen here [180]. Note the rise of search term "macedonia wiki"/"macedonia wikipedia" and that the country the hits come from is not English speaking. Is shows bias towards the named country. Most hits come from within the Republic of Macedonia itself, that fact should be reflected upon, regarding Wikipedia page views

I don't see any reason that the demographics for Wikipedia hits would be any different. I think that the English Wikipedia should not be customized to conform with the preferences of readers from any single country but to a wider English-speaking audience. Shadowmorph (talk) 19:53, 29 April 2009 (UTC)

relation of organic traffic and dab page hits

The drop of the dab page hits is exclusively a logical outcome of the disappearance of the dab page as a result in any Google.com search for "Macedonia" (compare this Google.com search with the the unaffected French search. That was because the url where the dab page used to be is now the article about the country. Prior to the move the dab page appeared as a top result and led hundreds of visitors (organic traffic) to the dab page (and when they got there they actually learned things). There is a great deal of hits that originate from Google searches (where the dab page used to appear). e.g. Web Search Volume for term: macedonia wikipedia. Shadowmorph ^{^"^} 22:52, 14 May 2009 (UTC)

Response to Heimstern's evidence (about myself, WP:SPA & Google)

No more biting, please. I might be a single purpose for now but I didn't have the time since I was caught in all this. I have a life you know. Besides I tried to conform with the policy: WP:SPA.

• The California analogy wasn't meant as an emotional appeal, I said so here[181]. It was a good analogy on a relevant issue. I see it as a suitable subject for a discussion, to draw useful insights from analyzing a thought experiment. It was actually NPOV to distance oneself from the actual Balkan dispute and think about the essence of the name policy. Besides Wikipedia editors are no robots.
• Again, using Google is part of policy: WP:PRIMARYTOPIC. See my response to Taivo. It is found as #3 in a very relevant policy piece that ChrisO also used. Only he used #1 & #2 and ignored #3: Google. Besides, like I said to Taivo, I used pieces of statistical data found through Google tools, not only actual searches. If one admin decided to move the Britney Spears to Prittany Spaers (and move-protect it), I would also point him to this piece of data about common usage, also by Google. Sorry, I don't see the wrongdoing in that. Shadowmorph (talk) 16:59, 3 May 2009 (UTC)

Question to J.Delanoy (about hits)

An important question: where are the hits for Macedonia (region)? Macedonia needs at least a quadruple disambiguation of the main () pages, not just three. Also a thorough examination should also include at least Macedonia (Roman province) and Macedonia (theme) maybe even Macedonia, Ohio (common usage in US indicates that Macedonia refers to that city almost all the time). If the hits to all other Macedonias are not taken into account that will just inflate the percentages for the three most common. Also see my response to Future Perfect about the origin of the page-hits (remeber, we are not talking about unique visitors). Oh and what about Macedonia (food) , it has about 500 hits too in that time period. and the other places? Thank you.Shadowmorph ^{^"^} 22:45, 10 May 2009 (UTC)

Macedonia (region) does appear in the lead. Basically what I am saying is that we shouldn't see the current hat note as the only correct hat note. We should check the hits for all the rest too. We should look into the possibility that other ones be included in the hatnote, e.g. Ohio. Anyhow the hits cannot be the sole determining factorShadowmorph ^{^"^} 22:49, 10 May 2009 (UTC)

Evidence presented by Man with one red shoe

Greece and Greeks in general have a specific POV regarding the name of "Macedonia"

It is well known that Greece has opposed the name of "Macedonia" from the beginning, just for the good measure here are two quotes from CIA factbook about Macedonia: "Greece's objection to the new state's use of what it considered a Hellenic name and symbols delayed international recognition", "Greece continues to reject the use of the name Macedonia or Republic of Macedonia". I think this will not be challenged by anybody, but if it is I will bring more references.

As for Greeks it has been claimed in one place that over 90% of the Greeks, and in other place that over 95% of the Greeks are against the name of "Macedonia" for their neighbor. This claim is a self-admission by the side who opposes the name of "Macedonia" and nobody denied this claim. I also don't find far-fetched that Greek patriots (don't even call them "nationalists") align their POV with the POV of their country. I don't think extensive proof is needed since this is not an extraordinary claim, observe how in this very page somebody who is against the name of "Macedonia" (self-admission again) described "nationalist Greek" and "Greek POV" like this:

Greek Nationalist POV: "should not contain the word "Macedonia" or any of its derivatives"
Greek POV: "Republic of Northern Macedonia"

As you can see the self-admitted position is that Greeks in general are against the name of "Macedonia" or "Republic of Macedonia". To be fair I don't know what's that percentage, if it's over 90%, 95%, or 50% of the Greeks who oppose the name of Macedonia, but what seems undeniable is that Greeks in general have a specific POV regarding this issue and they don't seem to deny it, on the contrary they claim that even in this page. Since they claim it themselves here I don't understand the cry of "racism" when somebody simply point out the fact (not to forget that a national POV has absolutely no connection to racism and it can be even well founded, true, wise, etc., but it's still a POV -- I'm not discussing here if Greeks are right or not to oppose the name of Macedonia, that's not my concern per WP:NPOV, I'm just noting the existence of their specific POV). To be clear I don't accuse any editor or anything, I am just establishing a fact about Greece/Greek POV.

Evidence presented by Yannismarou

ChrisO's conduct and the article about the country

On 24 March 2009 ChrisO defended the title "Republic of Macedonia" [182] as: 1) stable since 2003 (or 2002? [183]) as he stated, 2) unambiguous or/and most common in English. He also presented a possible move of the article to "Macedonia" as "not serious" [184]. He then closed a move proposal to FYROM [185], although he has been an involved admnistrator (for the record, he denied he used adm powers [186]).

Less than a month later, ChrisO radically changed his stance, unilaterally moving the country's article [187]. As he asserted, he indeed moved no other article, but he did make extensive unilateral changes in the content of the article [188], in order to stabilize and impose the use of the term "Macedonia"; he then announced the general renaming of other articles as well after a couple of days [189]. Without any prior discussion, he also removed unilaterally the templates at the top of the talk page [190], which were giving instructions not in accord with his move.

ChrisO was ambiguous on the character of his move: he first called it an adm action [191] entailing wheel-warring if reverted [192]. He then called it a "principally editorial action" [193], "giving the impression of wheel-warring" [194]. At the end, he got confused himself [195], [196], and remembered that he is an involved administrator [197]. My personal views with regard to ChrisO's move, and the way the latter should be treated are exposed here [198]; I'll not thus further expand. I think the above evidence supports and reinforces my arguments.

It is not my purpose to target ChrisO, but, by exposing the history of his inconsistencies, one can easily understand that "Republic of Macedonia" was regarded for 6 to 7 years as a)a stable, b)common English and c)unambiguous term. Fut.Perf. characterized RoM as “the simplest disambiguator that is also compatible with the self-identification rule” less than a month before the move he defended took place [199]. ChrisO allowed no dialogue, no alternatives to be discussed ("Macedonia (country)?), and paid no intention to the voices raised even by users generally friendly to his approaches (is the country the primary meaning of the term "Macedonia"?) [200]. After all, it is not everything about hits [201]; there is indeed a terminology that could cause confusions (attested by the relevant bibliography [202]), and a real need for disambiguation that our policies do cover.

"former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia" in the Greece article

The arguments of us who opposed (henceforward "the opposers") the use of the the term "Republic of Macedonia" in the lead of the Greece article are exposed here [203] and here [204]. I'll not comment on the strawpoll, since this has already been by users of all parts extensively. Let me just add that a year ago (same month!) it was FutPerf who argued that there is, of course, no consensus on how to refer to the country in Greece-related articles, but he edited MOSMAC like that: "Republic of Macedonia" or "former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia" can be used (NB – the "f" in "former" should be uncapitalised). If in doubt, leave as is." [205]. I'll soon return to MOSMAC for further analysis.

Conduct in general

There is a huge criticism about the conduct of the "opposers" or some of them. It is not completely unsubstantiated, but it is definitely exagerated. What I'll argue is that there are bias by the "altera pars" as well [206]. ChrisO's habit to label as "nationalist" everybody who disagrees with him is characteristic (some examples:[207], [208], [209]). And when asked to prove that, by MOSMAC2 and by his stance after ChrisO's move, he did not promote his own POV (and possibly also his COI), Fut.Perf. responds like that [210], and when angry like that [211] or even worse like that [212].

MOSMAC in particular

Let's see some inconsistencies about MOSMAC as well. This is how ChrisO started it [213], where he proposed that "The name former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia should be used in articles about international organisations, where the organisation in question uses that name, and in articles about modern Greece, which also uses that name for official business". Seven months (+ a few days) ago (September 2008), ChrisO argued that only a "handful of nationalists" reject MOSMAC (almost consensual then?) [214]. For his part, FutPer characterized MOSMAC "a fragile consensus respected by most of the long-standing contributors here" in official fora [215]. Compare what they said then with what they say now. I'll also add two more links of talk pages discussions about how the country should be mentioned in the context of international organizations, where you'll see consensual solutions beyond MOSMAC: [216], [217].

Response to Fut.Perf's evidence

I strongly condemn such off-canvassing practices (if this is indeed the case). I just point out that the comment in question is presented by the owner of the blog (a reader says bla bla bla). I don't see a link of the initial posting of the excerpt. The "reader" could indeed be a Wikipedia insider or not, a naive or/and nationalist supporter of the Greek POV or somebody who wants to slander Greek users, and present himself as a Greek nationist off-canvasser. I don't know how this could be further investigated, but, if indeed the person in question is a Wikipedia insider, he is a shame for the project.--Yannismarou (talk) 14:31, 24 April 2009 (UTC)

Response to ChrisO's evidence (about persistent vandalism and disruption)

ChrisO is obviously interested in half of the nationalists (the Greeks ones). What about these? [218], [219], [220], [221], [222], [223], [224], [225] [226].

These are just the recent "achievements" of a single POV-pusher ChrisO forgot to mention: [227], [228], [229], and his masterpiece [230].

Response to Heimstern's evidence

I really have a problem with the definition of "single-purpose account" you give. For instance, Shadowmorph is indeed focused on Macedonia-related articles. Is this bad? At least, he has much improved Macedonians (Greeks), and, from this aspect he is acting as a real "editor" (more than 400 main space edits in two months). Do we remember what is this supposed to mean? Well, I do not intend to discredit him/her for that. If he continues like that, I want him in the project! In general, I think Heimseim should re-examine and re-evaluate the evidence he uses against 3 particular users, because it does not serve the purpose he/she uses it for.--Yannismarou (talk) 07:54, 13 May 2009 (UTC)

Evidence presented by Fut.Perf.

Timeline

Timeline of events moved to: User:Future Perfect at Sunrise/ARBMAC timeline.

