Wikipedia talk:Arbitration/Requests/Case/Eastern European mailing list/Workshop

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

Initial post

I am not placing anything to the project page because it was not properly formatted yet. But I would suggest the following, after a brief discussion here. In brief, we do not have good policies to handle this case, but we need them.

• Proposed principles.

1. ArbCom has no jurisdiction over any events outside this project, including private email communications between wikipedia users.
2. ArbCom does not consider any evidence obtained by illegal means, such as hacking of wikipedia accounts and placing stolen private information on the internet.

• Proposed decisions

1. All users are strongly discouraged from exchange of information with regard to other users and wikipedia polices over their private email channels. Such issues should be discussed openly using the appropriate talk pages and noticeboards. An exception are communications that involve privacy issues. In the event of edit warring by several users in the same articles, any proof of email exchange between them will be interpreted as an evidence of coordination, which may result in more serious sanctions.Biophys (talk) 16:32, 18 September 2009 (UTC)

Proposed temporary injunctions

A temporary injunction is a directive from the Arbitration Committee that parties to the case, or other editors notified of the injunction, do or refrain from doing something while the case is pending.

Four net "support" votes needed to pass (each "oppose" vote subtracts a "support")
24 hours from the first vote is normally the fastest an injunction will be imposed.

Topic bans

1 a) All editors identified as participants in the mailing list are banned from editing any page related to Eastern Europe, broadly defined, except for the pages of this case, pending the resolution of the case.

1 b) Russavia, who was blocked for disputing a topic ban imposed by Sandstein in language that was construed as constituting a legal threat, and who was unbanned solely to participate in this case, may freely edit other articles and pages but remains banned from Eastern European pages under the terms of Sandstein's original ban and this injunction.

List of editors subject to this motion

To be provided by Arbcom

Comment by Arbitrators:

I split out the two parts. I can support both parts. Editors that are over involved with an article topic to the point of off site coordination could turn up at any article on this topic so I don't think it is too broad for now. As well, some leniency for modify the editing restrictions for Russavia seems reasonable for now. He could be subject to further restrictions if problems reoccur. FloNight♥♥♥ 20:56, 18 September 2009 (UTC)

Comment by parties:

Sounds like a good and necessary precaution. Offliner (talk) 15:39, 18 September 2009 (UTC)

I have no idea what this is based on, but either way, it is too broad. IF there are specific articles in question, name them (ex. web brigades), or maybe even an area like "modern Russian politics" (which is the bone of contention between Russavia, Offliner and other editors). I can fathom no reason why - for example - I should be banned from improving my latest DYK (dwór) or FA (Polish culture in WWII). Not that I can understand the reason for any topic ban... nor for targeting only some editors. I'd suggest looking into article 1RR restrictions (worked quite nicely on Volhynian massacres in a recent Polish-Ukrainian dispute) or temporary protections instead. --_{Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus| talk} 15:57, 18 September 2009 (UTC)

On the first part of the proposal: What's the point of this? Does anyone really think that anyone involved in this case is planning on, or will have time for, doing reverts or massive editing on any articles that are most likely be closely scrutinized by the committee? And why shouldn't I be able to continue with my completely uncontroversial content creation - finishing up the articles on Leon Feiner, Stanisław Aronson, Mirosław Iringh and Platoon 535 just to name a few I've recently started (and doing content creation is a great stress relief from all the Wiki drama that is going on) and hoped to bring to DYK status? What exactly is the rationale for instituting what look like punitive bans at this early point in the process, unless EXPLICIT Wikipedia rules violations can be cited?

If the Committee is really concerned about some uncalled for content editing going on while this is in progress, then I suggest that rather a list of potential "trouble" articles is created and these are all protected or put under 1RR restriction.radek (talk) 17:48, 18 September 2009 (UTC)

As to the second part of the proposal: Why is Russavia's ban being removed on articles, other than these which have to do with this case? I see no reason for that - and please see my comments on AN/I in regard to this matter. This has been addressed over and over again and there's no reason why his/her ban should be rescinded in any way, except for him to participate in this case.radek (talk) 17:48, 18 September 2009 (UTC)

At least 1a) is unnecessary. All editors involved know that they are under scrutiny and no one is going to make their sanctions harder by being involved in any disruptive activities right now.Biophys (talk) 21:16, 18 September 2009 (UTC)

Agree that an immediate topic ban on ALL email list participants is warranted. This means that there are more participants on the email list who are not yet parties, and they need to be added. --Russavia ^Dialogue 23:23, 18 September 2009 (UTC)

Comment by others:

Proposed. Thatcher 13:53, 18 September 2009 (UTC)

This may need to be two different proposals - one for a topic ban and one for alterations to Russavia's block. Karanacs (talk) 14:14, 18 September 2009 (UTC)

I agree with User:Piotrus. Come on, we even don't have any evidence as of now, and we've already got draconian sanctions it seems! What use would it be of Eastern European accounts A, B, or C, if they are not allowed any more to edit articles on EE topics? --Miacek and his crime-fighting dog (woof!) 16:14, 18 September 2009 (UTC)

Such bans would be temporary until the end of the case. I'm sure that any editor who participated in the mailing list in general but who refrained from taking part in the more egregious discussions or from translating them into on-wiki actions will eventually be exonerated. In the mean time, a topic ban will allow uninvolved editors a chance to repair some of the damage in peace. Thatcher 16:44, 18 September 2009 (UTC)

Erm, what damage there is that "uninvolved editors" need to repair in peace?--Staberinde (talk) 16:53, 18 September 2009 (UTC)

Guilty until proven innocent? I find that a bit shocking (even more so that my temporary desysop - I again invite everyone to examine my log and point out to me which administrative actions I took in the past year could be seen as controversial). I ask you again: what wiki policies where broken when I wrote dwór or Polish contribution to WWII, and what damage those uninvolved editors have to repair in those articles, or in hundreds others I've edited in the past few months, uncontroversially and without any conflict or even interaction with editors who are party in this case? Also, Thatcher, I have two important questions for you: have you read the archive and do you consider yourself uninvolved in this case? --_{Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus| talk} 17:24, 18 September 2009 (UTC)

My only attempt at enforcement action recently ended in utter failure; unless the emails go back 18 months to when I did more enforcement, or unless you folks were discussing tactics on how to get me to reverse my decision (besides the extensive and tiresome personal email lobbying), then I might be involved. But I don't really care. Whether I am involved or uninvolved I am entitled to use the workshop. I have not read the archive but am extremely curious to know whether I was discussed and in what terms. And as far as "guilty until proven innocent" is concerned, you are once again dragging criminal legal matters into the administration of a web site. Arbitration is not a legal process. The goal here is the smooth running of an encyclopedia, and if they think there is sufficient evidence, based on a preliminary review of the emails, that this group of editors have negatively affected these articles by gaming 3RR and 1RR restrictions, blocks, provoking other editors, and so forth, then Arbcom can take whatever steps it wants to ensure the smooth running of the encyclopedia pending a more thorough review. Thatcher 17:54, 18 September 2009 (UTC)

I "am extremely curious" about stuff being discussed now and in the past on private arbcom list and by certain editors - but being curious doesn't mean I would demand them to reveal that private information, nor does it mean that if somebody would offer to give me such information I'd accept it and read it to satisfy my idle curiosity. To paraphrase a certain person: "I may not agree with you but I will respect your right to privacy." --_{Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus| talk} 19:12, 18 September 2009 (UTC)

Right to privacy is not a license to conspire for nefarious purposes. I don't think there is any sort of idle curiosity going on here. Somebody seems to have gotten fed up with the game playing and decided to hand over the evidence. Jehochman ^Talk 19:14, 18 September 2009 (UTC)

""uninvolved editors"" "repair in peace" "damage"??? First, we don't know who "uninvolved editors" are - we don't even know who the person or persons who hacked private emails are but it's pretty probable that they are engaged in this area which is what motivated their illegal action. No "damage" has been shown to have been caused by anyone involved (and yes, I'm even including those of the involved parties that I've had disputes in the past in that statement) so this kind of language is completely unwarranted. "Repair in peace"? You are making some very serious implicit accusations with your tone and displaying the prejudiced assumptions you have already made.radek (talk) 17:53, 18 September 2009 (UTC)

Indeed I am making assumptions, and I have formed a preliminary opinion of the case, based not only on the publicly available discussion but also based on the extensive email lobbying to which I was subjected earlier this year. This preliminary opinion is unlikely to change until Arbcom releases more details about the messages, because I am not privileged to see them. If the evidence pans out as it was initially described, I think a large number of editors are going to get a well deserved boot out the door. But that is only my prejudiced opinion. Thatcher 17:58, 18 September 2009 (UTC)

Distribution of private materials

2) Private materials and personally identifying information related to this case and the editors involved should not be circulated or otherwise passed along without the permission of the authors. This includes, but is not limited to, public posting of links to such information and any attempts at outing. Engaging in such activity will be treated as disruption and harming editor privacy. Any evidence containing identifying information or other sensitive information should be directed to the Arbitration Committee by email.

Comment by Arbitrators:

Proposed. Self-explanatory. Vassyana (talk) 15:34, 18 September 2009 (UTC)

Motion to open the case addressed the situation in a level of detail that I think we need to do. I'm not sure that it is practical to say much more. FloNight♥♥♥ 21:27, 18 September 2009 (UTC)

Comment by parties:

Self-explanatory, but impossible to monitor and impose. --_{Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus| talk} 16:42, 18 September 2009 (UTC)

So it should be altered and strengthened. Something like "anyone who admits to or is found to be circulating private materials and personally identifying information related to this case and the editors involved will be indefinitely banned per WP:OUTING. Editors who make on Wiki threats to reveal this public information for whatever reason will likewise be indefinitely blocked".radek (talk) 17:56, 18 September 2009 (UTC)

Comment by others:

Speculative and inflammatory comments

3) Inflammatory comments and speculative musings about user identities, as well as related postings, cause drama and disruption. Editors are reminded that undue speculation, highly charged assertions, attempts at outing (partial or otherwise), and other similar conduct is unacceptable and will be treated as disruption.

Comment by Arbitrators:

Proposed. Self-explanatory. Vassyana (talk) 15:34, 18 September 2009 (UTC)

I can support this to stop problems on the case pages. FloNight♥♥♥ 21:30, 18 September 2009 (UTC)

Comment by parties:

Sounds quite helpful. Such comments don't belong on Wikipedia, nor on any googlable public foras, as far as I am concerned. --_{Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus| talk} 16:41, 18 September 2009 (UTC)

See my comment above - needs to be more specific and stronger.radek (talk) 02:41, 19 September 2009 (UTC)

Comment by others:

Just a comment that the Arbitration pages have not been googlable since May 26, 2009. MBisanz ^talk 18:40, 18 September 2009 (UTC)

Questions to Tymek

The following discussion is closed and will soon be archived: No more discussion which centers around hacking/whistleblowing (order by the Committee). The useful part of this thread (the shared password) has been and gone.

---

1. Have you ever shared your password with anyone? Jehochman ^Talk 13:13, 19 September 2009 (UTC)
2. Has anyone recently sent you a file, or directed you to an unfamiliar web site? Jehochman ^Talk 13:13, 19 September 2009 (UTC)

• OK, let me answer.

1. Question 2. Nobody has sent me a file, or directed me to an unfamiliar web site.
2. Question 1. Yes, I have shared my password. There have been some changes in my private life, I was going to wrap up some articles I had started, and then abandon the project. I have shared my password with members of the mailing list, but immediately I received several private e-mails from Piotrus and others, telling me it was illegal and wrong, and they are all right, it was very stupid of me. I want to emphasize that nobody has asked me or even suggested sharing my password, I did it all by myself. Furthermore, a checkuser will show that nobody but me has used my account with their edits. I use two computers, both are in Chicago, Il.

One more thing. My Wikipedia account and its password is not connected to the mailing list in any way. It means that all the messages ArbCom members are going to read, have been illegally stolen from somebody's (I do not know whose, maybe my private account). Please do not forget about it, before you start reading private e-mails. I do not regret being a member of the mailing list, the discussion was very interesting, touching several important topics of politics, history and society. Wikipedia-related topics were of secondary importance. I exchanged messages with a bunch of fine, intelligent people, and this I do not regret. Thank you. Tymek (talk) 01:01, 21 September 2009 (UTC)

• Thank you for being very truthful, in my opinion. Sharing you password is technically not correct, but I do not consider it sanctionable. Did you send your password to the mailing list, or just to selected members of the list? If somebody were to gain access to the list archives, would they find your password there? Jehochman ^Talk 01:12, 21 September 2009 (UTC)

Thanks for appreciating it, I am very truthful here. I presented my password in one of the topics of the mailing list, and those who read it, got to know it. Now I have changed it of course. And let me state again - nobody has asked me to do so, it was all my initiative. I am totally busy, and I thought it might be helpful. I was wrong, and members of the group, those who read it, immediately notified me, telling me not to do so again and to change my password. Tymek (talk) 01:19, 21 September 2009 (UTC)

Okay, can we please get this quite clear: I can verify you disclosed your password on the list, several weeks before the recent incident, and not only that, you did so with the explicit invitation to other list members to log in through your account and "do whatever you feel necessary". Do I understand you correctly that you then left the password unchanged and left your account open for all other list members to use, until after the incident of 15 September? Because if that is the case, I don't get it why you guys are all making such a fuss about hacking and illegal intrusion. We don't need to assume any hacking at all: some of your fellow list members did what you explicitly invited them to do. Fut.Perf. ☼ 07:43, 21 September 2009 (UTC)

I agree with FPaS. The simplest explanation is that somebody on the list doesn't have the agenda that you think they have. We're apparently dealing with a whistleblower. Jehochman ^Talk 09:15, 21 September 2009 (UTC)

Yep. While still possible, an enemy hacking into someone's computer is the less likely explanation. A whistle blower from on the email list (including Tymek) or some one else that had access to his computer or accounts has been a leading possible explanation. That is the reason that we did not support the hacking idea as being the best explanation from the start of this incident. It is still undetermined exactly how it happened and may never be. Realizing this early on, we have been focusing on matching emails to on site problematic conduct to see if sanctions are needed. It is going to take awhile to gather the evidence because we are being thorough. FloNight♥♥♥ 10:10, 21 September 2009 (UTC)

The thing is that my Wikipedia account was not linked to the list, and I stated it before. I was receiving e-mails to my private yahoo e-mail address, which uses a completely different password, known only to me, and it does not have anything to do with my Wikipedia account. Tymek (talk) 15:27, 21 September 2009 (UTC)

You are missing the point. The whistle-blower didn't exploit your computer or your account to access the list. He didn't need to, because he was a member of the list anyway. He just copied his own archive of the list. He only used your wiki account to write those mails to us. Fut.Perf. ☼ 15:35, 21 September 2009 (UTC)

Exactly. The whistleblower borrowed your account, Tymek, to hide his identity. There's no hacking here at all, just somebody anonymously turning over the list. A good lesson for all to learn is don't write or email anything you wouldn't be proud of if it became public. There's no such thing as a secret when more than one person knows. Jehochman ^Talk 15:42, 21 September 2009 (UTC)

If that is so, why don't you arrange for the whistleblower to anonymously confirm everything to the ArbCom? A hacker was the only one who was dependent on Tymek giving up his password. A whistleblower had many options to preserve anonymity. Dc76\^talk 16:03, 21 September 2009 (UTC)

Would you? Given the state of things in the part of the world under discussion and the battlefield mentality on Wikipedia itself, would you want to come forward, even if only to Arbcom? And even if you did, the other members of the list will still declare that messages have been forged and will demand your identity to prove otherwise. It seems to me that the best thing to do is remain silent. Thatcher 16:14, 21 September 2009 (UTC)

We did nothing wrong. We talked politics, we talked events and impressions. But we didn't act upon them. We never conspired against anything. I am not a whistleblower, there is nothing to whistleblow there. It's private information. Frankly speaking, if someone would come forward to ArbCom, with ArbCom verifying it's genuine, I could believe. Dc76\^talk 22:02, 21 September 2009 (UTC)

Dc, none of us has any contact to the whistleblower, and none of us has any idea who he is. But about your argument about being "dependent on Tymek": out of idle curiosity, let me play Sherlock Holmes a bit. The point is, neither an outside hacker or an inside whistleblower would have been dependent on Tymek's wiki password. The wiki password didn't help either of these hypothetical persons to get at the mail archive; and for the purpose of contacting us, either of them could just as well have used their own throwaway account. Have you never asked yourself why that person chose to post to us through Tymek's account in the first place? Nothing in his plan depended on employing this little mocking gimmick. The only reason for using Tymek's account that I can think of is: he wanted to send you guys, the list members, a message, about where the leak was. But why? If he was an outside hacker, this meant he was giving his game away. What a considerate, benevolent hacker: instead of leaving you in the dark and continuing to exploit his security hole, he is effectively telling you where it is, enabling you to close it! The explanation is elementary, my dear Watson: he wanted you to think Tymek's computer was the location of the leak, because in reality it was elsewhere. So, if this was an outside hacker, he must have had not one security hole but two, and he could afford to throw one away in order to put you on a false track. Or, if this was an inside whistleblower, he didn't need a security hole at all, and just used the cheap opportunity of Tymek's open password, for the same purpose of putting you on a false track. And you all seem to have fallen for it big time. Fut.Perf. ☼ 16:27, 21 September 2009 (UTC)

We compare to whom hacked us as kindergarten to PhD. How would I know how they operated? I was just making logical suppositions. I am not even doing computer science, I don't know basic stuff. For 4-5 edits that I ever did in WP related to modern Russian politics to get such crucifixion! I promise I won't ever come close to those articles. For God's sake, let Jimbo Wales edit them alone. But, Fut.Perf., I have not conspired against anything. We are not conspirators. Why don't you take all our edits for 2009 and scrutinize all of them. Oh, yes, that's too much work. Declaring one a conspirator is cheep, easy, and brings credit. I always knew you to be the serious and meticulous guy. I did not expect such a word from you. :( Dc76\^talk 22:02, 21 September 2009 (UTC)

Uhm, yeah, whatever. You are no conspirators. Got your mail archive from 06/25/2009, 16.03, or do I need to jog your memory? Fut.Perf. ☼ 10:05, 22 September 2009 (UTC)

I don't think that's the case. Both the whistleblower and the hacker could use Tymek for the same instances and purposes, unless the hacker has compromised only Tymek's account or the whistleblower is Tymek. Otherwise, both had good reasons to use his account: it created an air of being more legit (I have access to his account so it is a proof I can do tricky stuff) and it confused us. And none of us seriously ever considered the possibility that Tymek was the whistleblower anyway, so whoever wanted to create this suspicion didn't know us that well. Anyway, whether it was the hacker or the whistleblower, nothing changed: we don't know if and which of our computers was hacked, or who is the whistleblower, so at best the scenarios are still 50/50 (and I've explained elsewhere why I think that whistleblower is less likely... not the least, because there is nothing serious to whistleblow away - that is, nothing serious if the archive is untampered with). Bottom line: Tymek sharing his password doesn't affect the unknown probabilities of whether it was a hacker or a whistleblower one way or another. --_{Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus| talk} 16:54, 21 September 2009 (UTC)

Er, what? Contrary to popular television and movies, hacking someone's account is hard; brute force technological methods are time consuming and CPU-intensive and beyond the means of most ordinary citizens. Gaining access to someone's account usually relies on people using stupid passwords, and on knowing something about them, or of falling victim to a trojan horse or something. If the person who sent the emails is a member of the list (the "whistleblower" scenario), then he had to do zero difficult things. If the person was an outsider (the "hacker" scenario) he had to do two difficult things (uncover the password to Tymek's wikipedia account and at least one other password to Tymek or someone else's email account, since Tymek says he used different passwords). The odds of someone doing zero difficult things are obviously much greater than the odds of someone doing two difficult things (not to mention the problem of discovery—how does the unrelated hacker even know about the existence of the mailing list?). Thatcher 17:03, 21 September 2009 (UTC)

Suspicions that such a list exist where thrown long before it was birthed, and amusingly, were a major inspiration in its creation :> And your analysis above is good from the technical point of view, but you are missing the human factor which balances its out (at least) that I wrote before (here's the diff: [1]). We could argue, amusingly, about which unknown possibility is bigger - I think hacker is higher. Feel free to disagree, but you cannot deny it is completely impossible (just like I have to accept, due to lack of any evidence, the possibility that you are right, however small I think it can be).--_{Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus| talk} 17:09, 21 September 2009 (UTC)

Since you posted that remark, Tymek has revealed that he posted his password to the mailing list, which tilts the argument in my direction. I agree, however, that we are unlikely to have a definitive answer in the absence of a confession from the leaker or the hacker. However, the admission that Tymek did disclose his password significantly undermines the credibility of many of the list participants who made statements before the revelation that were, in retrospect, disingenuous and misleading. Thatcher 18:33, 21 September 2009 (UTC)

I see nothing wrong with that. It is not impossible that somebody learned about the list after cracking Tymek's extremly weak password, and when Tymek revealed it later, it was a perfect smoke cover. The reason for that theory is that Tymek's knowledge of security issues seem to be among the lowest - if not the lowest - in our group, so if somebody's computer was to be hacked, his was probably the easiest. That said, to be honest, with all the different speculations around and precious little evidence to say what exactly happened, we should probably stop trying to treat them all too seriously - other than to agree that nothing, at this point, can be disproven (can anybody prove I am not the whistleblower or the hacker making smoke and mirrors dramu? :D). --_{Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus| talk} 19:20, 21 September 2009 (UTC)

Thatcher, the mailing list was not connected to my Wikipedia account, is used my e-mail, which has an entirely different password, unknown to anybody but me, and totally different from my previous Wikipedia password. Getting access to my Wiki account meant nothing, as the list was not linked to it in any way. If it is not a whistleblower, then it is a hacker, and, putting all speculations aside, we must clear it out. Tymek (talk) 18:43, 21 September 2009 (UTC)

I don't understand your objection. I understand that the passwords were different. The point is if a member of the list was a leaker, he only had to package up his own copies of the emails and use your password to send them. No hacking or cracking skills were required, except to find a proxy. If the emails were leaked by a hacker, that person had to do two things that are much more difficult than TV would lead you to believe, crack your Wikipedia password and also crack the email password of someone on the list, maybe you or someone else. Thatcher 18:47, 21 September 2009 (UTC)

Thatcher, I do not have any objections, and I completely understand your point. My only wish here is to get to know what really happened. It might have been a whistleblower, it might as well been a hacker. I do not know it, and I am hoping to clear it out. This is all I want to know. Tymek (talk) 19:08, 21 September 2009 (UTC)

Well, out of the two, a whistleblower is better than my and my wife's private e-mail hacked, because we have several important and personal things out there. And let me repeat myself again - I do not regret being a member of the list, it was very interesting and I sincerely regret it is over. Now, what are the chances of running a checkuser of my account, and finding out IP of the alleged whistleblower? I do not think it is very complicated. Tymek (talk) 15:51, 21 September 2009 (UTC)

It's already been done, but the checkusers aren't telling. They only told us the IP was in a different country from yours, and they couldn't easily link it to any existing account (or if they did link it, they aren't saying). Look for Thatcher's posts somewhere on these pages. Fut.Perf. ☼ 15:58, 21 September 2009 (UTC)

Did they at least tell what country it was? Tymek (talk) 16:04, 21 September 2009 (UTC)

There is no obvious link to any account. I'm not an expert on open proxies (my usual technique is to google "xx.xx.xx.xx and proxy")—but this IP has an open port 3128 which could be a proxy service or compromised/infected/trojaned web host. It is unlikely we are going to find out more about the person who borrowed Tymek's account unless he or she obligingly logs in again to identify himself. And no, we're not going to identify the country, because any editor known to be living there would be an immediate target for reprisals, even if it was just a proxy or a coincidence. Thatcher 16:09, 21 September 2009 (UTC)