Stalemate about Greece-related articles

Exception for articles about Greece never had consensus

• Pmanderson [231], [232]
• Fut.Perf.: [233]
• ChrisO: [234]

Exceptions were only tolerated in the face of threats of massive edit-warring from the Greek side

• Avg: [235]
• NikoSilver: [236]
• Kekrops: [237]

Complaints about "outing" and "ethnic profiling" are disingenious

Greek users referring to themselves and other fellow editors by their ethnicity as a matter of course

• Avg: [238] ("you'd offend almost every Greek Wikipedia editor")
• NikoSilver: [239], [240] ("Greek users have learned to deal with that. Asking them [to accept plain "Macedonia"][...] is twisting the knife in the wound.")
• Sysin: [241] ("This way you don't have Greeks making changes to articles about your Republic, you don't go making changes to articles about the Greeks")
• Kekrops: [242], [243]

Disingenious accusations of „outing“

• Kekrops/Avg and others: [244] (see whole thread)
• NikoSilver: [245]

Collective stonewalling

Collective stonewalling has blocked consensus-forming procedures for years. The responsibility lies to a large part with a stable core of a handful of editors specialising on this type of national advocacy, supported on a case-by-case basis by a more volatile group of minor players. Examples of disruptive conduct:

Wikilawyering

• NikoSilver: [246], [247]
• ΚΕΚΡΩΨ (Kekrops): [248], [249], [250], [251]
• Avg: [252]
• Sysin: [253], [254]
• Yannismarou [255]
• GK1973: [256], [257], [258]
• Apcbg: [259]], [260]

Overt appeals to political motivations

• Avg [261]
• Hectorian [262]
• Politis: [263]
• Apcbg: [264]

Inane, obtuse and clueless argumentation

• Avg: [265], [266], [267]
• GK1973: [268], [269]
• Shadowmorph: [270], [271], [272], [273], [274], [275]

Circularity of debate: re-stating the same old arguments time and again

• Example: the "F.Y.R isn't Greece's maximum position, therefore it's not POV" meme
  • Avg: [276], [277], [278], [279], [280], [281], [282]
• Example: the "To use any but the Greek-approved terminology in Greece-related articles would mean misquoting our sources" meme
  • NikoSilver: [283], [284] ("it is simply unsourced to refer to the country by any other name"), [285] (edit summary), [286]

Some editors misconstrue Greece-related articles as their "home turf"

Editors tend to regard Greece-related articles as somehow "Greek territory", where Greek opinions should be given preferential treatment.

• Avg: [287], [288]
• NetProfit [289] ("it's offensive and humiliating for Greeks to see the name used on their own soil")

Edit-warring

• Avg: [290], [291], [292], [293], [294], [295], [296], [297], [298], [299], [300], [301]
• Kekrops: [302], [303], [304], [305], [306], [307], [308], [309], [310], [311], [312], [313], [314], [315], [316], [317], [318], [319], [320], [321], [322]
• NikoSilver: [323], [324], [325], [326], [327], [328], [329], [330]
• Yannismarou: [331], [332], [333], [334], [335], [336],

Individual patterns of behaviour

Disruptive behaviour from Avg

• Aggressive battleground mentality: [337]
• Threatening to keep edit-warring forever if he doesn't get his way: [338], [339]
• Assumptions of bad faith:

[340], [341], [342], [343], [344], [345], [346], [347] (calling opponent's edit vandalism), [348] (insinuating opponent might abuse oversight to get rid of allegedly embarrassing material), [349], [350], [351], [352], [353], [354], [355] (during these proceedings)

Disruptive behaviour from Kekrops

• Legalistic rules-lawyering about policy wording: [356], [357], [358], [359], [360] [361], [362], [363], [364]
• Shifts to ad-hominems whenever he runs out of arguments: [365], [366], [367], [368], [369], [370], [371]

Disruptive behaviour from NikoSilver

• petulant complaints: [372], [373]
• "refusal to get the point" (WP:IDIDNTHEARTHAT): [374], [375], [376], [377], [378]

Disruptive behaviour from Reaper7

Just a run-of-the mill example of the type of constant disruption caused by occasional minor players in the Greek national team.

• battleground attitude, ethnic "we" vs. "them" [379]; assumptions of bad faith / personal attack: [380](*); canvassing: [381], [382]; complaining of ethnic profiling while (falsely) describing opponents as "Fyrom editors" the same moment [383]; accusing opponents of "lying" [384], [385]

(*) Note the xenophobic nationalist subtext in this insult: Reaper is not just asking if I am a Greek (which would evidently make me a national traitor, in his view); he is instead – mistakenly – taking it for granted that I am, but asking if I am an ethnically "pure" Greek, of actual Greek "blood". The reference to "Attica or Viotia" alludes to the Arvanites, insinuating I might have an anti-Greek agenda because I am a member of an ethnic minority.

prior sanctions

• Avg: blocked 72 hrs and topic-banned 2 months under WP:ARBMAC in May 2008 for "disruptive editing: pointless revert-warring and tendentious filibustering", for edits including this
• ΚΕΚΡΩΨ (then Kékrōps) on revert limitation in January 2008 for Macedonian naming-related edit warring, subsequently blocked and limitation extended [386]
• Hectorian: blocked November 2008 for "lame revert-warring plus talkpage tendentiousness, provocative comments and battleground mentality"

Other users turning away in exasperation

Several users have over time turned away from the debate exasperated with the mobility of the Greeks, or have declared the discussion to be fundamentally failing.

• Pmanderson: [387]
• ChrisO: [388]
• Horologium: [389]
• Fut.Perf.: [390]

External lobbying

In addition to the admitted canvassing from SQRT5P1D2 through Usenet, there was also this apparently independent piece of illicit external lobbying, evidently from a long-term insider and involved party here: [391] (my translation) Confirms plain political motivation behind the dispute and intention to use Wikipedia for advocating national interests. Can the culprit please stand up? Fut.Perf. ☼ 17:50, 28 April 2009 (UTC)

Effects of page move on readership

The Macedonia page move has made navigation overall more efficient for the large majority of readers, without negatively affecting accessibility of the other articles.

See WP:MOSMAC2#Page view statistics

Misconduct during these proceedings

Disruptive insinuations from SQRT5P1D2

Misuses workshop page for asking leading questions that insinuate unsubstantiated allegations of wrongdoing by other parties: [392] ("involved parties, currently or in the past affiliated in any way with organizations promoting political agendas"); insistant and repeated re-statement of same insinuations: [393] ("someone works/collaborates or worked/collaborated with X"), [394] ("Nobody should feel threatened, if she/he has nothing to hide"); warned to discontinue: [395], [396]; upholds insinuations without substantiation, refuses to change approach: [397] ("This could refer to anyone")

Disruption of arbitration proceedings by John Carter

Disruptive and persistent pattern of acerbic ad hominems during this case: [398] ("If Taivo ever managed to get that through his skull..."; "almost fawning admiration and dedication to ChrisO"), [399] ("your dear friend ChrisO"), [400] ("Sir, I note that to date you have displayed little if any real knowledge of wikipedia policies"); [401]; [402] ("blissfully ignorant"), [403] ("point to any instance in your own recent history in which you have acted responsibly"), [404] ("just shut up [...] your little rants"), [405] ("that phrase [...] he's so enamored of"), [406] ("paranoia")

Repeated posting of false evidence by John Carter

There is a pattern of John Carter posting misleading, distorted or abusive evidence and, on being requested to amend it, just replacing it with rewordings of the same or new errors.

• 1st version: insulting ad hominems ("almost fawning admiration and dedication to ChrisO"); factually false claim ("rapid response to change the name used for the country to "Macedonia" in several other articles as soon as the page was moved there, which was the proximate cause for the injunction")
• 2nd version, after being requested to amend the first: restating same claims with only marginally milder wording ("relentless effort to defend ChrisO from any sort of criticism from anyone, validly or not", "rapid response [...] in several other articles [...], which was the cause for the request for the additional injunction")
• [407] insults after the second request for amending the evidence
• 3rd version: removing the false factual claims, but again bad faith assumptions against several users ("knee-jerk defense", "can't stop with insults against others, which seems to be at least one of your primary interests here")
• 1st version of evidence about the previous event: gross personal attacks; misrepresenting timing of events ("repetition of that abusive behavior when he didn't get the almost instantaneous response")
• Request by clerk to amend nwe evidence
• 2nd version: still misrepresenting the timing of the events of the day before ("He seemed to believe that I was supposed to change this virtually immediately, and repeatedly posted there to apparently try to bring about a faster response" – in reality each of my postings had been in response either to one of his own repeated re-postings of his claims, or to direct questions posed to me by him on his own page.)

Evidence presented by AndreasJS

Confounding of issues

There are two issues that have to be set apart:

• The name of the country as used in the Greece and other articles, in particular, the use of "Former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia" vs. "Republic of Macedonia". This has led to persistent controversies and edit wars as outlined above by ChrisO.
• The title of the article about the country, in particular the use of "Macedonia" vs. "Republic of Macedonia". This issue did not create any disruption because the page was protected and no-one to my knowledge had asked for unprotecting or change before the recent actions by ChrisO.

Correction: A previous failed proposal for a move is mentioned on this page by Avg at #The Republic of Macedonia article.  Andreas  ^(T) 14:08, 25 April 2009 (UTC)

Arguments pertaining to one issue cannot be used to defend positions regarding the other issue, this would be a Ignoratio elenchi (a "red herring"). For example, the arguments put forward in Evidence by Chris O at #Persistent vandalism and disruption are not relevant for the choice of the title of the country article.

ChrisO abused his administrator privileges

ChrisO used his administrator privilege to

• delete the previous dab page Macedonia (disambiguation)[408]
• move the protected page Macedonia to Republic of Macedonia[409]

Both edits can only be done by an administrator, and the results can only be reverted by an administrator, such that ordinary editors cannot reverse these actions. ChrisO justified his decision by WP:NAME, WP:D and statistics statistical arguments that he researched himself (see: Talk:Macedonia#Article move), but without previous discussion and in contravention of other policies and guidelines:

• Policy WP:NAME#Controversial names: Editors are strongly discouraged from editing for the sole purpose of changing one controversial name to another. [...] An incomplete list of controversial names includes: [...] Former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia vs. Republic of Macedonia vs. Macedonia.
• Guideline: WP:D# Is there a primary topic?: If there is extended discussion about which article truly is the primary topic, that may be a sign that there is in fact no primary topic, and that the disambiguation page should be located at the plain title with no "(disambiguation)".

This issue had been extensively discussed previously and the results were made into an

• essay: WP:MACEDONIA#Naming conventions (country): The name Macedonia (used by itself without modifiers) should not generally be used to refer to the country ... The term Republic of Macedonia, being the self-identifying name, is the established term that Wikipedia generally uses to refer to the country.

Abuse of administrator privileges in order to establish a POV position in a controversial issue is a serious disruption of the functioning of Wikipedia.

• Policy: WP:ADMIN#Misuse of administrative tools: Administrators should not use their tools to advantage, or in a content dispute (or article) where they are a party (or significant editor), or where a significant conflict of interest is likely to exist. With few specific exceptions (like obvious vandalism) where tool use is allowed by any admin, administrators should ensure they are reasonably neutral parties when they use the tools.

ChrisO has to be regarded as a party in this issue because his actions were motivated by his personal judgement about the interpretation of policies and guidelines regarding the title for the article, as evidenced from his extensive explanations of the motives of the name change.

Ethnic affiliation of editors

ChrisO's view of "ethnic polarization" is not only inappropriate, it is also a red herring regarding renaming of the country article. The list presented by him regards only the supporters of the use "former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia" vs. "Republic of Macedonia" on the Greece page. In the recent survey on the requested reversion of move, however, of the 16 supporters or renaming the article "Republic of Macedonia", only 5 have any sign of affiliation with Greece, one with Bulgaria.  Andreas  ^(T) 12:00, 24 April 2009 (UTC)

Evidence presented by Taivo

The Numbers Really Tell Us Nothing

Too much is made of Google hits here. When someone types "Macedonia" into Google, we don't know whether they are looking for airline tickets, the latest news, photos, or a recipe. As everyone who has ever developed a website knows, search engine optimization is the key and that is done with keywords, not with text. There are dozens of ways to fool the search engine "counters" to get your page counted without ever writing a single line of text that says "Macedonia" or anything else. When a person comes to Wikipedia, however, they are looking for information. So the only relevant numbers in this discussion are Wikipedia searches and links. But, when we use Wikipedia searches, the initial search is not as revealing as what happens next. When a person goes to a disambiguation page, where do they go next; what link do they click? That tells us what they were really looking for. When a person's search leads to an article first, what do they do next? Go to the disambiguation page or read the article? None of the numbers cited by either party to this dispute seem to provide a clear answer to those questions. But, then, raw statistics without careful analysis are usually worthless. How can we count the number of people who search for "Macedonia", find the country page, read it, then leave Wikipedia versus those who find the country page and then go to the disambiguation page? Too much weight is being placed on search engine counts and other simple statistical counts based on uncritical number crunching. It's like counting the bills in your wallet to see how much money you have without examining the denominations of the individual bills. The number crunchers would have you believe that twenty $1 bills are worth more than two $100 bills. Numbers based on uncritical internet searches are virtually meaningless.

National Perspective Is a Critical Element in this Failure of Consensus

Much has been made here of "ethnic profiling". To one party it is an evil because it "predicts" behavior based on the nationality of the editor. In this case, the predictive ability of nationality is virtually 100%. There is not a single self-identified Greek in this discussion who is not against "Macedonia" as a label either at Macedonia or at Greece. Indeed, at Greece, there is not a single self-identified Greek who is not against "Republic of Macedonia". There are very few non-Greeks in that same camp. If this were not a nationalistic issue and were a pure policy issue, one would expect some Greeks on the other side of the issue. If this were an issue with little relevance to Greece and Greek identity, one would expect a 50-50 split among the Greek editors as well as an equal split among other editors. However, the fact that this issue has all of the Greek editors on one side and very few non-Greek editors on that same side is convincing proof that this is a nationalistic issue. The nationalistic nature of the Greek side can easily be shown by comments such as this, this, this, this, this, this, this, this, and, just moments ago, this. The easy thing about finding diffs to prove Greek nationalistic intent is that if you need a quote, you need only watch Talk:Macedonia for a short time and one will appear. To illustrate how much Greek POV is being pushed at Macedonia, for example, compare the current version of the simple disambiguation tag line, with what a Greek editor was pushing here, here, and here.

It is also clear that the nationalists are now looking for every opportunity to insult those who oppose them, as this, this, and this clearly illustrate. These insults and rants were written following this post where I agreed that the lower number referenced by another editor seemed a better referenced number and invited him/her to change the figure in the article. (I had forgotten that the article was locked.) This needless attack was based not on any intimidation on my part or even any disagreement with the point that the insulting party was making. It just illustrates the lengths that the Greek nationalists will go to paint their opponents as bad and wrong.

And Greek nationalist vandalism continues. On May 11 we had this at Macedonia naming dispute.

"Macedonia" at Greece is the Real Issue, not "Macedonia" at Macedonia

This arbitration was brought on the basis of ChrisO renaming the article "Republic of Macedonia" to Macedonia. This renaming was simply the most recent step in a process that started with the article in question being named "Former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia" when it was first written. The new name simply reflects demonstrable common English usage. But this is not the real issue, it is just the causus belli. The real issue is at Greece, where the Greek side is consistently refusing to build a consensus on the use of "Republic of Macedonia" in that article. That discussion was going nowhere. With a single exception (Dr. K), no Greek editor has been willing to move one step away from "the former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia". They have used wikilawyering, WP:IDIDNTHEARTHAT, WP:IDONTLIKEIT, red herrings, WP:OTHERSTUFFEXISTS, and other filibustering tactics to keep the discussion from going anywhere (amply cited in Future Perfect's evidence section). Consensus is impossible even though some of the Greek editors claim that as their goal. The present arbitration has actually little to do with Macedonia and everything to do with Greece. Indeed, the editors at Talk:Greece had already agreed to submit this for arbitration before the change of name at Macedonia.

WP:NCON and Self-Identification Lie at the Heart of the Naming Issue

A plain reading of WP:NCON tells me three things. First, the common English name is the most important name to use in Wikipedia. It should be preferred above all other options and should not be denigrated. Second, if the common English name is not available for some reason, then another self-identification is to be used. Third, political, legal, and moral issues are to be ignored when determining what name to use. "Macedonia" is the common English name. This is easily demonstrated by a trip I made to the bookstore last week. There were atlases for sale from about 15 different publishers. Hammond sold four of them and used "F.Y.R.O.M." in all of their atlases. Every single other publisher, including the two major publishers National Geographic and Rand McNally, used only "Macedonia". Future Perfect has also shown statistics from the most popular English-language encyclopedias here. Even the Greek editors admit that "Macedonia" is the most common English name for the country.

However, this dispute began at Greece with trying to change "the former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia" to the Wikipedia-compliant "Republic of Macedonia." The Greek editors claimed that when the most common English name was unavailable, then a common non-self-identification was more appropriate than an alternate, formal self-identification. The discussion went nowhere and the Greeks refused to budge from "FYROM". Only Dr. K was willing to compromise and offered an attempt at consensus-building that I had put forward about a week earlier, but the compromise proposal was voted down. The key is self-identification. The Greek side is unwilling to accept self-identification as a valid foundation on which to select Wikipedia names when the most common name might be unavailable.

Wikipedia Policies Must be Neutral to National Sensitivities

Dchall1 (below) makes an excellent point about Wikipedia policy. It must be entirely neutral to national sensitivities. I am regularly reverting (such as here and here) editors who vandalize Gulf Arabic because they object to the use of the word "Gulf" for Arabic spoken around the "Persian Gulf" or because they want to rename the Persian Gulf as the Arabian Gulf. This, like the Macedonian issue, is, with fewer editors involved, all about a name and the supposed "ownership" of the name by one party. On the flip side, I also revert Eritrean editors who object to having the Tigre and Tigrinya languages classified as part of the "Ethiopian" subbranch of South Semitic. National sensitivies are found throughout Wikipedia and if we allow Wikipedia neutrality to be subverted in one case, then the floodgates are opened for a vast array of mischief, all justified by "you let the Greeks have their way with Macedonia..."

The Disambiguation Argument Is Not Supported by the Article on Ancient Macedon(ia)

The main argument put forward by the Greek nationalist side of the disambiguation issue is that people looking for Macedonia (ancient kingdom) will find Macedonia (the modern country) instead. They fail to recognize that the most common name of the ancient kingdom in the article itself is Macedon, not Macedonia. Thus, the real disambiguation issue between Macedonia and Macedonia (ancient kingdom) is why the article on the ancient kingdom is not named "Macedon". That's the name used in the article itself. Now, it's clear that using Wikipedia as evidence for itself is not a use of reliable sources, but it points out that there are other options for disambiguation besides insisting on a disambiguation page. "Macedon" is used by a segment of the English-speaking population to refer to the ancient kingdom. Obviously, it was the normal term used by the editor who originally crafted the Macedonia (ancient kingdom) article. It is also quite clear that no one has bothered to change it until this arbitration began and the name of the article became an issue. Indeed, the name of the article was "Macedon" until the 14th of April, just a few days before this arbitration began. Until that time, there was no disambiguation problem.

Off-Wiki Communication

An insulting email sent to me by John Carter has been forwarded to the committee.

Response to John Carter

The fundamental problem here is not the behavior of ChrisO. That is just secondary and was simply the reason why this arbitration was launched three days early. John Carter keeps insisting that this arbitration cannot be about content and is frustrated because I disagree with him. It would be nice if this arbitration were simple as the participants who only want to focus on behavior would like it to be. But if the Arbitration Committee only focuses on the behavior of ChrisO, then this issue will be back in arbitration in mere days because the real issue is the interpretation of WP:NAME, WP:NCON, and WP:MOSMAC2 relative to Greece. That is the root issue that this arbitration is really about. And the interpretation of those policies relative to the naming of Macedonia at both Greece and Macedonia will be about content because they are either/or decisions. If the policies are interpreted in X manner, then the answer is "Macedonia" at Macedonia and "Republic of Macedonia" at Greece. If the policies are interpreted in Y manner, then the answer is "former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia" at Greece. Years of wrangling over the names have led to this arbitration and not the actions of ChrisO on a Good Friday before Orthodox Easter. The background to this arbitration is at Talk:Greece and not at Talk:Macedonia. There is no consensus on the name issue possible. We have come to the Arbitration Committee to break the deadlock by making an unambiguous statement of policy, which will invariably lead to concrete decisions over the names. Perhaps it is not literally content, but it is policy that will directly lead to content. There's not a lot of difference between the two. Indeed, John Carter's primary "evidence" against me seems to be that I overuse the phrase "red herring" when I see that a party to this arbitration focuses entirely on the behavior issue and ignores the fundamental policy issue that lies at the root of this arbitration, or that I'm not an accomplished wikilawyer in carefully parsing the difference between a policy and a guideline. I care about the users of Wikipedia, I don't care about the wikilawyering or the placement of a period or comma or what the meaning of "should" is in a policy statement. The only question of relevance in this arbitration is "How can we make Wikipedia more responsive to the majority of users?" When I see a nationalistic bloc of editors wanting to force the majority of Wikipedia users to go through a needless disambiguation page just so that they can see that there is a Macedonia, Georgia and a Macedonia salad before they get where they're going at Macedonia (the country) I see that Wikipedia needs a strong, clearly worded policy that prevents the disruption. I am not the disrupter, the nationalistic bloc that believes in its heart that Greece is being wronged by calling Macedonia "Macedonia" is, and has been, the true disruption to Wikipedia.