I do not think that person will log in again as me, as I have changed my password. Unless my computer has been hacked, which I would hate to see (I hope it never happened, but one never knows). Tymek (talk) 16:14, 21 September 2009 (UTC)

That's not quite what I meant. If the leaker wanted to voluntarily identify himself, I would ask him to prove it by logging in through the same IP, which only he would know. Otherwise, anyone could falsely claim to be the leaker in order to claim credit or to try changing his story to sow doubt and uncertainty. Thatcher 16:17, 21 September 2009 (UTC)

It is not about reprisals or revenge, because we are not among savages, cooking their enemies and traitors in large pots over fire. It is all about curiosity, nothing else. I would only like to know who overused the confidence of me and other members of the list. Maybe one day I will get to know it. Tymek (talk) 16:56, 21 September 2009 (UTC)

I have not been particularly active in that forum, but I think I can explain some of the reactions to the leak among its members. The reason why, the hacker scenario is being brought up time and again is because the alternative seems inconceivable to those of us who instinctively trust their colleagues. I warned Tymek about the looming threat in my private email to him. Please note that after the leak, I have been unilaterally unsubscribed from the forum on Sept 18 (with a sense of relief, no doubt). But, before it happened, I noticed that selected members of the group were asked about the breach of trust and swore not to have done it. Again, many group members choose to believe the word of their own friends, why not, and if so, than the hacker scenario becomes the only acceptable answer? I have my own suspicions though, because I can also see who’s using the illegal archive now. However, I will not dwell on it ever. Besides, Tymek has already learned his lesson. --Poeticbent talk 19:38, 21 September 2009 (UTC)

O.K. could Fut.Perf. & Tatcher and others who are sooooooo sure that Tymek's account was not hacked but it was one of the members of the group who leaked the information explain, why that member wanted sooooo bad to "incriminate" himself at the same time?? If I was a whistleblower, so dedicated to act because "terrible crime is happening", I would rather contact the administrators and ask for discretion and my name not being released, don't you think so? Is this so hard?? Could you please find some logical explanation first before assuming such nonsense as "whistleblower hero" . Please people...--Jacurek (talk) 20:03, 21 September 2009 (UTC)

Suppose there was a member of the list who was uncomfortable about some of the discussions, but was sure that he himself had never acted in an inappropriate way based on mailing list discussions? One point here, that people may be missing or attempting to obscure for various reasons, is that simply talking on a mailing list is not actionable and not even Arbcom has said so. The mailing list messages act as a key to decipher patterns of action from apparent randomness. For example, if Alfa posts a message, "come to article Foo because I've used up my reverts" and Beta goes to the article and reverts, then Beta is in trouble. Gamma, who also read the message and maybe even posts a reply in support, but does not edit the article, is not in trouble in this instance. Thatcher 20:40, 21 September 2009 (UTC)

Now you've sent the list members to analyze what happened so they can ferret out the mole. To those of you who like this stuff, I recommend Cryptonomicon by Neal Stephenson. Jehochman ^Talk 20:42, 21 September 2009 (UTC)

What I find amusing is that the members of the list are falling all over themselves to have Durova analyze the archive to find forged messages. What they have apparently missed is that she offered to compare disputed messages against the whole. Presumably, the disputed messages are the ones describing the most outrageous conduct. So, the list members will be scouring the list, doing Arbcom's work for it by finding the most outrageous examples of misconduct, and then hoping Durova can find some linguistic tic that proves they didn't write it. Sounds like fun. Thatcher 20:50, 21 September 2009 (UTC)

Tatcher....you still did not answer my question which was.... : why the" whiselblower hero" wanted sooooo bad to "incriminate" himself ?? :) Suppose bla, blam bla is not an answer. I asked for a logical explanation and not I suppose bla bla bla. This is very important question and needs serious answer. You did not even make a serious attemped to answer it in my opinion. Thank you.--Jacurek (talk) 21:05, 21 September 2009 (UTC)

Anyway, further speculation either way is pointless, except for sowing FUD. Thatcher 21:10, 21 September 2009 (UTC)

Well..I think you just DON'T KNOW THE ANSWER. But I do, because the-emails were stolen by a person from outside the group. Thank you, that is all.--Jacurek (talk) 21:17, 21 September 2009 (UTC)

Then prove it, Jacurek. One whistleblower/mole is far more logistically and logically possible than a hacker. -Jeremy ^{(v^_^v Tear him for his bad verses!)} 21:25, 21 September 2009 (UTC)

I could say the same..then prove it that it was a whistleblower/mole, right?--Jacurek (talk) 21:45, 21 September 2009 (UTC)

Jeremy, there is soooooo many other ways for a whisleblower to pass the message to the administrators. If he existed and was such a "good person" he would not want to make Tymek look like a tottal (a...s) in the eyes of his friends. Why would he? After all all he wanted is to reveal "big crime" happening and not burry single member in mud. Also, why would he risk being banned himself?? All this just does not make any sense. Ask any investigator, police etc. they would tell you the same thing. The e-mails were stolen. There is no question about it.--Jacurek (talk) 21:38, 21 September 2009 (UTC)

(RI) That's drek without evidence, Jacurek, and you know it. The whistleblower may have used Tymek's account to avoid reprisals at home or from amongst the group, or because Tymek's posting his password was easier and more anonymous than using his own account. I'm not the first one to have pointed these out. -Jeremy ^{(v^_^v Tear him for his bad verses!)} 21:47, 21 September 2009 (UTC)

It was not easier at all . The easiest way was for example to contact ONE trusted administrator send him copies, explain everything and ask to remain anonimous. THAT WAS THE EASIER WAY among many other and if he did that we would not be talking about right now. After all the whisselblower is a very good person right? He did a very good thing, right? Then why he have chosen the hardest way possible and acted like a CRIMINAL ?? Just think for a second...--Jacurek (talk) 22:00, 21 September 2009 (UTC)

Jacurek, you're starting to chase after another one-armed man. Even if there was a (singular) trusted administrator, do you honestly think the one copy would have led to the effect he was hoping? I heavily doubt it would have, because then you and your friends would be denying everything he said, and it would devolve into a case of he-said-she-said. Multiple copies to multiple trusted uninvolveds would be far more likely to spark any change he was hoping for, because then you'd have far less capacity to deny it. And what about the "Rogue Decker" theory you keep vigorously advocating that is by and far less plausible? Are you abandoning it? -Jeremy ^{(v^_^v Tear him for his bad verses!)} 22:11, 21 September 2009 (UTC)

It is obvious that whoever is responsible for the leak wanted the public discussion/dramu and reputation damage to happen. Otherwise he would have emailed the arbcom directly, instead of some random 9 or 10 admins, whose handling of the situation was likely to make the archive semi-public (as it has happen). That's the only evident thing in this chaos, and further speculation about whose pet theory is at best, without further evidence, pointless. --_{Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus| talk} 00:25, 22 September 2009 (UTC)

<--Apparently, part of my last message was lost in an edit conflict. I did, in fact, suggest why the "heroic whistleblower" would have done so. Simply participating in a mailing list is not actionable, and Arbcom has never said it was. Someone who acted as a cheerleader and sympathetic ear, but who never made improper on-wiki edits, has nothing to fear from this case. It may be that the "heroic whistleblower" knows that he or she has never done anything on-wiki that would result in a block or ban and so felt safe in forwarding the messages. But that is beside the point. We will never know, short of a confession, and all your shouting will not change that. Thatcher 22:07, 21 September 2009 (UTC)

Sorry guys but I think you just want to believe that there is one. Any serious investigator would have at least some doubts, you don't. Then prove it please or at least explain but with something that is more convincing.--Jacurek (talk) 22:29, 21 September 2009 (UTC)

It's probably best to let this conversation die. Jacurek you've made clear your beliefs, and others have explained why they find another explanation more plausible. Regardless of who is right, ArbCom is looking into this e-mail archive, so the discussion here is somewhat moot for the time being. As more information comes out from the committee we'll probably have a lot more to go on, but there's not much sense in beating this debate to death. --Bigtimepeace | talk | contribs 23:04, 21 September 2009 (UTC)

Agree, and sorry for loosing my temper at times.--Jacurek (talk) 23:49, 21 September 2009 (UTC)

I am going to ask some expert advice about possibility of hacking my computer, and I will let you know when I have found out something. I would advise other members of the mailing group to do the same. Looks like there never was a whistleblower among us, and I am more and more inclined to believe that we are facing a criminal here. Let me remind all people that Under the Electronic Communications Privacy Act of 1986 (ECPA), Pub. L. No. 99-508, 100 Stat. 1848, third parties are forbidden to read private e-mail. More information is here, and I hope ArbCom members, plus such people as Deacon of Pnapzetzim, will have a look at that page. [2]. Tymek (talk) 04:11, 22 September 2009 (UTC)

Future Perfect at Sunrise

Future Perfect at Sunrise (talk · contribs · blocks · protections · deletions · page moves · rights · RfA), a named party to this case, utilized sysop tools to unblock another party, Tymek (talk · contribs), over my objection. I had blocked Tymek as an apparently compromised account, or else as a disruptive account falsely claiming to be compromised. At the time I asked the Committee to consider the matter. Neither I nor FPaS has Checkuser access, whereas most members of the Committee do. In the block notice I specifically asked that the account not be unblocked without my consent, or else the consent of a Checkuser or ArbCom member. I consider FPaS action to be a serious violation of Wikipedia:Administrators. FPaS could have easily requested a clerk to perform the unblock if an unblock were needed. FPaS posted this message to my talk page upon performing the disputed sysop action. I request the FPaS be directed not to perform any further sysop actions on other parties to this case. I also request that the Committee respond to my message of September 16 so that I can understand whether you have looked into the matter of Tymek being a compromised account. FPaS seems to be concerned that you may have dropped the ball on that issue. I am also concerned. Jehochman ^Talk 01:57, 19 September 2009 (UTC)

Comment. Jehochman, I have e-mailed you, asking for clarification on what is going on. Somebody has stolen my password, this is a serious offence. I was awaiting your response, but I never got one. Why? Tymek (talk) 02:02, 19 September 2009 (UTC)

I received an email from a party unknown to me. I have no way to verify that the party who sent it to me is you. I also have no way to verify that you are the proper owner of the account, rather than the person who claims to have broken in to it. We need checkuser help. It's been nearly 48 hours since I emailed the Committee and two other Checkusers. The only response I received from any of them is "Thanks for letting us know Jonathan". Could somebody with Checkuser access please give us direction? Is Tymek back in control of his account, or not? Jehochman ^Talk 02:06, 19 September 2009 (UTC)

Perhaps it would have been better to have written it to my e-mail, which is featured on my user page. I am in control of my account, but if somebody needs a checkuser, that would be good. Tymek (talk) 02:15, 19 September 2009 (UTC)

When an account declares itself to be compromised, I am not trusting any information coming from that account until there is a technical evaluation of the logs to determine (1) whether the account appears to have been compromised, and (2) whether any evidence exists that the proper owner has regained control. Emailing you would have been useless if your email account was also compromised. Considering the circumstances that your account emailed me and proffered an archive of your private emails, it was not an unreasonable suspicion. I still have no idea whether you are the rightful owner of the account. Jehochman ^Talk 02:35, 19 September 2009 (UTC)

A couple of the arbitrators have already checked, but seem not to have posted publicly. As far as I can tell, the person currently using the account is posting from the same PC as the person who was using the account last week. On September 16 only, someone logged in from a different country and send 9 emails. Have you asked Fut Perf if he had private word from another checkuser? Thatcher 02:44, 19 September 2009 (UTC)

His comments thus far seemed to indicate he did not. Presumably that Checkuser would have unblocked the account if they found the original user was back in charge. Thank you for confirming the apparent hacking incident, and that the original account user appears to have regained control. Does the hacker's IP address lead point to any known users? Jehochman ^Talk 02:50, 19 September 2009 (UTC)

Not obviously. Thatcher 02:53, 19 September 2009 (UTC)

Could you tell us what different country that was? I would think that a revealing a country should not be seen as compromising any privacy of anyone? --_{Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus| talk} 20:31, 20 September 2009 (UTC)

I am residing in Chicago, and I use two computers, both IPs in Chicago. Now I would be grateful if somebody informed me who used my account, from what country, and if these messages were coming from my private e-mail basiaipiotr@yahoo.com, or from my Wiki account. And Jehochman thank you for you professionalism, I hope the messages you got from the cyber-thief were not my personal stuff. Tymek (talk) 02:55, 19 September 2009 (UTC)

No comment on the unblock, but just to clarify FPaS is not involved in these disputes. He is named in the case, yes, but has no meaningful involvement in the background that would compromise or reasonably be thought to compromise his judgment. Deacon of Pndapetzim (Talk) 02:57, 19 September 2009 (UTC)

9 emails were sent from your wikipedia account using the special:email function. The names of the recipients are hashed so I can not tell who they were. I can't give any more details about the second IP. I obviously have no access to your yahoo account. Now would be a good time to change all your passwords, though. Thatcher 03:03, 19 September 2009 (UTC)

To clarify: Just because somebody formally added me on the parties list – apparently more or less at random, based on the mere fact that I commented at the initial ANI thread [3][4], doesn't magically make me "involved" in the sense of the admin policy. I act here, in the best of my conscience, as a completely uninvolved administrator, because I know that's what I am. I have never been involved in the Easter European disputes, not even as an administrator, much less so as a party, and my practical involvement with this case is restricted to having received the whistleblower mail and forwarded it to the committee. As for checkuser information, I was trying to get hold of it for most of yesterday, but couldn't, because Jehochman, for reasons that have remained utterly mysterious to me, refused to even tell me which checkusers he had asked to deal with the case. It's a bit disingenious to complain of me not inquiring for the relevant information when he refused to tell me where to inquire, right? As it happens, I finally did get hold of a checkuser on IRC shortly after, who confirmed what Thatcher just said above, that the account was again posting from its legitimate IPs. Fut.Perf. ☼ 06:18, 19 September 2009 (UTC)

I don't know who added or why you were added. Who knows? ArbCom may have evidence. You appeared on my talk page, applying pressure, and appearing to have a great interest in the outcome. Several other involved editors had pressured me before (by email and by talk page) for information. My response to all of you was that I wasn't sharing contents of private email, except as strictly necessary, and that I'd sent everything to ArbCom. Surely they could have unblocked Tymek if they wanted to. I don't have Checkuser access so I did not have a way to see if the account had be recovered by the owner. I told Tymek to email the unblock list or contact ArbCom. Your intervention FPaS was unnecessary, impetuous, and obnoxious. Jehochman ^Talk 13:08, 19 September 2009 (UTC)

FPaS and I seem to have resolved our miscommunications. Would the Committee please state clearly one of these two alternatives: (1) FPaS is uninvolved and can be removed from the list of parties, or (2) FPaS is involved, and should not use sysop access in these matters until the conclusion of this case. Whatever clarity you can provide would help. Jehochman ^Talk 14:23, 19 September 2009 (UTC)

I think that FPaS could be removed from the list of parties. Jehochman, apologies for not getting back to you about the checkuser results. As far as I'm aware ,the whole of ArbCom are not yet aware of Thatcher's check on the Tymek account (which is a more recent check, I think). It is still not 100% clear what happened here, but I think you and FPaS can move on from this now. The focus should be on the participants in this mailing list, not the subsequent admin actions related to the case. As far as I'm concerned, both you (Jehochman) and Future Perfect at Sunrise acted in good-faith here. Carcharoth (talk) 20:27, 19 September 2009 (UTC)

E-mail recipients

Since, according to Thatcher, 9 emails were sent out by the hacker, and we have voluntary confirmation by only 3 people (Jehochman, Future Perfect, Alex Bekharev) that they received such emails (possibly containing different things), shouldn't the ArbCom issue a statement requesting that anyone else involved or participating in this case who has received an email from Tymek of whatever sort, on the date in question come forward and state that they received such an email? This statement should be backed up by a threat of a block if it is later somehow revealed that someone chose not to comply.

I've never been part of an arbitration before so I don't even know how to begin making this an official proposal.radek (talk) 21:26, 19 September 2009 (UTC)

FWIW, I am aware of one further administrator who said he received that mail, but told me he deleted it without following the link. If it makes you feel better, I could of course ask him if he wants to voluntarily step forward and identify himself. I don't think there's much of a basis for forcing people to do so though. Fut.Perf. ☼ 22:55, 19 September 2009 (UTC)

Please ask him. I think if he did step forward that would be really commendable on his part - just like his initial action.radek (talk) 23:09, 19 September 2009 (UTC)

The proverbial cat is already out of the box. The damage is done; what is needed is a policy to prevent this from reoccurring in the future: a clear statement by ArbCom that such an evidence is unacceptable and should not be distributed by any editor (or admin!), so that any future victims of private information theft will be more protected than we were. See my proposal below. --_{Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus| talk} 23:01, 19 September 2009 (UTC)

Google "Wikipediametric". Given the fact that the emails can all be read on Wikileaks now, it is safe to say that at least one of the 9 is associated with that website, or at least had the intelligence to realize that the editors who were involved in the mailing list deserved to be known to the wider community, and thus forwarded the list. Personally, I commend the person who did it. What, exactly, are we talking about? An open proxy to mask your geographic location? Bravo for doing the right thing. Hiberniantears (talk) 02:40, 25 September 2009 (UTC)

Bravo for WP:OUTING people's real life identities? --60.231.177.104 (talk) 02:34, 26 September 2009 (UTC)

I'm happy to have someone oversight that comment in light of new restrictions in place since I made it. Hiberniantears (talk) 03:44, 26 September 2009 (UTC)

It was inevitable. A big case like this was impossible to be hush-hushed. In fact any attempts to do so would lead to the Streisand effect. Apparently whoever leaked that archive was determined to let the whole world know, and now anyone determined enough can find that archive by himself without much difficulty and Wikipedia and its policies can not do a damn thing about that. Oversighted or not. (Igny (talk) 03:58, 26 September 2009 (UTC))

On the use of the mailing list archive

To make things clear, the Committee did — and will continue to — examine the list of email that has been received for potential serious violations of Wikipedia rules. In particular, hounding, meatpuppetry and disruptively gaming the rules are all activities that are forbidden and destructive and that can (and usually are) made possible by coordination off-wiki.

In doing so, we are proceeding under a number of (rebuttable) presumptions: that the mail archive has not been fabricated, that most email within the archive have not been altered or falsified, and that completeness of that archive is unknown. Insofar as information in the emails correctly matches verifiable events on-wiki, they can be presumed to be authentic. Evidence otherwise is welcome and solicited, in particular from the participants of the mailing list.

There have been objections to the use of the archive entirely based on the allegation that it has been acquired through illegal or unethical means. It is to be noted that [a link to] the archive has been received independently by a number of editors, none of whom are alleged to have stolen it, who then forwarded it to the Arbitration Committee. Claims that it has been obtained improperly by the original sender are unsubstantiated, and unverifiable by the committee. Other alternatives are equally likely (that it was transmitted willingly by a member of the list or that it was leaked accidentally then forwarded by an unknown third party for instance) and investigating the issue is neither possible, nor within the Committee's remit.

At any rate, even if one ignored the obvious fact that criminal rules of evidence do not apply to the Committee the original provenance of the email archive is entirely moot: the Committee is not bound by an exclusionary rule in the first place. Even if the allegations of the mailing list archive having been taken illegally by an outsider "hacking" were correct, they lie entirely outside the jurisdiction and reach of the Committee, and have no bearing on the propriety of using it.

— Coren ^(talk) 18:28, 18 September 2009 (UTC)

Whom do I employ? If anything it's the other way around. This is a false analogy.radek (talk) 00:32, 20 September 2009 (UTC)

I read your comment (above) with considerable interest. It is very well phrased and in most part almost self-explanatory, but would you please elaborate on it further? I’d like to see a link to a policy that explains how the Arbitration Committee is not, and will not be bound in its proceedings by unethical means of acquiring evidence against users? Unless a policy like that is already in place, wouldn’t such exemplary freedom be unethical in its own right? --Poeticbent talk 21:53, 18 September 2009 (UTC)

The Foundations servers were used to send emails that notified the Committee and other Wikipedia users of emails alleged to indicated problematic editing on site. In order to administer the site and make a case ruling, we need to examine the emails in question. All arbitrators understand and are bound by the Foundation privacy policy and can handle private and sensitive information. FloNight♥♥♥ 22:05, 18 September 2009 (UTC)

It's an interesting philosophical question. An important difference between ArbCom and criminal justice systems is that we are unable to compel production of evidence, and have no authority to seize it forcibly; making concerns of abuse of rights for the sake of expediency inapplicable.

A closer analog might be the example of an employee or agent that breaches an employment contract — or trespasses on their employer's computers — to get evidence of their wrongdoing to give the authorities. It's worth noting that many jurisdictions have in fact put in place laws to protect employees or agents behaving in that way (the so-called "Whistleblower" protection acts); because it was judged that, in the end, the objective of curtailing improper behavior from the employer was more important to the interests of justice than the breach of privacy.

In this case, ArbCom is in a good position to minimize the dangerous aspects of the breach (if breach there was) by maintaining privacy where it does not impact the just evaluation of the evidence.

Of course, that balancing act would topple entirely if ArbCom, or someone at our behest, were to obtain evidence by ethically dubious means. I'd be the first in line with a torch and pitchfork. — Coren ^(talk) 00:44, 19 September 2009 (UTC)

The critical difference is indeed one of jurisprudence. Many authorities throw out evidence obtained in certain ways purely in order to remove the incentive of enforcement agencies to obtain evidence in this way and in the process violate people's rights. For instance US courts throw out evidence obtained through illegal searches (no plain sight, probable cause, warrant, and so on) because law makers feared (and feared rightly) that otherwise police would habitually ignore people's rights to privacy. No Wikipedia arb, cu, or admin has the practical power to check email groups, so there is no threat to civil liberties we need to counter by throwing out evidence. In fact, in our position, we can't afford to. Deacon of Pndapetzim (Talk) 03:06, 19 September 2009 (UTC)

Even the US courts do not always throw out illegally obtained evidence. See the "limitations" section of exclusionary rule. Thatcher 03:20, 19 September 2009 (UTC)

We don't know that there was actual hacking. In theory, the account password could have been loaned to a friend who logged in to create the appearance of hacking. The situation is completely fogged. Jehochman ^Talk 03:22, 19 September 2009 (UTC)

It does matter who that really was. If that was a member of the group (a "whistleblower"), this is one story. But if that was a professional FSB hacker, this is a completely different story. Jehochman, since you have a copy of this archive and I supposedly one of the "plotters" who created it, could you or someone from Arbcom please send me their copy by email? That might help me to clarify this question.Biophys (talk) 03:40, 19 September 2009 (UTC)

I've turned over everything I had to ArbCom. They can share as they see fit. Jehochman ^Talk 03:53, 19 September 2009 (UTC)

Thank you for clarifying which American legal (and social) contracts may, or may not apply here. I don’t think we need to go as far as criminal justice system for inspiration, because we have our own rules designed to deal specifically with the open source format – a legal novelty. The Arbitration Committee must address the fact that the initial mail was sent by an undisclosed user from another user’s account (a WP email headed with his opponent's user name). ArbCom can confirm that fact using our own tools, and decide, what approach to take. There’s no need to protect the whistleblower because nobody knows who that is in real life. Secondly, if the Foundation’s servers were used, we should be able to find out who else received the same initial info via our own servers other than the Arbitration Committee. The complete list of the recipients would indeed be quite telling, because they were all hand picked for a reason. The whistleblower knows them, and intentionally armed them with private correspondence of their active opponents, which can be used outside Wikipedia to harm living beings (remember this?). No ArbCom has any control over that sort of aftershock; however, disclosing the monikers of all the recipients of the initial info would hurt nobody here, and reveal the real scope of this situation. --Poeticbent talk 05:47, 19 September 2009 (UTC)