Evidence presented by Alfadog777

EDIT WARS

Great men from the ancient times until today, have said that power is highly corruptive. Nothing could be more to the point in this case. When, on 10 April, I saw the national animals of Former Yugoslav RoM (for me, for others it's just RoM, and I respect that)under the template "Macedonia", I thought it was a mistake and changed it to FYROM, and of course I made a note in the discussion page of the article "List of national animals". It was reverted without a post in the discussion page, and I changed it back twice, after calling anyone having a different opinion to post there on 23 April. The answer was threats of blocking me on grounds of vandalism by the administrator ChrisO.Please see for yourselves,[410],[411],[412],[413]. I believe such an answer wasn't appropriate, at least in this case. It is clear that ChrisO is heavily biased on this naming issue and uses his privileges as an administrator to intimidate and enforce his personal opinion. Please note that the name of the template had been changed to "Macedonia" before the name change on the article "Republic of Macedonia", from what I know. If this is the case, it shows preplanned action on behalf of ChrisO, and thus, loss of good faith on his part.

All this may seem as unimportant, and I would agree, if they didn't highlight the loss of objective judgment and good faith, a founding stone for Wikipedia, of an otherwise respected admin with many contributions, many more than myself, among which, the guideline on naming disputes. I guess Irony goes hand by hand with Arrogance. As for the accusations above, regarding the Greek side building walls, I think visiting this user page is answer enough, for you will find a barn star medal, awarded for "defending the Macedonian colours."[414]. I took the liberty of adding this reference because it is the same user who employed ethnic profiling so easily, a practice I am firmly against. I refrain to something much simpler (and completely different), just entering his profile. There are more such medals in profiles, ironic because the same users speaking of Greek biased POV proudly feature such medals in their profiles, advertising their pro FYROM (or RoM) POV. This proves which side is building walls within Wikipedia and behaves based on their biased judgement. Regards, Alfadog777

Evidence presented by PMK1

About User Profiling

My comments are in regards to all Ethnic/Linguistic/Religious profiling or "outing" as someone suggested. Although this practise has been deemed by many as offensive and as an "invasion of privacy", people must realise that most of the information was simply gathered by accesing user pages of the individuals. If a user chooses to post information regarding his/her religion, ethnic background, heritage, languages spoken, political veiws, strong personal opinions, hobbies, interest and allergies etc. and does not want that information to be revealed to the Wiki-wide community, then they should not post personal information on their user pages. It is simple. Userboxes are voluntary and upto the perogative of the individuals. However if users were against the practise of ethnic profiling they should have taken the lead of User:Dr.K., who pulled out of the vote after his ethnicity was "exposed".

For the most part however ethnic profiling is a superificial and judgemental way to asses users and their possible opinions towards an issue. The use of ethnic profiling in this case [415] however was done to prove claims of a "Walled Garden" existing in Wikipedia. Is it coincidence that a common point of view was felt/asserted by users belonging to or having connections with Greece and the Greek ethnicity?

Walled Gardens

There have been many claims about a Walled Garden existing in relation to Greece related articles; especially in regards to the way that "(The Republic of) Macedonia" is mentioned. This itself led to much discussion and a number of straw polls [416] [417]. (These actions, as we know, led to this Arbitration.) The walled garden surrounding Greece related articles should be broken up as it is clearly in a conflict of interest with the progression of Wikipedia. The controversial use of ethnic profiling was the easiest way of confirming the existence of a walled garden, which is ethnically based, to contributors who were sceptical of its existence.

Chris O method/result

Method

Although many users were shocked by ChrisO's actions especially when it coincided with this. Here [418] he claimed this to be in line with Wikipedia policy and on naming policy and primary topics. This was later backed up by a long discussion in regards to his reasons, Talk:Macedonia#Article Move. The main points for the move were:

• "Macedonia" is the common form of the formal self-identifying name "Republic of Macedonia".
• "Macedonia" is overwhelmingly the predominant term for the country in English-language encyclopedias, dictionaries and everyday usage by the media.
• The primary topic for the term "Macedonia", as determined by the number of web hits and incoming links, is the article on the country of that name.

His comments are still relevant. Macedonia is still the common name for the Republic in the English Speaking World. This after all is the English Wikipedia.

Although the method can be considered irregular and the timing could have been better (there were calls for major action to be postponed until the 22nd); it is not reason for him to be "desysopped" as was proposed here. By proceeding with the change at that particular time, he did annoy many people, but we dont have a WP:ANNOY. He used his administrator privlidge in the way which he thought the project would benefit.

As claimed below [419] ChrisO planned the move for a while. There is nothing wrong with this and constructive users often plan actions before proceeding.

Results

We all know that Republic of Macedonia became Macedonia.

Apparent "stability" is not a reason for stagnancy

The apparent stability which existed at the page is not a reason for its reversion. This stability was based on a consensus dating from 2007 which had clearly been rejected by 2008. A new WP:CONSENSUS had been formed which was against the apparent stability. Many users had given up on this issue [420] [421] [422] [423] becuase of the fierce opposition which one side was able to sustain until now. This can be attributed to the reason why the page was not moved. As for the general Wikipedia wide mind-of-thought the majority of users were in support of Chris O's actions [424]. These comments can be viewed here [425].

Response to Avg and MOSMAC

The first thing anyone sees when clicking on WP:MOSMAC is;

{{essay}}

This does not mean that MOSMAC was ever a Wikipedia policy. The points established in MOSMAC are clearly guidelines They were based on a fragile compromise which was attained in 2007, which clearly failed to gain consensus. It is clear that the situation has changed since then and MOSMAC is clearly in need of reveiw. A Second MOSMAC is available here. Whether or not that will gain consensus is another story.

For your apparent disdain for ethnic profiling [426], you have faciliatated it well in your response. The requests not made by ethnically Macedonian users is irrelevant here. The users should be treated here without prejudice and without any explicit reference to their ethnicity. You can hardly blame any users, regardles of ethnic background, for not making a request to change it. The amount of Wiki-lawyering, fili-bustering, rhetoric, mindless conversations is enough to turn anyone off editing. Look what happened when it was sugessted that the words "former yugoslav" be removed from ONE page. [427]

Reference to the "Banana Republic" this argument falls outside the scope of this arbitration. The references are clearly in relation to recent legislation passed in the Bulgarina government outlawing "un-constitutional" transliteration. I propose that you remove that section of your argument. 04:55, 29 April 2009 (UTC)

• more to come'

Evidence presented by Avg

The first WP:ARBMAC

Fut.Perf., when filing the case about Macedonia articles and editors in general, asserted that it is Greeks who "get away with murder"[428] and ChrisO immediately followed-up by narrowing the scope of the case to "Greek nationalists" [429]. Their clear goal was to get the arbs to issue bans, mainly to Greek editors.

The arbitration did not go the way they would prefer. There was no FoF that any specific side caused any particular disruption. There was no particular sanction to any of the parties. The only FoF was that the remedies will relate to a wider area of conflict[430] (incidentally including Kosovo, another area where ChrisO operates in a disruptive way [431]). The arbitrators laid out three main principles: Purpose of Wikipedia, Decorum and Editorial Process) and gave to uninvolved administrators the right to impose discretionary sanctions if these principles were not adhered to. Additionally, the Committee denied to comment on the content issue and urged the involved parties to seek consensus. ChrisO's own comment there was "compromises are untidy, but necessary", endorsing WP:MOSMAC as it stood back then.

Engaging in ARBMAC blocks and bans while heavily involved

Initially, Fut.Perf. and ChrisO, two heavily involved administrators, took the task of imposing the discretionary sanctions themselves. This can be easily verified by the block log, where a very large percentage of the sanctions come from those two persons. Additionally, Fut.Perf. very often referred blocks to User:Moreschi and suggested the exact penalties, which were followed almost verbatim. In the following diff he admits this role and he also admits he is a "heavily involved" editor:[432].

Although some of the blocks these two admins did may have been justified, the issue here is the violation of the ARBMAC mandate plus the assumption by a couple of heavily biased editors of the role of police (and its implied neutrality) at the Macedonia-related topics. This created a chilling effect to opposing parties.

Undermining MOSMAC and the consensus process

The second step these two editors took is to slowly but steadily undermine WP:MOSMAC. At his very first edit (May 2007), where normally he would put his own proposal for evaluation by the community, ChrisO writes:The name former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia should be used in articles about international organisations and in articles about modern Greece[433].

Here is the MOSMAC version that was online on 22 November 2007 [434], the date ChrisO gave his endorsement in ARBMAC. No change at all for the last 6 months, except articles about Greece, where ChrisO's guidance to use fYRoM was changed to "no consensus". And Fut.Perf. hiself had noted that it should be better to leave those articles "as is" [435]. So for 6 months, the alleged "Greek nationalists" did not change a iota in the guidance that ChrisO had written. MOSMAC had gained consensus among the community and it was a fact that very few revert wars (if any) occurred about article names at that period.

The first debate in MOSMAC came in February 2008, when the issue of renaming the templates from ROM to M came up[436] and provoked a long discussion in the talk page[437]. This, obviously, was again a deviation from the status quo towards the other side of the dispute.

I note here that ethnic Macedonian editors have never initiated a request to modify any aspect of MOSMAC. In fact, here is what one of the most vocal ethnic Macedonians said in the MOSMAC [438].

ChrisO then proceeded to actually abuse his admin powers and renamed the text in a protected template from Republic of Macedonia to Macedonia. He mislabelled the change "per MOSMAC"[439] while there was still discussion on the page. His assertion was that Macedonia may be used in templates solely in very special cases of saving space and reluctantly the community agreed.

When User:ΚΕΚΡΩΨ consequently started reverting "per MOSMAC" some articles about international organisations, he was put on revert parole, which was extended later, while ChrisO was unharmed. See the perfect collaboration from Fut.Perf. and ChrisO in WP:AE here:[440]. In the note from Moreschi to ΚΕΚΡΩΨ about the AE sanctions, Fut.Perf. clearly casts his first doubt about MOSMAC[441].

From then on, Fut.Perf. and ChrisO would use WP:MOSMAC at will, supporting it when it suited their POV, and opposing it when the "other side" used it. This reached ludicrous levels, when Fut.Perf. virtually criticised ChrisO that he created POV islands [442] and ChrisO started arguing against himself, since I repeat that not a single iota has ever been added or removed by a Greek editor in the way the country should be named in any article[443].