Is it actually a known fact that "the initial mail was sent by an undisclosed user from another user’s account" or is that speculation at this stage? Presumably the question of whether the apparently compromised account was the original source of the leaked emails or whether the involvement of that account was an apparent reaction to those emails having been leaked from elsewhere is something that needs to be resolved at an early stage in building a picture of what happened. Has it been? 87.254.84.181 (talk) 07:32, 19 September 2009 (UTC)

No, and it is highly unlikely that the Arbitration Committee will have a definitive answer about who was the person that sent the emails from the server. It is beyond our capacity to do an investigation of whether there was hacking of a computer/email list archives/or user account/email account, or password/account sharing or multiple people using a computer that lead to leaks, or a whistle blower from the group. All possibilities. FloNight♥♥♥ 11:23, 19 September 2009 (UTC)

It should be taken into account that these private mails were all released right after User:Russavia got banned indefinitely who was the most active "Russian nationalist" editor. Whoever released tbese archives did so because it was in the interest of "Russian nationalist" users. I'm not accusing anyone, but just want to confirm that it's impossible that it was leaked "accidently". Someone purposely leaked private material and that means that whoever did so should not be rewarded by the unbanning of Russavia and blocking of many users which is probably exactly what he / they wanted to achieve. I'm not saying there shouldn't be sanctions, but the fact that a crime was performed should definitely be taken into account. Grey Fox (talk) 20:08, 19 September 2009 (UTC)

If successful (in banning most or all editors of the discussion group), this operation will decimate WikiProject Poland (not that active in the area of modern Russian politics) as well. Such an outcome would benefit several parties; I've no intention to speculate who they are, as I am not fond of public speculation. --_{Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus| talk} 20:28, 19 September 2009 (UTC)

There is no "fact that a crime was performed". There is an oft-repeated assertion of such, but no proof. Indeed, no evidence at all has been put forward. — Coren ^(talk) 20:17, 19 September 2009 (UTC)

There is no denying the fact that private emails were leaked without permission, this is a violation of privacy and copyright, even if it was done by a group member (and none has so forth came forward to claim he is the cabal-exposing hero, and AFAIK in private correspondence I've been privy to all have denied being the "whistleblower", and have expressed their shock/outrage at the event). There is also no denying the fact that Tymek's account was illegally accessed and abused. It is also likely - but probably impossible to prove beyond the realm of doubt without professional investigation by cyber crime experts - that one or more computers were hacked, and the stolen private date doctored to change it into an incriminating "bomb". --_{Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus| talk} 20:28, 19 September 2009 (UTC)

Actually, those two assertions ("without permission", and "illegally accessed") are entirely unsubstantiated and rely entirely on hearsay. You are willing to entertain the highly improbable "hacking" hypothesis, but dismiss the trivial explanation that a willful leaker might have simply lied? As for your assertion that "one or more computers were hacked" is likely — it is entirely spurious. And I happen to be a subject matter expert. That hypothesis is strictly possible but considerably less likely than most other scenarios that adequately explain the leak.

But all of this is entirely moot: the Committee does not have the ability to determine the provenance of the archive, and has neither authority nor jurisdiction to investigate the matter. — Coren ^(talk) 00:12, 20 September 2009 (UTC)

Yes, I consider the possibility that somebody has joined the list, stayed on it for half a year, never ever uttered a single word of critique about what we are discussing, abused one of our members and took over his account, decided to fake some of the archives to incriminate us into breaking some wiki policies and saying things we didn't (indicating a long-term plan and extreme level of maliciousness), passed private information not directly to arbcom but to ~10 people (likely knowing from previous discussion that this entitled real life risk for some of our members who live/visit certain EE countries) and finally by not distancing himself from us, risks whatever taking the same punishment as the people he tried to frame, unlikely. Setting that aside, I will repeat: there is no denying that he has done so without our permission (or do you think every single member of this list participated in faking the archives, leaking them and now we are playing some insane wikidramu?) and that Tymek's account was illegally accessed (unless you consider the possibility that he is the "whistleblower" himself likely...? Which, btw, I don't, and I know Tymek better than probably anyone else on this project). --_{Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus| talk} 16:06, 20 September 2009 (UTC)

Coren, these words of yours raise an eyebrow: "Even if the allegations of the mailing list archive having been taken illegally by an outsider "hacking" were correct, they lie entirely outside the jurisdiction and reach of the Committee, and have no bearing on the propriety of using it." The Bluemarine case happened before you or most of your colleagues became arbitrators. Was its hacking incident discussed when the Committee decided to take this case? Another recent post about this being new ground for the Committee leads me to suspect that it wasn't discussed. If it were possible to provide evidence that the victim's bank account was emptied in conjunction with that hacking, would that have bearing upon your opinion as quoted? It looks from this vantage like you're taking a swift jaunt down a dangerous path. Durova³¹⁹ 22:26, 19 September 2009 (UTC)

Such evidence would be more substantive than currently exist, certainly. But it would not render the mailing list evidence unusable: we (the Committee) do not have an exclusionary rule, and even if we had one it could not reasonably apply to acts done without the committee's knowledge or assent.

Let's be honest here: unlike a criminal justice system where life and freedom are at stake — or even a civil court where financial or injunctive remedies can be imposed — there can be no reasonable argument that the Committee needs to be held to rules of evidence more stringent than a court! There are no civil liberties at stake, no slippery slope to fall onto.

There is a reasonable argument to be made that the Committee has a moral obligation to not cause further harm, and we would not disclose private information that ended up on our laps (no matter how it got there). There is no sane argument that would justify ignoring that information, if it turns out to be evidence of malfeasance on-wiki. — Coren ^(talk) 00:12, 20 September 2009 (UTC)

You will find on the Bluemarine case itself that he complained about the theft at the time when the hacking occurred. The ArbCom list emails from July 17-19 touch on his harassment issue in a general way. If we were to table our philosophical differences about the evidence you are already examining and related claims about moral obligations, you appear dubious about the potential for practical effect from additional evidence. Unless there's an innovative alternate solution, any more information than you already have would likely amount to asking a man who has been the target of two and a half years of harassment to disclose his bank records to a panel of strangers. Unfortunately I cannot relay your assurances of confidentiality; it would be remiss to keep him uninformed that sensitive information has leaked from ArbCom in the past. Perhaps if he has ceased doing business with that bank the request might be viable, but at best it's a very big favor and he has nothing to gain from it. Bear in mind that both he and I have reason to mistrust your judgment: it was arguably your proposals in the Fringe Science case which set in motion the domino effect that politicized my position so badly that the offsite repercussion, which you've seen, ultimately prompted my general resignation. The Bluemarine mentorship I haven't yet been able to hand away for other reasons, but the bottom line--last spring and now--is that I think you underestimate the potential of arbitration actions to morph into offsite harassment. Give me a workable means to demonstrate that and I'll gladly do so. The underlying conflicts in the case you are currently arbitrating mean little to me, but I take harassment and potential hacking quite seriously. Durova³¹⁹ 04:54, 20 September 2009 (UTC)

As noted by Durova, I think, Coren, you are in fact walking a fine line. That’s because, if you throw out all parallels between ArbCom and the criminal justice system and the civil courts – bound by the rules of evidence – you end up in a moral and legal vacuum plaquing all open source formats. Wikipedia rudimentary policies are written not by professional law makers, but the willing and nameless volunteers. Whether there is a real base for it or not, the Arbitration Committee assumes the role of a moral authority among us, and in a way it must earn our community’s respect with each resolved case, the same way we the editors earn the respect of others by proving ourselves from one edit to the next. The community does not, and cannot bestow you with trust enjoyed by the courts, because by design, the Arbitration Committee is composed also of willing but nameless volunteers. There’s a clear but dangerous potential for engaging in a role-playing game on your part. Even though, you can read any off-wiki mail sent to you, you cannot claim the moral right to use it on-wiki to the detriment of people who expressly prohibited you from disclosing its content. --Poeticbent talk 15:28, 20 September 2009 (UTC)

Coren, please not forget that at least one party of this arbcom, me, is editing under a real name. At least one other party has never made much secret of his name (he is a notable Wikipedian). The name of one or two more parties was reveled in the past without their consensus. And it is obvious now that the archive, containing many more personal details (names of several more parties, addresses, and jobs) has been distributed to 10+ editors, some of which remain anonymous and cannot be prevented from sharing it further. Finally, at least some of those parties live or temporarily visit countries whose regimes have not been stranger to arrest, imprison and torture of people known to express political views incompatible with those of the government, not to mention those who can be seen as opposition activist (and editing Wikipedia can be seen as activism). So yes, this case has the potential to affect real lives of many people. --_{Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus| talk} 05:06, 20 September 2009 (UTC)

It is obvious that the emails were stolen and publicly posted by a real life criminal, in violation of privacy and copyright laws. And it does not matter if the criminal was a member of the group, stool pigeon or an FSB hacker. Using fruits of the crime means encouraging crime. Next time they will steal and post private mail of Jimbo.Biophys (talk) 05:07, 20 September 2009 (UTC)

It isn't obvious that the emails were stolen, actually. And the Arbitration Committee can ensure that we don't distribute it directly, and that any portion of it that we produce will be produced in a way that is redacted of real-world information about any of the participants, but we can't control what other people who've received it will do with it outside of this project. Please remember that this information was not sent directly to us, but came to us through one or more recipients chosen by whomever distributed the link to the file. We do not know who else received links to it, or what they chose to do with it, and we cannot control their actions. The Arbitration Committee has never been in control of this information, we do not know who it was given to, we do not know if it was also distributed to people outside of those who received emails through the Wikimedia interface, and we can only control what *we* do with the information. We have taken steps to try to prevent publishing of the contents of the email list onwiki, in particular real-world details of any of its members, including alerting the Oversight team to watch for and respond quickly to any related requests. Redaction is limited to what is covered in the Oversight policy, but any and every request will be carefully reviewed. Risker (talk) 05:22, 20 September 2009 (UTC)

No. I don't agree with you. It is actually very obvious that the E-mails were stolen and from what I read they were also edited/manipulated to suite the agenda of the persons/people behind it.--Jacurek (talk) 05:32, 20 September 2009 (UTC)

No, that is an accusation made by people who have a strong interest in raising doubts about the emails. No proof of either contention has been made public by Arbcom. In any case, the authenticity of the emails will be proven by their correspondence to on-wiki activities. It would take a very clever forger indeed to come up with a series of emails (complete with fake headers, of course) suggesting a course of action that exactly corresponds with some number of on-wiki edits, and it seems even more unlikely that groups of such emails could be forged covering multiple incidents over 9 months. The question is, how times do mailing list messages result in coordinated on-wiki activity. Thatcher 06:06, 20 September 2009 (UTC)

authenticity of the emails will be proven by their correspondence to on-wiki activities - No, it will not. This is an elementary mistake of confusing correlation with causation. If incident X occurred on Wiki, and members A, B and C were involved in this incident, and the incident was discussed in some form on the list then it wouldn't take much effort to alter the discussion that took place on the list to make it look like some kind of a plot. Just because something happened on-Wiki, and at the same time it appears to be discussed in the supposed "evidence" does not prove nor disprove the authenticity of the "evidence". And you making such an assumption shows how bad faithed this discussion/wich hunt/lynching has become.radek (talk) 19:32, 20 September 2009 (UTC)

Precisely what Thatcher says. There is no evidence that this is purloined material, or that it has been forged or modified in any way. It is time to put a halt to this meme. Risker (talk) 06:23, 20 September 2009 (UTC)"

There is no evidence that this is material leaked by a "whistleblower". We do know a person cracked Tymek's Wiki account, from what I hear, his password was pretty weak, being a derivative of his username in a trivial way. It really isn't hard to doctor a sufficient quantity of emails, use the existing threads but change the subject and body sufficient to imply a more sinister meaning, I could even post a fabricated email of Jimbo conspiring with the group, would you like me to post an example to this page?. For an archive this size it would take some time, and I suspect someone who had the time and motivation can do such a thing. --Martintg (talk) 15:21, 20 September 2009 (UTC)

Well.. so the reaction and testimony of the editor who had his account hacked into and the fact that 9 e-mails were sent from the different country means nothing to you??? Whatever guys... I don't understand your logic. I know the E-mails were stolen. I also know that there were compromised and properly "adjusted" because there were not 1500 e-mail about Rusava or whatever his name is and I also know that you guys are very wrong in your analyses of the situation. Sorry....--Jacurek (talk) 06:51, 20 September 2009 (UTC)

Where is the testimony of the editor who had his account hacked? Omegastar (talk) 18:58, 20 September 2009 (UTC)

Check here (and Tymek's talk page). --_{Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus| talk} 19:07, 20 September 2009 (UTC)

I'm not quite convinced these users actually have any of the privacy concerns they claim to have. Worries about the list leaking are frequently expressed throughout the archive. For instance, Piotrus Saturday, June 06, 2009 10:03 AM ... significantly the one just before his fanciful plan (Project Checkuser) to plant a CU and undermine the privacy of others. I haven't yet seen any about non-wiki worries. They're all about the consequences on wiki. Of course, it is a big archive ... and perhaps some of the list users are concerned in actuality. Deacon of Pndapetzim (Talk) 11:56, 20 September 2009 (UTC)

An excellent example of how the archive was faked, or how one twists the contents on it. I deny to ever suggest or support ides to "plant a CU" or "undermine the privacy of others"; I am however pretty sure that I encourage the members of that group to become officials (admins, CU), in order to improve this project (and their reputation). I certainly never encouraged nor expected them to abuse the powers they would be given, just like I, being an admin, never abused them in such a fashion. Leading by example, you know. --_{Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus| talk} 16:13, 20 September 2009 (UTC)

NOTE TO CLERK: Isn't the above comment by Deacon in violation of temporary injuction on Speculative and inflammatory comments? How soon till somebody finds a faked email about me trying to assassinate Jimbo and starts discussing it? --_{Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus| talk} 16:13, 20 September 2009 (UTC)

Why do you even have a copy of this archive? This is an ArbCom case, not some ANI free for all. Is your purpose here to make speculative and inflammatory comments? --Martintg (talk) 15:29, 20 September 2009 (UTC)

I do agree that Deacon's comment is speculation and he needs to restrain himself. That being said; Martintg, you questioning whether Deacon is here to make speculative and inflammatory comments on purpose, is in itself ALSO speculation/inflammatory. Lets not make wild accusations here. Omegastar (talk) 19:06, 20 September 2009 (UTC)

There is an assault on the English language here. "Speculation" means musing about the unknown, such as making claims about the future or claiming the archive was faked (as Piotrus knows to be untrue ... something we normally call lying). These emails are not in any unknown realm. And we can test how "speculative" my summaries are by posting the email. If Piotrus would give his permission to post these emails, I'd gladly leave it to the rest of the community to judge for themselves. So Piotrus, is it ok if the content of these emails (minus person info) are posted? Deacon of Pndapetzim (Talk) 19:57, 20 September 2009 (UTC)

Arbitrary Section Break

Per the Bluemarine example, when material is of dubious provenance it is unwise to lay trust in its length or in partial correlation to onsite events. Alteration of a few words or sentences can have a vast effect on a conversation's meaning and tone. An effective lie is the shortest distance between two verifiable assumptions. Durova³¹⁹ 15:53, 20 September 2009 (UTC)

Honestly, unless there is something list members know but are not sharing, I find it hard to credit the certainty that these e-mails were hacked into by a non-list member. And I certainly find it hard to credit the notion that they were "forged" or "altered" in somehow (not being a techie, I have no idea how one would even do that, but others seem to suggest it's possible). As arbs and others have said above, this is pure speculation and not particularly helpful. If group members believe the list was hacked and if they fear for the safety of their private information (which is certainly a legitimate concern and not something I would at all trivialize), then they need to contact whatever authorities would have jurisdiction over that matter. If they have evidence of hacking or other unethical behavior by a Wikipedian, they should (in addition to contacting authorities) present that to the Arbs who would then undoubtedly ban the person in question. Beyond that there is very little to talk about.

And I'm not buying the whole "fruit of the poisoned tree" scenario. As many have pointed out, Wikipedia is not a court of law. It might help to think about this from the opposite perspective, i.e. how one might react if the Arbs simply ignore the e-mails they now have. Let's assume these e-mails appear to be genuine, can be tied directly to numerous on-wiki activities (which to me would basically prove the first assumption if it was extensive enough), and that said activities were in fact quite disruptive as has been claimed. Are we seriously suggesting that the Arbs (and the community) should just ignore disruption organized offsite because we are not sure exactly how the e-mails landed in the ArbCom's lap? I think not, as that would rightfully cause a large uproar among many editors. While I'm quite sympathetic to the concerns of list members for their privacy, and their anger over the possibility that a list serv was hacked, barring evidence that the e-mails from said list serv were forged I think there is no way for ArbCom to ignore them if they show an organized campaign to disrupt the writing of the encyclopedia. Privacy and the real-life rights of editors are of course the most important concern, but weeding out organized disruption campaigns is pretty damn important to, and no one has provided any persuasive argument that the Arbs making an effort right now on the latter issue would have any negative effect at all on the privacy of editors, which unfortunately has already been damaged. I know Durova is making an argument (analogizing to the Bluemarine case, which I'm admittedly only somewhat informed on) that looking at these e-mails takes us down a dangerous path, but on the face the situation here seems rather different to what happened with Bluemarine. --Bigtimepeace | talk | contribs 16:34, 20 September 2009 (UTC)

Likewise I'm not particularly buying this scenario, given these two facts:

• 9 administrators received the email, 6 of which are hitherto unknown
• The only people pushing the "Rogue Decker" theory are Durova (whom, understandably, has a keen mind for precedent and privacy concerns and keeps citing Bluemarine) and the members of the mailing list itself.
• Those defending the theory have given no evidence what-so-ever that the list was hacked or jacked.

Now, think about it: If there are three people known who have the list, why haven't one of the six unknowns contacted ArbComm about their suspicions? (Disclaimer: I never received and do not have a copy of the mailing list and would delete it immediately.) Surely, if the list *was* hacked, why are the only people protesting against it those who are already known or assumed to be on that list (besides Durova, whose reason for defending this notion is privacy issues)? I'm certain that someone who's neutral in regards to this whole thing would be defending the "Rogue Decker" idea if there's credible evidence. -Jeremy ^{(v^_^v Tear him for his bad verses!)} 19:07, 20 September 2009 (UTC)

There are four people known to have the "list" for sure. There are also one or two people that I've seen that have claimed to have the "list" on wiki. There is indication on off Wiki forums that this "list" was disseminated further.radek (talk) 20:07, 20 September 2009 (UTC)

Was it established the 9 mails were sent to 9 administrators? We only know three recipients, and they are administrators, but we do not know the other 6 recipients, so we do not know if they are also administrators. Lets keep things clear. Omegastar (talk) 19:24, 20 September 2009 (UTC)

I fail to see how the 6 "quiet ones" remaining quiet supports one theory one way or another. The members of the list think it was hacked because it sure as hell looks that way. Other editors have said similar things, you just need to look through all the comments (I know...). The meme that this wasn't a hacking has been put forth by only a few editors, and an ArbCom member(s) - mostly to justify the invasions of privacy that have occurred. They also have an obvious self-interest in this case. Accusations about Durova are improper here.radek (talk) 20:07, 20 September 2009 (UTC)

So do those seeking to dismiss the emails as having been altered or stolen by Joe Q. Decker, Radeksz. Dismissing people because they half a self-interest in the case isn't plausible because then you would have to dismiss the "Rogue Decker" theory since the parties proposing it for the most part have similar (if not the same, but diametrically opposed) self-interests. -Jeremy ^{(v^_^v Tear him for his bad verses!)} 22:22, 20 September 2009 (UTC)

Indeed. Obtaining proof in this case is the biggest problem. All major evidence here is can be faked and/or lied about. Which is why I don't understand why this case is a case. Yes, reading the email archive, which contains mostly uncompromised emails (as I am assuming) will be enough to establish some patterns, but patterns that I trust are not against any wiki rules (discussing wikipedia and so on). It's the small number of emails that will likely be the problem, and I don't see how you can weight claims that they are true vs. claims that they are not. Anyway, I am waiting for the ArbCom to confront me with even a single email. Who knows, perhaps there are no problematic emails, we are all overreacting here one way or another, and the arbcom will simply say that there is no actionable evidence. --_{Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus| talk} 22:30, 20 September 2009 (UTC)

True, Piotrus. As it is it's pointless to dismiss the email archives on the basis of either theft (as the ArbComm lacks an exclusionary rule and in any case will not rule on the email archive specifically, but rather on any on-Wiki malfeasance conclusively linked to the archive's mails) or data-manipulation (as there's no evidence to suggest it thus far, and MBisanz has stated out in his evidence that the mails would've required some targeted information those not involved would have a difficult time forging). I take the stance that (α) the archive's emails (on an individual basis) are legit until proven otherwise and (β) the fact the archive was leaked is irrelevant to the case; only whether they are legitimate and unforged should matter. -Jeremy ^{(v^_^v Tear him for his bad verses!)} 01:24, 21 September 2009 (UTC)

(ec) Please see below for a possible solution. Let's suppose two scenarios. Scenario one: the emails are genuine and the leak is legitimate, in which case the list participants are blowing smoke and raising fraudulent arguments. In that case, either one or more of them balks at the lexical analysis proposal or else they agree to it and it turns up nothing. Scenario two: a hack occurred and some part of the correspondence is forged. In that case the participants have probably been reeling from the last few days' events and would be eager for the chance to clear their names--if they are willing to trust me. Piotrus and I have mutually respected each other for years although our paths seldom cross. Most of the others I rarely or never encounter. So in either case there's a chance that someone will balk and a chance that an inquiry will turn up nothing, but it might help to shake things out. Durova³²⁰ 19:34, 20 September 2009 (UTC)

If I understand your position correctly, you believe the emails demonstrate improper offsite collusion and argue that it would be untenable to exclude them. I don't form any opinion about what they do or don't demonstrate until their provenance is examined. Was access acquired legitimately? Could the content have been tampered? Durova³¹⁹ 16:46, 20 September 2009 (UTC)

At the very least illegally in sense of distributing private and copyrighted information without consent of others, but see my comment here on why I think hacking is more likely. Regarding tampering with the content, I think it is quite possible to do that, and I will be submitting my evidence to the committee today or early next week. Short version is that many email formats are not encrypted, and they are essentially text files. As long as somebody knows a little bit about coding and understands terms such as timestamps and strings, I don't see anything in an email file that would say "I was tampered with" if it was. All it takes, even for an amateur like me who started reading on email tampering two days ago, is a little computer literacy and time (and of course being able to acquire a sample of real emails with real headers and such). PS. Some people talk about the truth being obvious once one compares emails with diffs on wiki. The problem with that is that this implies the relation is only one way (email first, diffs later) and cannot be forged. In fact email timestamps can be faked, and comments / diffs inserted in them; so it is quite possible to start with diffs one wants to make look incriminating and alter/construct email(s) in which they innocent real wiki edits are given the air of some evil cabal conspiracy. --_{Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus| talk} 17:08, 20 September 2009 (UTC)

Let's steer this away from legal terminology back to common sense. Anyone who's had the misfortune of dealing with a really devious liar knows what happens: they'll spin a fabrication around a few verifiable facts. There might be a way of looking into the tampering claims through lexical analysis, by comparing disputed emails against undisputed text. Would people be willing to explore this avenue of inquiry? Durova³¹⁹ 17:45, 20 September 2009 (UTC)

How reliable is it? Let's say there's an email containing several paragraphs in which only about half a sentence was altered. Would a lexical analysis detect it? What about crucial one word changes, such as a statement "we should not edit war" changed to "we should edit war"? And could such an analysis have been run by a party who wanted to doctor the evidence, and used to improve its "reliability"? --_{Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus| talk} 17:55, 20 September 2009 (UTC)

(ec with Durova) What you say is possible Piotrus, but of course it's complete conjecture, and per Occam's razor probably not the first explanation we should accept. Obviously if there is any evidence that what you have described may have happened it should be considered, and if it seems likely to be true than that would change everything. But, again, your scenario is pure speculation and considerably more complicated that the more obvious one—namely that the e-mails were leaked by a list member or hacked by an outsider but are in fact genuine. However as of right now neither of us know what the deal is, so we're both speculating.