Later, the MKD template (that was supposed to be used only in very special cases) was found to be abused in order to bypass the RoM standard naming. When complaints were raised about the abuse[444], MOSMAC started outrightly being labeled "rejected" [445] and finally ChrisO made it an "essay"[446]. The change in the guideline between when everybody agreed it was ok and when one side decided to reject it and proclaim it dead? None. It was purely a WP:IDONTLIKEIT/WP:OWN decision.

The WP:NCON guideline

While I applaud ChrisO's effort to expand this guideline, I can't fail but see the example he used [447] is a photographic description of the Macedonia naming dispute, seen from his own POV. I note here that he has been involved in Macedonia articles almost since he has joined Wikipedia (this from January 2004 [448]), so it is evident he had already a strong POV back then.

My own opinion about the statement that Wikipedia describes and doesn't prescribe is here. Albeit my disagreement to NCON, I still adhered to it out of respect to the community. Then I saw this, an edit mislabeled "tweak for consistency" which basically shifts the weight from officiality to self-identification, directly discrediting the "fYRoM" name, which is official but not preferred by the state itself. Note that this edit came at the same time as the debate about templates in MOSMAC.

The Republic of Macedonia article

The Republic of Macedonia article title was stable from August 2002[449]. Only User:Ed Poor (not a "Greek nationalist") has ever tried to change it to fYRoM back in 2003[450] and he was reverted within 4 hours[451]. A proposal for a move to Macedonia in April 2006[452] has ended with overwhelming support that the article should stay where it was.

At that time, a poll had even determined exactly what will be the phrasing in the intro paragraph [453]. Both ChrisO and Fut.Perf. were part of this poll and none of them supported any move or even a different phrasing, giving prominence to "Macedonia" over "Republic of Macedonia".

In March 2008, ChrisO himself put in the talk page these two banners [454]. Please have also a look at the banners, not only the diff, they cause a very strong effect to everybody who looks at them. They certainly invoke a very clear message, regarding both the ROM article title and the consensus process to be followed.

(tbc)

Response to ChrisO's evidence (Timing)

ChrisO is either lying or has accidentally disclosed a secret collaboration between him and Fut.Perf.

The move could not be prompted by Fut.Perf.'s draft, because the move was done on 19:20, 16 April 2009 UTC, while the draft was first published on 09:39, 17 April 2009 UTC.

So either he just lied and made this up, or he had indeed knowledge of Fut.Perf.'s draft before the move, therefore they had been secretly collaborating about moving the page to Macedonia. ChrisO, which of those two is the case?

Response to BalkanFever evidence

That's a very good diff in many ways. I should have used it first. Please read the discussion from the beginning. You know, both ΚΕΚΡΩΨ (as far as I understand of course) and I, are part of the Greek Macedonian diaspora. We were suddenly told by PManderson that there is no Greek Macedonian diaspora since there can only be one Macedonian diaspora, the Slavic one. So basically we do not exist. And this is very much relevant to the whole discussion about disambiguation and monopolisation of the name by, well, you. This is the level of absurdity we were asked to agree to.

So here's what started this talk. I moved Macedonian diaspora to Ethnic Macedonian diaspora per MOSMAC[455], which directly mentions that "Macedonian" alone should not be used[456] (in fact now that I see it again I should have used "Slav Macedonian diaspora", so in fact I was too lenient) and take it to the talk page[457]. I then get reverted by Fut.Perf. [458] because supposedly it is not ambiguous. The discussion continues [459] and links are provided by ΚΕΚΡΩΨ[460] from five large associations who call themselves Macedonian diaspora associations, have thousands of members and their members are Greeks. I guess apart from the obvious disambiguation issue, all those beautiful guidelines about self-identification, common English name etc, just do not apply to everybody.

Fut.Perf. severe disruption of Wikipedia

Trying to get his opponents banned (including me) is part of Fut.Perf.'s disruptive behaviour. The disruption has lately reached a peak. Only in the last month he has been the subject of 3 AN/Is[461],[462],[463] and one 3RR[464], has been put on 1RR under WP:ARBMAC[465] and has a formal warning on abusing his admin tools[466].

A list of his violations follow. All the diffs are from the very last month:

Civility violations

"Fuck off idiot"[467] "Reign in your narcissistic urge"[468] "Free Yunanistan"[469] concrete wall of bull[470] i'm so fucking sick of you all stupid idiotic lot of people.That includes just about every single person editing these topics[471] "are you playing dumb"[472] and afterwards "i don't know if you're indeed just playing dumb"[473] "what the fuck have you been smoking"[474] "plain idiotic"[475] "person added to list of people whose opinion I'm not interested in"[476] "too dumb to respond to"[477] "how stupid can it get"[478] fuck off wanker (in Greek)[479]

Threats

Anonymous "reminder" that his opposers might get blocked [480] "He should be banned long ago"[481] take this person off our backs[482] "Can somebody please topic-ban this person now?"[483],"Hopefully banned one day"[484] "Somebody seriously needs to topic-ban Avg"(+incivility)[485]+refusal to apologize[486]

Intimidation

Singling out a user[487] intimidation of a newcomer "clueless"[488] intimidation of editorial skills "hopeless case"[489] intimidation of editorial skills "if you can"[490] trying to intimidate and discredit an opposing editor to the Arbitrators[491] and when warned in his talk page this is his response[492] asking clerk to remove evidence of Shadowmorph[493] "shut up" to a user who made a proposal in arbcom[494]

Collective insults to an ethnic group

Greeks:"Confusion only in the imagination of Greek editors"[495],"obsession"[496],"get off it"[497],"collecticely obsessed"[498],"tyrannic rule/hypocritical shit"[499] "faction of tag-team revert warriors"[500],"national faction of POV pushers"[501]

Bulgarians:Calling Bulgaria a "banana republic"[502] and again[503] and again[504] and again "report me"[505] and again[506] challenging again to be reported[507] and more irony[508] and again[509] and here blaming the other person![510]

Large scale disruption of Wikipedia

After arbitrarily proclaiming that there is a new consensus, he started reverting all Greek and international organisations articles were "FYROM" was stable for years.

[511] [512] [513] [514] [515] [516] [517] [518] [519] [520] [521] [522] [523] [524] [525] [526] [527] [528] [529] [530] [531] [532] [533] [534] [535] [536] [537] [538] [539] [540] [541] [542] [543] [544] [545] [546] [547] [548] [549] [550] [551] [552] [553] [554] [555] [556] [557] [558] [559] [560] [561] [562] [563] [564]

He has asserted he will continue disrupting and revert warring "until one gets banned". Not once, but three times [565], [566],[567]. And he explicitly said "you will need to take me to ArbCom if you want to stop me"[568].

Even more disruptive behaviour

He undermined the FA status of Macedonia (terminology) by putting it to FAR[569] and edit warred over the word "confusion"[570],[571],[572],[573]. The reason is that in the naming dispute he's trying to prove that there is no confusion with other places and "Macedonia" is not ambiguous hence a good title for the country article.

He created a sockpuppet named Former Abbreviated Username of Future Perfect at Sunrise (talk · contribs) with the disruptive purpose to discredit the FYROM reference on the eve of this very arbitration, directly violating WP:SOCK and WP:POINT.

He admitted knowledge of ChrisO's move here [574]. After this admission, his comment here[575] should be seen as a deliberate effort to deceive the community. His reaction, when the above events were brought to light by ChrisO's error, was to once again to resort to intimidation and threats[576], even on uninvolved users talk pages[577].

He has also solicited other persons in off-wiki discussions about the subject[578].

Addendum: RfC

To further understand the behavioral issues regarding this user, it might be beneficial for arbitrators to have a look at his user conduct RfC[579] that was closed only some months ago and especially his arrogant stance towards the community input ("I mean, does anybody seriously expect I'm still reading it?" - emphasis not mine)[580] and the way he edit-warred [581] over the closing conclusion of a third-party administrator that pointed to issues regarding his civility[582].

Contempt for the Arbitration and the Arbitrators

Even during this very Arbitration, Fut.Perf. showed utter contempt for the process and for authority. He removed official warnings, by simultaneously discrediting an ArbCom Clerk's opinion as "spurious" and "unsubstantiated"[583], disclosed a personal conversation with an Arb without his permission[584], blamed the case Clerk as doing a bad job[585], claimed the Arbs have "poor reading comprehension"[586] and has been very uncivil to the Arbs[587], [588].

Response to Heimstern

This is a bit odd, because if someone actually reads the diffs he's posting as evidence regarding me, there is nothing problematic at all. Let me go through them one by one: At the first diff[589], Taivo is biting Reaper7 and favors ROM over FYROM as "self-identification" versus "imposed by outsiders". However the discussion was about FYROM being more common than ROM (which is the case). Frequency of usage is more important for Wikipedia than self-identification (e.g. what other than Greece, where the self-identification is Hellas). At the second diff[590], there is no "bad faith assumption" anywhere, I just describe what had already happened (Fut.Perf.'s behavior). And of course I have put enough evidence in the section just above this one to back it up. At the third diff[591], again there is no "bad-faith" assumption, since I do not accuse anybody for anything. What I do is that I say to Taivo that when something closes as "no consensus" he cannot claim that there was consensus (which he was doing). The fourth diff[592] is really the oddest. I'm accused of "rules-lawyering", when I simply state the common knowledge that status quo has prevalence over other decisions when there is no consensus. What could possibly be wrong with that? Regarding the apology motion, Fut.Perf. accused me of something I did not do and moreover I strongly disapprove. I asked for his apology twice and got back insults and irony. I really don't know any other way to clean my name. If there is, I will withdraw the motion immediately.

Evidence presented by BalkanFever

In response to some of the claims by Avg above

First, when Avg talks about "renaming" templates, it seems he doesn't mean moving the title, he means changing the wording of the link (but not the link itself) in the templates i.e. changing [[Republic of Macedonia]] to [[Republic of Macedonia|Macedonia]]. I also think he has misinterpreted (or is trying to insinuate something different to) what I said at MOSMAC talk: [593]. That comment was me agreeing with Fut. Perf., that we (Wikipedia) should be able to call the country "Macedonia" (piped to its article location, which was Republic of Macedonia at the time) when it is clear what it means - i.e. in templates listing only countries. Basically, following simplicity and common English usage. Only Greek users opposed this (see Wikipedia talk:Manual of Style (Macedonia-related articles)#Where is the consensus?). Also, MOSMAC was proclaimed "rejected" by Pmanderson [594] and Jd2718 [595] because the only people who disagreed with simplicity (i.e. no disambiguation unless there actually is ambiguity) and being in line with common English usage by the end of it were Avg and Kekrops, both Greek users (see the last few sections from this diff: [596]). Everybody else was in agreement, just not some Greek users. Sound familiar? It's because nationally motivated editing and stonewalling the progress of discussion has been around a long time, even with the same individuals.