Durova I have no idea what the e-mails say, so I do not know whether or not they demonstrate improper offsite collusion. My only point was that if they do (and if the content was not tampered with, or at least we can say beyond a reasonable doubt that it wasn't) then I think it's untenable to exclude them. If there was no improper collusion and/or if the e-mails seem to have been tampered with then it's a whole other ballgame, obviously, and as I'm not prejudging anything here I'm aware that either or both of those are certainly a possibility. My only point was that, if they appear to be genuine and show malfeasance, it would be inadvisable to ignore them simply because there is the possibility that they were accessed in an appropriate (and perhaps even illegal) fashion. It's not a cut and dried question, but I think there would be real damage if genuine e-mails show a problem and nothing is done about it, whereas the privacy damage has already been done and will not, I think, be exacerbated by ArbCom investigating this matter. --Bigtimepeace | talk | contribs 17:52, 20 September 2009 (UTC)

The point here, I think, is not as much about this case (as you say, privacy damage was done and cannot be undone), but about the message we are sending to the future parties, which is that if you can hack/infiltrate/steal somebody's private documents, you can do so, as it will be accepted as evidence. I guess the committee can take a middle way and say that it will not accept such an evidence in the future but is making an exception in this case, since it has already started looking at it. But I hope that this will not be a precedent for the future cases. --_{Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus| talk} 17:59, 20 September 2009 (UTC)

(ec) One possibility, as far as verifying that the e-mails are genuine or not, would be to compare a number of them with the original e-mails saved by a list-member, if anyone has saved the e-mails. While it would be possible for a list member to simply forward their original list e-mails on to the Arbs, this is actually open to gaming by the list member who forwards it (simply changing the text when forwarding, not that I'm saying anyone would do that, but it would be easy to do so there would be a "chain of evidence" problem). So I don't think that's the ideal route.

Another option, which might be logistically difficult or impossible, would be for a list member with the original e-mails and an Arb or trusted admin to sit in front of the same computer screen at the same time and compare the e-mails to each other. Obviously list members would have to agree to that, and the two people would have to live in the same vicinity, but if e-mails were forged such a comparison would probably prove it pretty conclusively, so it would likely be in the interest of people on the list to consider an option like that.

And Piotrus the point is well taken about future precedent with respect to hacked evidence, if indeed that is what happened here. A statement from ArbCom that they will not, in the future, look at such evidence might be a good idea, but one problem would be that (as is the case here) there could be any number of cases where it's unclear whether info was "leaked" to the committee by someone who was party to it (which I don't have a problem with if it details problematic behavior) or actively hacked (which I obviously do have a problem with). --Bigtimepeace | talk | contribs 18:11, 20 September 2009 (UTC)

This would be a big undertaking and cut into other commitments, but if all list members are willing I would compare the disputed versions of the list and prepare a detailed report. Basically it would look at the writing habits of the participants and attempt to determine whether disputed material is consistent or inconsistent with those patterns. I have no idea what such an inquiry would find, whether conclusions could be drawn, or if they were drawn whether they would be compelling. The report would stand or fall on its own merits. Would such an inquiry be welcome? Durova³²⁰ 18:31, 20 September 2009 (UTC)

Since at this point the archive is now being shared among many people, I personally have no problem with you (I explicitly trust you with regards to privacy issues and professional ethical conduct and such) getting a copy of it (but obviously I'd have to ask other people on the group if they are ok with it, since I have no right to authorize sharing of their emails). I don't think, however, that there are multiple versions of the archive to compare, as (being paranoid - but apparently not paranoid enough - about being snooped upon by KGB web brigades such :>) we didn't maintain an official archive, and discouraged members from keeping their own (although, apparently, at least one person did - unless somebody was simply snooping on the email traffic and creating an unauthorized copy). --_{Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus| talk} 18:56, 20 September 2009 (UTC)

All members' approval would be prerequisite, of course. If unsolicited material arrives in my inbox prematurely I will delete and purge it unread. The lack of an official archive could be overcome. Let's keep this as transparent as possible: you know the usernames of all the people who participated. Would you notify them onsite of this offer please, and ask them to respond yea or nay onsite? Durova³²⁰ 19:10, 20 September 2009 (UTC)

I'll do so shortly. --_{Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus| talk} 19:17, 20 September 2009 (UTC)

I think you should both also talk to the Arbs before doing anything like that. If anyone is going to compare e-mails it should probably be an arbitrator, and they might already be exploring that option. I stress the point I made above though: if an e-mail (or rather a number of e-mails) is simply forwarded on to an Arb or to Durova by a list member, there is (I assume) no way to know if the text of the original e-mail was altered prior to being forwarded. If a particular e-mail said "let's try to get User:XYZ blocked," there's little to prevent a list member from deleting that statement, keeping the time stamp and other info, and inserting a more benign text that fits in with the flow of the conversation before forwarding it. I imagine it would actually be a lot easier to "fake" that than it would have been to "fake" the original e-mail archive, so anyone who is skeptical of the latter should clearly be skeptical of the former. Again I'm not saying anyone would actually try to alter a forwarded e-mail, but the very fact that it's a possibility creates a problem and is why I was suggesting that two editors looking at a list member's e-mail inbox directly would be the way to go, though that's admittedly quite invasive and probably difficult to orchestrate. --Bigtimepeace | talk | contribs 19:32, 20 September 2009 (UTC)

The list participants can designate whoever they want. It appears that no arbitrator has taken an interest in this type of effort, although if one or more change their minds I would gladly work in parallel or together. Durova³²⁰ 19:36, 20 September 2009 (UTC)

I agree with Big. I am pretty sure I made that point both here and in an @ to arbcom (and will be making it again). Since such archives can be faked, they can be faked by whoever perpetrated this in the first place to incriminate, but they can be as easily faked by us to make us look better. For the record I don't think it would be easier to fake the archive to exonerate than to incrimianate, I think both are about as difficult (if they are to be believable). And even directly looking at the inbox may prove nothing; soon after this all begun (see my post at ANI) I already tried and succeeded in altering my own inbox (I use SeaMonkey, if anybody cares to try to duplicate that). So as much as I have no problem inviting a member of an arbcom to my place (anyone close to Pittsburgh?) and having them look at my computer, there is no guarantee that what they are looking at is genuine (and although I am not a CS-geek, what I've been reading recently suggest that if one has a password to a web-based email client, it contents can also be altered). So we can have one, two of ten different versions, and know way to know which is real (if any). Which is why I think that any email-based evidence is inherently worthless, no matter who presents it (accuser or the accused). PS. I already made an offer to arbcom that I will try, to the best of my ability and recollection, to confirm whether an email I wrote and they have in their archive is genuine or not. And while whatever I say is only as good as my word, I can point out to the evidence of my 5+ years dedication to this project as the only unfakable (character) evidence we can have in this bizarre case. My word, backed by my real name, can be weighted against the word of the anonymous person who stole our private information and doctored it to destroy our reputation. I known whom I'd trust, obviously :) --_{Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus| talk} 19:53, 20 September 2009 (UTC)

(ec, to Big) A bit more: your concerns are duly noted. Of course it is also possible that list members themselves would delete or alter passages. I strongly recommend that they not attempt to "scrub" anything, even if a few situations and passages look bad. The basic idea is that within a large enough body of text, most people create their own distinctive patterns. I would be looking for similarities and interruptions of those patterns. Although most or all of the Committee isn't aware I had anything to do with it, there are two accounts they indefinitely blocked earlier this year where a portion of the evidence had to do with quirks such as consistently writing "advise" in contexts where "advice" ought to be the correct spelling. There were several different patterns of that sort which held up over time across both accounts. It's an advantage in the current dispute that several of the participants are probably non-native speakers. Imperfect fluency enhances the likelihood that distinctive patterns might emerge. Durova³²⁰ 20:01, 20 September 2009 (UTC)

All looks good, but as I mentioned above, what are the gurantees such an analysis was not run by the original faker to make the fake look more genuine? For example, I often tend to mix up "then" and "than", this would probably come up in such an analysis. So if I wanted to fake some of my emails, I'd make sure to add this mistake to it. And how good is such an analysis in spotting that a passge "let's not edit war" was turned into "let's edit war"? Can it detect than an email in which a vote was announced had a lengthy paragraph with justification deleted and replaced by "Please vote yes"? I have no doubt that such an analysis is useful in confirming that a lengthy email was written (or not) by somebody, but how good is it in finding small changes? --_{Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus| talk} 20:23, 20 September 2009 (UTC)

(ec, reply to Piotrus's earlier post) On this point you and I differ. Suppose for a moment that you are correct and that hacking and alteration did occur. In that scenario, the alteration was probably done by someone who knew a great deal about the surrounding context, or else no one would have taken the forgeries seriously. I have no idea whether that person was a good writer or speller, but many people either fail to spell check their work or make subtle errors that spell checkers fail to screen. If forgeries exist in ArbCom's evidence, and if those forgeries contain their own distinctive lexical fingerprint, then it's not entirely outside the realm of possibility that the same lexical fingerprint would exist on the Wikipedia edit history of someone on the opposite side of this dispute. You say that the onsite account of a list member was compromised due to a weak password and that several outgoing emails were sent from that account from a different country than where the editor resides. If lexical evidence strongly correlated with one account, and if checkuser zeroed that account to the same country as those wiki emails from the compromised account--well at least there's a theoretical chance of fingering the hacker. It's one of several possibilities worth exploring. Durova³²⁰ 20:24, 20 September 2009 (UTC)

It may be interesting indeed, I am just - having spend days reading on faking electronic data and such - doubtful any electronic evidence can be perfect. It's all about how good somebody is in covering their trail, leaving false fingerprints, what will be spotted by an investigator, and so on. Are we dealing with pros or amateur(s)? Are we ourselves pro(s) or amateur(s)? What do we know that they (will) know, how can we use their assumptions/SOP against them? And so on. But as I said before, you have my blessings to analyze the archive, and I hope you'll prove something helpful there (talking about the hackers, I would like to learn what country the IP that Thatcher said was used to send those emails from a compromised Tymek's account was... I would think that a revealing a country should not be seen as compromising any privacy of anyone?). --_{Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus| talk} 20:30, 20 September 2009 (UTC)

(followup to Piotrus) No way of telling unless all list participants consent. If they do, let's work out the details. First things first. Does anyone have a better idea for exploring the hacking/alteration possibility? Durova³²⁰ 20:27, 20 September 2009 (UTC)

It seems to me that this will only work if the participants download a copy of the archive and read through the messages looking for messages that appear altered. It would then be up to Durova to compare (let's imagine) 10 allegedly altered messages by Piotrus with his hundreds of undisputed messages; a dozen allegedly altered messages by Offliner with his hundreds of undisputed messages, and so on, looking for particular identifying characteristics. I think small sample size is going to work against you; there is still much dispute over whether Clement Clark Moore wrote "A visit from St. Nicholas" or the supposed lost sonnets of Shakespeare, for example. Thatcher 21:05, 21 September 2009 (UTC)

[redacted inciteful and totally inappropriate commentary. Daniel (talk) 11:22, 22 September 2009 (UTC)] Anybody can amuse themselves with creating a new account with a brand new moniker every other day if you want,[5] but some of us can’t, and most likely won’t. With regard to possible sharing of the genuine archive by the group members, I suggest that any comparison with the illegal copy be made only in response to a specific accusation of impropriety made by ArbCom. All other correspondence is irrelevant. Besides, I don't have access to the illegal copy, and wouldn't mind seeing it first. --Poeticbent talk 19:35, 20 September 2009 (UTC)

Proposal by JzG

I believe that much of the problem would be solved if we had a general prohibition on admins using their tools in ethnic disputes when those admins closely identify with one side of the ethnic dispute. Ethnic issues have probably the longest history of dispute, right back to Gdanzig and beyond, and I think that any administrative action should be strictly at arms length for these articles. I don't see how Piotrus, for example, can ever be perceived as an honest broker by the opposing side in these disputes - however carefully he might weigh the neutrality of every action, the mere fact of his involvement will be inflammatory to a deeply entrenched opposing camp - muc more so than would be the case with, say, William and climate change articles, where there is at least an objective standard by which to judge the issue. In many ethnic disputes there never can be an objective single value of truth, which is why they are so intractable. Guy (Help!) 16:38, 19 September 2009 (UTC)

Sounds like a good proposal in general (although probably peripheral to this case). Please review my admin log actions history, where you'll see I've never used my admin tool to further "Polish agenda". You are welcome to point out any controversial admin actions I've taken here, or add them to evidence, and I'll be happy to address them. PS. I'd also like to add to this proposal that admins should be prohibited from taking administrative action in ethnic disputes when those admins have identified themselves as being prejudiced against a certain ethnic group (ex. [6]). --_{Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus| talk} 16:51, 19 September 2009 (UTC)

I would go further than Piotrus and say that admins that have identified themselves as being prejudiced against a certain ethnic group should lose their adminship, since ethnic prejudice is one of the least desirable traits imaginable in an administrator (or any editor for that matter).