Evidence presented by Dimorsitanos

Third parties losing their reliability to a part of the community may have disruptive results

ChrisO had been self-proclaimed [597] or regarded by a large part of the community related to such articles as an objective third eye, called many times to intercede [598] when edit wars took place [599] and taking the lead to make MOSMAC [600] guidelines alongside his friend Future Perfect [601] in order for a commonly used terminology to apply, and to get this war over. His last action was in contrast to his own terminology and philosophy of mediation, regardless his motives or timing, accompanied by offensive remarks for the Christians celebrating Easter when he made his move [602] or the editors' ethnical filing [603] [604] [605] and IP espionage [606], followed by Future Perfect's proposal for banning every Greek editor with the IPs gathered by his friend [607] (up to now we knew that Wikipedia was not an experiment to democracy but we were not told it was an experiment to fascism). Such methods applied by a prior to this so called reliable party may cause disruption to Wikipedia, as we already lose our time trying to gather background information when we could use our time lost in here to improve an article in Wikipedia. His changing the modern state's name to Macedonia will most certainly urge many editors to change this term at each and every Macedonia related article, causing confusion to the reader whether it refers to fYROM or Northern Greece or something else, resulting into multiple edit wars. I don't understand Future Perfect's argument of supporting ChrisO's action by snooping around the Greek media or blogs in order to defend ChrisO's action. Firstly, I wasn't aware of the fact that Wikipedia was cut off from the wider internet community or that it imposes omerta. The fact that his friend made such a move during the holidays wouldn't mean that the Greek media or the media of fYROM would not react and seal their mouth. And I do not understand how Future Perfect perceives the method of undermining the Greek editors in general helps ChrisO's action seem right. That's something that needs further explaining. I also do not understand the ease with which they both characterize each and every Greek or pro-Greek thesis member or every person that disagrees with their editing habbits as nationalists or ethnic cleansing maniacs by definition.

ChrisO damaged the public's view on the Wikipedia project and the administrators' role within it

ChrisO's action divided the community into groups, lobbies and fronts instead of bringing them together like what an administrator would do, as one side had made a step backwards by accepting the name Republic of Macedonia instead of former Republic of Macedonia used in Greece and UN, while the other side had made a step by using the name Republic of Macedonia instead o simply Macedonia, a pactise commonly used in other similar cases of confusion like People's Republic of China instead of simply China. ChrisO obviously ignores the WP principles when characterizing the moving of such a controversial article as a BOLD editorial moveve [608]. In general ChrisO gave the administrators a bad name as he acted without previous discussion on such a significant edit move and drew questioning about Wikipedia's motives to the media community in general, as this case indicates a role of interventionism, rather than recording facts and history. As far as I know the matter is pending on resolution between the two states and the international community and yet a solution recognizing this state's official name as "Macedonia" seems to be far from happening. After 5 years of painful conversations and editing that had reached a point of relative stability, his unexplainable act creates a feeling of ownership to the pro-fYROM side regarding all the Macedonia related articles, something that is disruptive for Wikipedia. This side has already started gathering evidence in favor of ChrisO not because they think he is objective, but simply because they feel he promotes their political point of view. This may be harmful at the edit wars [609] that are ahead of us, each time a new reader feels offended when directed to fYROM by typing Macedonia. As Future Pefect says ChrisO's move was an exasperation for a case normal procedure would not get it anywhere[610]. Well, we would prefer temperate administrators who follow the procedures to get involved in these matters now, wouldn't we? Imagine each administrator justifying his action of moving articles here and there because it just feels right at that point. Neither ChrisO nor his friends may ever be deemed as a third party anymore[611]. These people got too involved and his action should be reverted eventually and start the discussion from tabula rasa, having other parties to re-evaluate the MOSMAC guidelines.

And why not just ban Chandler instead, revert the article to its previous name and save us the trouble while keeping the sandwich to ourselves?

Response to Septentrionalis

Actually, I think Canada does not border with New Jersey. New Jersey is southern of New York... Additionally, the one is a region and the other a city, they are not both geographical regions..... However, Macedonia region in the state of "Republic of Macedonia" and the Macedonia region in Northern Greece are both geographical regions close to each other and easily confused. That's what the "Republic" was aiming at clearing out in the first place.--Dimorsitanos (talk) 14:58, 28 April 2009 (UTC)

Evidence presented by John Carter

ChrisO has acted apparently against policy and guidelines

On April 14, at 23:16 ChrisO deleted the page Macedonia (disambiguation). In his edit summary for that move, he states, quoting directly, "Deleted to make way for move (CSD G6)". as a CSD6, or a noncontroversial deletion. It should be noted that there had been no tag placed on the article previously, rendering this action which took place without any sort of discussion a rather dubious one. At 23:36, he dismisses a change to the Macedonia article name to Macedonia (disambiguation) as per here, making no reference to the deletion of the page which, up until his deletion of it only 20 minutes earlier, had been at that location. He later states that the move of Republic of Macedonia to Macedonia is "required" as per policy, although he had given no real indication that this requirement existed prior to then. He has throughout these actions displayed an autocratic, self-righteous, and almost dictatorial attitude, not only not seeking input but actively trying to prevent it and attempting to quell any discussion of his dubiously justifiable actions thereafter with threats that doing so could be seen as a violation of policy.

Future Perfect at Sunrise has engaged in uncivil and inappropriate behavior

Please see the discussion at Wikipedia:Administrators' noticeboard/IncidentArchive531#"Involved" block for review, Future Perfect at Sunrise has engaged in conduct which qualifies as incivil as per Wikipedia:Civility "Incivility consists of personal attacks, rudeness, and aggressive behaviours that disrupt the project and lead to unproductive stress and conflict" when he told someone he was blocking "fuck off, you wanker". Granted, he states that he meant "Go to hell", which is, if anything, only marginally better. The fact that later in the thread he defends his actions as acceptable by civility is a cause for concern. The fact that he was willing to make such a statement without a clear understanding of what it was he was saying is an even bigger cause for concern. John Carter (talk) 13:37, 28 April 2009 (UTC)

Addendum: I note that I recently added a proposed decision regarding the conduct of Future Perfect. In the original draft of the statement, I made some errors of fact, and was notified of them by Future Perfect on my talk page, with such terms as "b.s.", "lies", etc. He seemed to believe that I was supposed to change this virtually immediately, and repeatedly posted there to apparently try to bring about a faster response. The discussion can be found here [[612]], where I removed the thread. After this discussion, and the other comments made by Future Perfect here and elsewhere, I have to admit that I am myself no longer capable of seeing that person in even a neutral light, and at this point I personally hope to have no future contact with him if at all possible. John Carter (talk) 14:34, 13 May 2009 (UTC)

Response to ChrisO regarding policy rationale

ChrisO has repeatedly cited policy as the reason for his dubiously acceptable move of the article. It should be noted that his policy rationale is in fact seriously questioned by several other parties familiar with policy as being simply a new interpretation of policy. That would seem to change the nature of ChrisO's actions from being based on policy to being based on one individual's apparently original and not yet confirmed POV regarding policy, or, ultimately, just a move by an administrator using administrator tools to further his own opinions. John Carter (talk) 17:17, 26 April 2009 (UTC)

ChrisO had planned the page move in advance

As per Wikipedia talk:Requests for arbitration/Macedonia 2/Evidence#Note (2), it is clear that ChrisO had intended this move, and even chose to notify at least one party with whom he has most regularly agreed with on this issue ("Chris first mentioned to me that he was playing with the idea of the Macedonia page move about a day before the event. I did not at that time encourage him to go ahead with it."), although he gave no other parties any indication of this intention before the move was taken. This would seem to clearly violated WP:CONSENSUS, considering he had the opportunity to see if there was any agreement on the move he was anticipating making, but chose for whatever reason not to do so. John Carter (talk) 18:40, 26 April 2009 (UTC)

Response to Avg's evidence regarding the sockpuppet of Future Perfect at Sunrise

I sincerely doubt that the above comments about a sockpuppet would have had the slightest chance of tricking anybody. On that basis, I think saying that Future Perfect violated sockpuppetry rules, when it was clear to everybody that the sockpuppet and the master were the same person, is probably stretching the sockpuppetry policies to the limit. Oh, yeah, and, as I'm sure most of the people who saw that comment realized, he ain't the only one who's used a sock here. I'm hoping everybody figured out that Carthoris of Helium is the name of John Carter's son, right? John Carter (talk) 22:31, 30 April 2009 (UTC)

Future Perfect at Sunrise's aggressive battleground mentality

It should be noted that Future Perfect at Sunrise has already been advised that he could face blocking for himself displaying the same sort of "aggressive battleground mentality" he ascribes to others. John Carter (talk) 00:00, 2 May 2009 (UTC)

Disruptive behavior of Taivo

Taivo has repeatedly on these pages referred to attempts by others to actually address some of the conduct issues, which are the essence of what arbitration can deal with, "red herrings". I believe I counted a total of 10 such occurrences. In so doing, he is seemingly saying that these others, who are attempting to deal with some of the issues which ArbCom actually is authorized to deal with, are trying to derail the arbitration from the matter of naming. This is more than a bit strange, as actually the arbitration is supposed to deal with conduct, rather than content, although he seems to believe, for whatever reason, otherwise. He has also denigrated others for stating (correctly) that there actually is a difference between a policy and a guideline in wikipedia here and called a simple statement that policies supercede guidelines "wikilawyering". Later, he seems to at least implicitly imply that one might be better off not knowing policies and guidelines by referring to himself as "blissfully unaware" of them here. In all of these matters, he seems to place his opinion, which is, so far as I can tell, based solely on his opinion, as being more important than the policies and guidelines of wikipedia. Such behavior is I believe inherently disruptive. John Carter (talk) 16:43, 16 May 2009 (UTC)

Question for User:J.delanoy

Good information, but one question. Any idea about the relative number of hits for Macedonia (Greece)? According to this page, it shows 3060 hits so far in May, which would raise the total to 14,296 page views, giving Macedonia only about 60% of the total views and giving Macedonia (Greece) about 20%. More or less, I don't have a calculator at hand right now. John Carter (talk) 20:21, 9 May 2009 (UTC)

Thank you for the effort in collecting the data in the first place, and we all forget things once in a while, so don't worry about it. John Carter (talk) 20:42, 9 May 2009 (UTC)

Response to evidence from Future Perfect

It is hard not to see the title of the section which Future Perfect used as being a form of personal attack itself here. Yes, I had by this point already become more than a bit tired of that editor, and have now repeatedly said I at this point find it very difficult to be even neutral about him (using the male pronoun possibly inaccurate to avoid overuse of name). I also based my initial posting on this subject based more on my memory of the situation, rather than a detailed review of it. I remember agreeing with the proposal, even going to the point of thinking of it (mistakenly) as mine, even though I did not at the time post anything to that effect. I also believe his own evidence above is at least in part false or at least willfully misleading, which is particularly relevant considering the subject of discussion here was about my getting evidence right. I was even forced to basically demand that he be a bit more civil in his postings on my page here and again here. After several exrtremely quick posts of a rather agressive nature (perhaps understandably so), I had to tell him here that I was busy doing something else and wanted to finish that first, so as to not forget where I had stopped. Thirteen minutes later, the insulting commentary from Future Perfect continued. It should be noted that at no point did he acknowledge that I had a right to finish what I was doing, so I came to the conclusion, based on his his quick series of comments, that he did not necessarily think I did. After another edit from him six minutes later, here I had to request again in the edit summary to be allowed some time and also request whether his own early statements actually agreed with the seemingly contradictory statements he made earlier, he responded eleven minutes later with an apparent denial of any contradiction. I cannot see how his own conduct in this matter even approaches acceptable limits, and I note that in neither his comments or his evidence does he provide any reason for me not to have drawn the conclusion I clearly did draw that he was in fact attempting to badger me into quick change. Granted, I do and did acknowledge the facts were wrong, and I did change them. However, I have to question whether his own actions in response were ever even remotely acceptable. John Carter (talk) 22:47, 14 May 2009 (UTC)

Evidence presented by chandler

Wikipedia should not be bullied by religious or nationalist extremist

To me it all seems very clear, there's a huge conflict of interest from Macedonians and Greeks alike. Sure we can't ban all US Americans from editing USA related articles, we can't ban all Swedes from editing Sweden related articles, we can't ban all Christians, Muslims or Jews from editing any religious related article. But we can think about scenarios, in cases where there are strong religious, political or nationalistic conflicts of interest, like this one. If all Macedonians and Greeks were banned having input into this country's title, would there be a more neutral conclusion? Yes. Where would it be located? My guess, Macedonia.

In this case I think it's been shown (if here or on the article talk I don't recall) that both sides have had multiple IPs (perhaps accs as well) vandalizing the other.

Wikipedia stood up against extremists on the Muhammed cartoons, it should do the same here.

Common name

The word "Macedonia" without context, in the English language, refers to the country, we all know it. A small example: Macedonia to hold early election, nope, isn't talking about any regional elections in Greece. For you who say "look even the bbc uses The former Yugoslav republic", no they're referred to as being a former Yugoslav republic, just as they've done to other former Yugoslav republics[613][614][615][616] and former Soviet republics[617][618][619]. As this link (already posted under "no") shows, the formal use is FYR Macedonia, the common is Macedonia. Another usage of formal vs common Smith frustrated by Macedonia, if you look at the results they will show the formal FIFA name, but use Macedonia as the common name[620]. Other news using Macedonia as the common name CNN,The GuardianNew York TimesThe TimesThe Times (RSA)The AustralianHerald SunThe TelegraphNew Zealand HerlandUSA Today are probably just some. Even bodies like FIFA sometimes seem to get tired and just use the common name [621][622][623][624]. We all know it's true, in English, Macedonia == the country, and it's not only in English, it is probably the common name everywhere in the world where there aren't any Greeks around, I bet you my sandwich Ban Ki-moon has referred to the country as "Macedonia" to his friends and family.

Response to Shadowmorph

We know you don't use Macedonia to refer to the country, but we do, we do. If we want to refer to Ancient Macedonia we say "Ancient Macedonia" or perhaps "Macedon" to give the context. No one says Macedonia and means the greater region without specifying "the wider region Macedonia", because Macedonia refers to the country you see how many news outlets are comfortable with using ONLY Macedonia WITHOUT confusion.

The search "Empire of Ancient Macedonia" is a very unlikely search... which doesn't fit English as far as I know, a more likely search than for example "Kingdom of Ancient Macedonia" would be "Ancient Kingdom of Macedonia", because "Ancient Macedonia" wasn't precisely the name used at the time was it.

Evidence presented by vanakaris

Macedonia is disambiguation page

There is no dispute, for example, about Athens and Athens, Georgia. Clearly the reason is because they are 5600 miles away. On the other hand Македонија and Μακεδονία are neighbouring entities. Failing to differentiate will never be unprobable. Imagine two Athenses in Georgia.--Vanakaris (talk) 11:08, 27 April 2009 (UTC)

I received a polite note from User:KnightLago saying my evidence is not evidence. I understand now it should contain diffs. Well I suppose the diff is this. The problem is violation of 1st of the Five pillars. A definition of encyclopedia would be "Indeed, the purpose of an encyclopedia is to collect knowledge disseminated around the globe; ..."— by Diderot (emphasis is mine). The so called "common English usage", in the context of this arbitration page, of the term Macedonia is in fact the usage of the sound /ˌmæsɨˈdoʊniə/ (IPA + Texan pronunciation) used for example by Mr Bush. The global usage of the term doesn’t necessary align with US Dep. of State spokesmen usage. Encyclopaedic usage includes but is not limited to (i) ancient, medieval and modern historical, (ii) geographical, (iii) global and regional political usage. Hope this time I got it right how arbitration works. If not pls ignore my post.--Vanakaris (talk) 22:07, 28 April 2009 (UTC)

Evidence presented by Septentrionalis

For my response to this, presenting the evidence of the example of New Brunswick v. New Brunswick, New Jersey, see this section on talk. Replies to it may be more intelligible with this context. Septentrionalis PMAnderson 21:56, 30 April 2009 (UTC)

Evidence presented by SQRT5P1D2

What happened

The term "Macedonia" pointed to a disambiguation page (present location). ChrisO moved Republic of Macedonia to Macedonia. Following that, he wrote that this was done on the basis of "naming policy", "prioritisation of common" and "self-identifying names", "self-identification" of this state, "usage by english media" and "other reference works".

ChrisO's key points are that "Macedonia" is "the common form" of a "formal self-identifying name", "the predominant term for the country in English-language encyclopedias, dictionaries and everyday usage by the media" and that "the primary topic for the term, as determined by the number of web hits and incoming links, is the article on the country of that name".

How it happened

Macedonia is an ambiguous term; from a region to a salad and a city. According to WP:V, WP:NAME, WP:NCGN and WP:UCN, the most common name for a Wikipedia entry about a term, should be determined by seeing "what verifiable reliable sources in English call the subject". This name is considered "widely accepted" if a "neutral and reliable source" states that "X is the name most often used for this entity". Academic sources ensure all of these and WP:NPOV, due to "the degree of scrutiny involved". In their absence, use of non-academic sources should be considered; however, as per WP:OR, putting together "information from multiple sources to reach a conclusion that is not stated explicitly by any of the sources", is not allowed.

The Library of Congress (LOC) is "recognized as the national library of the United States", the biggest anglophone nation and "its collections comprise the world's most comprehensive record of human creativity and knowledge". LOC's guidelines, based on high standards, are followed by numerous world libraries. Under the "Macedonia" heading, there are "works on the ancient country and kingdom of Macedonia" and "works on the region", while "works on the jurisdiction and the regions resulting from the division of Macedonia" are "entered under their own names"; for example, "Macedonia (Republic)", or "Macedonia (Greece)" (complete list of the headings). The acclaimed British Library, the national library of the United Kingdom, uses the same heading for the same purpose, in its Integrated Catalogue. This is also the case with most scholarly resources.

ChrisO presented his case using less scrutinized, non-neutral, for-profit sources, sometimes even omitting them and manipulated the number of wikilinks to a great extent (note: due to the move, current data may not be accurate). Furthermore, he was disrespectful to Wikipedia's community, collaborating off-wiki with Future Perfect at Sunrise who admitted that he "had heard from Chris that he was toying with the idea" but refused to share more information about it publicly. The latter distorted policies and threatened editors attempting to shed light on this, while continuing to make unjustified accusations about supposed "questionable" behaviour. ChrisO rather arrogantly suggested that "if editors disagree" with his actions, "they should save their comments for the arbitration case", implying fait accompli and attempting to prepossess ArbCom's decisions by distorting facts and abusing guidelines (WP:BB) over policy.

Interestingly enough, his very first edit in Macedonia-related articles, five years ago, was made specifically to state the "less favourable" common use of formal and officially recognised state names.

How Wikipedia deals with such problems

According to Wikipedia, Ireland is not considered the "common name" for the Republic of Ireland and China doesn't move to People's Republic of China either. While Ireland is an island and China is a cultural region, refusing ambiguity for the term Macedonia on the basis that it is the "common name" for a sixteen (16) years old sovereign country, makes one wonder why this takes precedence over the common name of a region established for thousands of years. Especially when three quarters of the region are populated by people not identifying themselves as "ethnic Macedonians".

Many arbitrators said that they would "try and move the broader dispute towards resolution", "assist the Community in finding a solution to the naming conflict" and not only "look at the recent move but also the underlying issue". This means that they recognise not only how Wikipedia is influenced by offline realities, but how Wikipedia - albeit an encyclopedia - influences the world and could very well be part of political games (an example), even inadvertently. This is not only a matter of conduct.

Instead of dealing with the ambiguity of a term, ChrisO considered christening a country with a prime minister that bows to this kind of irredentist maps (another recent incident).

Naturally, his minister of foreign affairs publicly attempts to tone down the problems:

• "...the name of my country is "Republic of Macedonia" and [...] it is the name that damages no one."

• "No one should have a monopoly over the name."

It's not Wikipedia's role to promote irredentism by causing damage and recognising monopolies, due to maladministration, but to educate. This is what status quo ante addressed in the disambiguation page for the term Macedonia. Or else, we should also move World Wide Web to Internet, because that's the "common name" for english-speaking "lay readers".

Declaration about personal responses to other parties

As a matter of principle, I won't use the evidence page for personal responses to unjustified attacks and accusations. The arbitrators' nonpartisanship and skills make them competent enough to understand the reasons behind this detestable, aggressive behaviour. Everything related to my activities in Wikipedia, is made public and everyone can form an opinion about what I do - or don't do.

Evidence presented by dchall1

Similar situation at Talk:Muhammad/images

The core assertion of this case is that there is a group of users defined by a common ethnicity (in this case, Greeks), whose POV is at odds with Wikipedia's policies and with the rest of the community. I see a similar situation at Muhammad, which has for years dealt with a dispute over whether it was appropriate to display pictures of Muhammad. Community consensus determined that the pictures were notable and should be displayed. However, the article was, and still is, bombarded by both users and IPs (nearly all of whom self-identify as Muslim) who either request removal of the images on the talk page, or attempt to remove them unilaterally. While the community acknowledges that images of Muhammad cause offense to many Muslims, religious considerations do not trump the policy on censorship. As a result, image removals are rolled back, repeated removals lead to blocks, and requests for removal, which clutter up the main talk page, are moved to the image subpage where they are politely but firmly denied.

The lessons here seem to be that policy trumps consideration of sensitivity. Exceptions to policy in the name of sensitivity to a bloc of editors (which is essentially what this dispute, not to mention the real-world source, boil down to) leads to walled gardens, which have no place in the encyclopedia. Identifying such editors is not a matter of outing or profiling, but simply identifying that they bring a POV to the table which makes them unable to edit constructively with the rest of the encyclopedia. Editors who continue to defy consensus based on such arguments run the serious risk of being ignored and cut off from debate entirely. // Chris ^{(complaints)•(contribs)} 17:50, 1 May 2009 (UTC)

Evidence presented by Heimstern

Behaviour of Avg

• Asks Taivo "..is it really that difficult to at least try to be unbiased?", accuses him of inserting POV interpretations. [625]

• Host of bad-faith assumptions. [626]

• More bad-faith assumptions, assumes Taivo has no understanding of consensus. [627]

• Rules-lawyering. [628]

• Tries to get an Arbcom-enforced apology: [629]

Avg is strongly focused on edits related to Macedonia and the Greek position against the name of the Republic of Macedonia, as can be clearly seen from his contribs (link to his mainspace contribs, anchored to today's date). He tends to edit war over the name of the country, such as these reverts on various articles, spanning 4-6 April: [630]. His contribs to the talk space show a similar single-topic focus. He has become a single-purpose account whose purpose is to push the POV endorsed by Greek foreign policy.

Shadowmorph

Shadowmorph is a single-topic account, dealing almost exclusively in Macedonia-related articles: [631], [632]

• Resorts to appeals to emotion: [633]

• Seeks to use Google searches as evidence in content disputes: [634], [635], [636].

• Finds the idea of all Greeks agligning on the national position in a straw poll perfectly normal: [637]

Radjenef

Radjenef is a largely single-purpose account. Both his mainspace and article talkspace contribs are very few, but both reveal a clear focus on Macedonia, particularly his talkspace contribs. His Wikipedia-space contribs, furthermore, are exclusively at this RFAR.

• Presumably in retaliation over moves to use the Republic of Macedonia's self-identifying name, makes a talk comment suggesting renaming Muammar al-Gaddafi to the name he identifies as: "King of Kings Muammar al-Gaddafi of Africa": [638]

• Uses a misleading Google search as evidence (the search is misleading because it excludes many results that use the term "Republic of Macedonia" and also mention the words "former Yugoslav" at any point): [639]

To clarify

Since I'm getting a little grief over this, let me be clear: Not all of my evidence, particularly that concerning Shadowmorph, is meant to demonstrate actions in bad faith, but it is meant to demonstrate the problem that we have here. The use of google searches, for example, is likely well-intentioned but still misleading, as these are not reliable indicators of usage.

Evidence presented by Tasoskessaris

Classifying and analysing editors based on non-intellectual criteria such as ethnicity, behavioural patterns, status etc. is no substitute for intelligently analysing the content of their edits

The analysis presented at the end of the poll here, attempts to classify and analyse editors according to a number of non-intellectual criteria such as their ethnicity, past behaviour and status (administrator or not). The following abbreviated section is quoted from the above link for ease of analysis:

"Oppose" side (favouring "former Yugoslav...")

• • 23 Greeks, 1 Bulgarian, 5 from uninvolved nationalities
  • 2 users with only very minor contribution histories
  • 1 administrator
  • 10 users who have previously been blocked for Greece-related nationalist misbehaviour (edit-warring or incivility blocks: sysin, Hectorian, Kapnisma, Athenean, Avg, Reaper7, CuteHappyBrute, Politis, El Greco, ΚΕΚΡΩΨ)
  • 3 users who have had sanctions related to other nationalist disputes (Digwuren, Biruitorul, Jack forbes)
  • 1 editor that can be characterised as essentially a single-purpose Greek POV advocacy account (Avg)
  • at least 9 other users with a strong, permanent contribution focus on Greece-related drama areas and/or Greek POV advocacy, though also some minor other contributions (Kekrops, Politis, CuteHappyBrute, Michael IX the White, Reaper7, Sakis79, sysin, Athenean)
  • 2 formerly productive users who have lately reduced their contributions virtually exclusively to Greek POV drama (NikoSilver, Hectorian)

"Support" side (favouring "Republic of...")

• = 31 editors, of whom:
  • 2 (possibly 3) ethnic Macedonians, 1 Albanian, all others from uninvolved or unknown nationalities
  • 14 administrators
  • two national POV advocacy accounts (Balkania`s word, Matrix), all others active experienced editors in good standing and independent contribution profiles
  • at least 4 active project-wide experts on Wikipedia naming practices
  • users previously sanctioned for edit-warring: MatriX, Pmanderson, ChrisO, Balkanian`s word

The editor classification criteria as shown above include concepts such as involved or uninvolved nationalities. The admin status of users is also used as a classification criterion. Nowhere in the above analysis is attempted any intelligent evaluation of the actual content of the contributions of the editors. Also the concepts of involved or uninvolved nationalities are faulty because they don't guarantee impartiality in a dispute or even a well structured rationale.

Let's look at some arguments for the supporting side here:

• Support Colchicum (talk) 21:52, 29 March 2009 (UTC)
• Support because this entire conflict looks ridiculous from the outside and most uninvolved people just can't be bothered to use a silly name like "FYROM". This seems to be just part of the general pattern of Greeks (like Turks and presumably others in the region) faking history for nationalist reasons. --Hans Adler (talk) 13:38, 31 March 2009 (UTC)
• Support If that's the name, that's the name. --CalendarWatcher (talk) 05:18, 1 April 2009 (UTC)

The first one includes no rationale of any kind. The second includes allegations about faking history that show a clear bias against Greece. The third rationale provides no logical argument at all. Yet, the above ethnicity-based analysis accepted all three of the above examples as valid opinions/!votes because intelligence is not one of the editor evaluation criteria employed by the ethnicity-based analysis. At the same time, this ethnicity-based analysis is insulting to people and thus ultimately disruptive to the project, but, most importantly, in an intellect-based project such as Wikipedia, such activity as the ethnicity-based analysis, is utterly and completely anti-intellectual because, by definition, it does not evaluate the contributions of the editors based on any intellectual basis whatsoever. Dr.K. logos 14:02, 3 May 2009 (UTC)

Evidence presented by J.delanoy

Most visitors searching for "Macedonia" are looking for information about the modern country

Page-view statistics of Macedonia and hatnote-linked articles from 1 May 2009 through 8 May 2009
Article	Page-views	% of total
Macedonia	8736[a]	77.75
Macedonia (ancient kingdom)	1135[b]	10.10
Macedonia (disambiguation)	768[c]	06.84
Macedonia (terminology)	597[d]	05.31
Total	11236[e]	100.00
Three "()" pages combined	2500[f]	22.25
Notes
^ a http://stats.grok.se/en/200905/Macedonia ^ b http://stats.grok.se/en/200905/Macedonia_(ancient_kingdom) ^ c http://stats.grok.se/en/200905/Macedonia_(disambiguation) ^ d http://stats.grok.se/en/200905/Macedonia_(terminology) ^ e 8736 + 1135 + 768 + 597 = 11236 ^ f 1135 + 768 + 597 = 2500 Republic of Macedonia (with >5000 incoming links) redirects to Macedonia. This is a non-factor; when a link to a redirect is followed,a page-view is generated on the redirect, not the target. In addition, visitors following a direct link to RoM will find what they are looking for, and will not click any of the hatnote links.

In order to draw my conclusions, I hypothesize that every person looking for information about Macedonia-related topics in general ends up at Macedonia, instead of following a direct link to the correct page.

I then assume that 100% of page-views on the three pages linked at the top of the article about Macedonia originate from visitors who were directed to Macedonia and did not find the information they were looking for, and clicked one of the hatnote links. A "click-through" triggers a page-view on both pages. Since Macedonia has more page-views, a single additional page-view is statistically less significant than a page-view on a less-viewed article. I also overlook the fact that some people may be directed to Macedonia by clicking on a link from the disambiguation page, which also triggers a page-view on both pages.

In my opinion, the evidence provided in the table above (cf. the vast majority of visitors are "satisfied" with the information on Macedonia.) serves merely to confirm ChrisO's original notes on Talk:Macedonia about the Google Search results and Google News results. These statistics may be slightly skewed by curious visitors who have heard about the controversy, but it is unlikely that this would account for such a large difference. J.delanoy^gabs_adds 10:37, Thursday May 9, 2024 (UTC)

Reply to John Carter

Hmm. I forgot about that one. It's linked in the lede of Macedonia, but not in the hatnote. I guess that's why I overlooked it.

Macedonia (Greece) had 3060 page-views in the time period listed. However, it also has more than 800 incoming links, whereas none of the other three articles have more than 400. I do not know how to reconcile the differences there, but I'll make a table including that article.

See User:J.delanoy/2#Table_two. I'm not sure how tables fit into my 1000-word limit, so I don't want to post too much here...

The relevant results are

• Macedonia - 61.11%
• Macedonia (Greece) 21.40%

User_talk:J.delanoy#Macedonia_evidence may be useful...

Essentially, the discussion at the link above is about whether other articles such as Macedonia (region) should be included in the table. My argument is that if someone visited Macedonia and did not find what they were looking for, they would not read the entire lede and click on a link from there; they would simply click on the link to Macedonia (disambiguation) in the hatnote. Thus, a page-view would be generated on the disambiguation page to show this. J.delanoy^gabs_adds 14:57, 12 May 2009 (UTC)

Evidence presented by Horologium

I am not going to address the argument about the title of the article about the country, nor am I going to address the behavior of any of the named editors. My evidence is a small subsection of the wider dispute, presented for a tightly focused proposal I will be adding to the workshop.

Disruptive substitution of "FYROM"

"FYROM" (the five letter acronym) is substituted for "Macedonia", "Republic of Macedonia", or "Former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia" by IP editors across the entire site, often for articles which have nothing to do with Greece or Macedonia. A sampling of such IP edits from 30 April—16 May, ignoring edits from logged-in editors and pages relating to Macedonia or Greece, or their peoples, languages, or cultures:

• [640] Sin Senos no hay Paraíso (Telenovela) (IP geolocates to Kalamata, Greece)
• [641] Dresden (IP geolocates to Nicosia, Cyprus)
• [642] Charmed (TV Show) (IP geolocates to Athens, Greece)
• [643] Live Free or Die (IP geolocates to University of Essex, Colchester, England)
• [644] Jeff Buckley (IP geolocates to Edmonton, Alberta, Canada)
• [645] Frappé coffee (IP geolocates to Thessaloniki, Greece)
• [646] List of countries by electricity consumption (IP geolocates to Athens, Greece)
• [647] List of railway companies (IP geolocates to Athens, Greece)

I have added the geolocation for each IP editor (using the geolocate link at the bottom of the Special:Contributions page for IP editors. Horologium (talk) 11:48, 17 May 2009 (UTC)

Evidence presented by {your user name}

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