But the diff you put up (from a promptly banned SPA account) does not remotely provide any evidence that a particular administrator has "identified themselves as being prejudiced against a certain ethnic group," so I'm not sure why you included that (some ill-advised comments maybe, but hardly admissions of ethnic prejudice). I'm also not sure unsubtle jibes directed at particular users are a very good strategy for you or anyone else connected to this case. --Bigtimepeace | talk | contribs 17:53, 19 September 2009 (UTC)

I disagree that comments like that don't reflect ethnic prejudice, but this is not the time or place to discuss it. --_{Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus| talk} 20:31, 19 September 2009 (UTC)

For goodness sake, Piotrus, give the malicious lies up. However important you believe yourself to be, your cabal is not a whole ethnic group, and no-one now is going to take your comments any more seriously than you yourself do in practice. You must be smart enough to know anyway that this kind of thing is no longer in your interest. You need to adapt. Deacon of Pndapetzim (Talk) 01:42, 20 September 2009 (UTC)

Deacon, please dont make inflammatory comments. Omegastar (talk) 19:30, 20 September 2009 (UTC)

Piotrus, Deacon's comment (which is over three years old, not incidentally) was quite poorly worded, undoubtedly, but to suggest that in so commenting Deacon "identified themselves as being prejudiced against a certain ethnic group" (as you explicitly stated above prior to citing the diff) is quite frankly ridiculous. Note that I say that as someone who knows neither of you and could not care less with respect to whatever it is y'alls argue about.

And if, as you say, this is "not the time or place to discuss it," then why on earth did you bring it up? Unless you intentionally want to look ridiculous, don't throw up a diff which you heavily imply gives evidence that a particular editor has evidenced their ethnic prejudice and then, when another user calls you out on it, say "we shouldn't be talking about this." --Bigtimepeace | talk | contribs 08:11, 20 September 2009 (UTC)

It can be easily gamed. Also ego is a big part of Wikipedia, and sometimes I have seen some admin, they got some dissent from a certain fellow, then they go on IRC and mouth off about the race/religion of the person in general and start taking a rough attitude to all of them. The bottom line is whether an article is NPOV or not, so that's what needs to be looked at from the basics of the article if people want things to be cleaned up, and frankly, despite what anyone might say, the lack of "neutrals" having a serious look says enough by itself. Driveby AE enforcements and arbcom motions collating 10 reverts together and blocking a few people have little effect unless all the "baddies" are on one side. As for canvassing and tactical manoevres, well, the bottom line is NPOV (in theory, although it never is) and canvassing more does not necessarily mean more POV, more harassment etc. It's only become relevant because things on Wikipedia are often decided by numbers and not objectivity, but even with no canvassing, people who have more of a personality cult or a big bunch of disciples/social club can get a load of people spontaneously voting on their FACs or whatever anyway, regardless of merit or demerit. A smart group of people can spontaneously know when to apply "My enemy's enemy is my friend" which is a very standard MO on Wikipedia. You can't get much out of a mailing list that you can't get out of analysing the specific on-wiki edit, except a person doing edits for banned users, or to see if there is a cowardly kingpin somewhere (like a political admin with a personality cult) who is getting all their overexcited "roughs" to attack but not joining in themselves because they are chooks. A person expresing disdain for another off-wiki, while it might be exciting to read, doesn't really add anything, and a lot of people are obviously doing things out of spite all over the place whether they say it or not, words are meaningless. YellowMonkey (bananabucket) 02:59, 21 September 2009 (UTC)

Proposal by Piotrus

I believe that the Committee should adopt a policy that would inform parties presenting evidence to the ArbCom that they have no right to share private information that is not theirs without permission from other parties whose private information is being shared, and that the Committee will not accept such evidence. The Committee should also adopt a policy that it will not accept evidence obtained by illegal or unethical means (such as, but not limited to, hacking somebody's computer). This should substantially discourage parties from attempting to violate other editors' privacy, and from other illegal actions such as hacking. --_{Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus| talk} 21:19, 19 September 2009 (UTC)

• Dude, get over it. Arbcom has stated numerous times that they will and are considering the emails. Arbcom is not bound by the exclusionary rule; not even US courts are required to discard all improperly obtained evidence all the time, and US prosecutors are indeed permitted to use evidence that was illegally obtained by third parties if the government had nothing to do with it [7].
• You are not going to be held directly responsible for the contents of the emails. Rather, the emails will be used as a kind of cipher key to discover patterns of behavior hidden in apparently random on-wiki edits, rather like one of those images that looks like a jumble of colors until you look at it through a colored filter. No one cares if you said "Let's get Russavia" and then you all forgot about it and did other things. Hot air and hot talk is not a blockable offense. But if there are messages stating "Let's get Russavia tomorrow," and on that day there is a pattern of edits targeting Russavia, then you are indeed in deep water without your water wings. (And, note that this would be relatively difficult to fake. Taking a message archive and salting it with messages that give the appearance of coordinated attacks would require an intimate knowledge of the on-wiki edits, reverts, article disputes and blocks, in order to create a post-hoc forgery suggesting pre-hoc coordination. Not impossible, but difficult.) I wonder how many such mailing list discussions can be tied to diffs. One could easily be a coincidence, two an aberration. I have a feeling there are many, and I think I smell supper. Thatcher 05:48, 20 September 2009 (UTC)

Proposal 1 by Radeksz

I actually think that this particular ArbCom case is two cases in one. I understand that there is lots of concern over cabals, conspiracies and coordination in this topic area. But a whole another issue by itself is the clarifying what kinds of rights to privacy and security Wikipedia editors can expect, when, where and by whom can off Wiki evidence be used and/or reviewed if it contains sensitive private information, the safe guards and policies that Wikipedia has to address the hacking of users accounts, legal or otherwise (note that even if we don't know how "the evidence" was obtained in this case, this is still a possibility and must be considered), what to do once private information begins to be disseminated without the permission of the affected parties, and the best ways to prevent such leaks of private information from occurring again.

This has happened once. No reasonable person should expect that such attempts will not occur again. And if the committee does not address these issues NOW, the first time it happened, it (and all of Wikipedia along with it) will look completely ridiculous the next time it happens.radek (talk) 22:23, 19 September 2009 (UTC)

Proposal 2 by Radeksz

Alex Bakharev is immediately temporarily desysopped.

User:Alex Bakharev, one of the administrators who received the email from Tymek's compromised acocunt with the supposed "evidence", despite the uncertain legal status of this material shared it with other Wikipedia users, notably User:Deacon_of_Pndapetzim. He did this despite being previously asked, in a specific and clear manner, more than once, not to share the information [8] [9], as it contained personal and private data about several Wikipedia users, including their real names, occupations and families. This was a clear violation of Wikipedia policy on outing.

As a result of showing bad judgment Alex Bakharev, for the duration of the ArbCom case shall be desysopped and his administrative privileges revoked, pending complete investigation and conclusion of this case.

Proposed by radek (talk) 22:52, 19 September 2009 (UTC)

Honestly, if this wasn't an ArbCom case already I'd ask for a straight up block for outing. Note that in previous cases editors have been almost-banned for merely stating another user's nationality. This particular incident is about as clear cut case of outing as there can be. Previously Deacon (and whoever else this was shared with) didn't know mine or other people's real name, nor any kind of personal information. Now he does because Alex provided him with it, despite my explicit instruction not to do that.

Ok, Alex forwarded this to ArbCom (eventually - he chose to read it first and post about it at AN/I). I think that posting about this publicly on AN/I, which generated publicity and drama, rather than waiting for ArbCom to finish reviewing the submitted material and acting on their instructions was already an outing violation. Regardless it was an obvious excercise of very bad judgment. Forwarding this information to other users despite explicit requests not to do so was not just outing but probably done in bad faith.

And last time I checked user Deacon is not an ArbCom member, nor was he ever. And last time I checked user Deacon is somebody who's had long standing conflicts with some of the affected parties, has engaged in personal attacks and incivility against them and, speaking personally, is about the last person on Wiki I want knowing my personal info. I'd mind less if Alex had forwarded my personal info to a random troll or vandal IP.

This injunction is necessary to prevent further damage that can be caused by Alex's extreme lapses of judgment.

If Alex asserts that whatever he emailed to Deacon (and possibly others) did not contain any personal information (real names, occupations, etc.) I will happily withdraw this proposal.radek (talk) 22:52, 19 September 2009 (UTC)

• I have no idea who has hacked my account, and sharing private messages obtained in this way is a shameful activity. Tymek (talk) 05:09, 20 September 2009 (UTC)

• I think not. Thatcher 05:50, 20 September 2009 (UTC)

You think not?? So you saying that he lying, right?--Jacurek (talk) 07:07, 20 September 2009 (UTC)

It's not clear who you are referring to by "he" Jacurek. Please note that I moved Tymek's comment above from the main page to here, and rearranged the comments chronologically. When Thatcher made his comment above, he was referring to Radeksz's proposal, not to Tymek's comment (this should also be clear from the indentation). See here and here and the page version here. Thatcher can probably explain further what he meant by what he said. Apologies for any confusion this caused. Carcharoth (talk) 07:28, 20 September 2009 (UTC)

Indeed, at the time I posted "I think not" mine was the first comment on this page. It refers to the proposal to desysop Alex B for publicizing the existence of the mailing list, as should be clear from the embedded link. Thatcher 11:58, 20 September 2009 (UTC)

• Alex has acted with integrity, and what he done was morally and ethically warranted and correct. --Russavia ^Dialogue 06:58, 20 September 2009 (UTC)

• Please, no voting. Discussion only. Carcharoth (talk) 06:59, 20 September 2009 (UTC)

• This "proposal" is completely frivolous and disingenuous and done crudely and in poorly disguised bad faith. And yes radek, some said (mostly your cabal members actually) calling you out as a cabal of nationalist ideologues "personal attacks" and "bad faith", but I'm afraid time and events have vindicated such comments and I am proud of having made them, even though I am sad I had to. Deacon of Pndapetzim (Talk) 08:49, 20 September 2009 (UTC)

Does the fact that you read private e-mails stolen from other people also make you proud ?--Jacurek (talk) 08:59, 20 September 2009 (UTC)

• Unless you assert that Alex Bakharev has, himself, "hacked" a computer to obtain the mail archive — and that you can prove that assertion — I see no reason to desysop. — Coren ^(talk) 12:31, 20 September 2009 (UTC)

AFAIK, Alex was not involved in the hacking. But that's not the issue, nor did I anywhere make such an accusation or use it as an argument. The reason for desysopping is that Alex, disseminating this information beyond ArbCom members, acted against Wikipedia policy on Outing, acted carelessly and showed a lack of judgment.

If all that Alex did was to forward the email he received to ArbCom like Jehomann did, I would not bring up this proposal.

If all that Alex did was to forward the email he received to ArbCom and read the contents himself, like Future Perfect did I would not bring up this proposal.

If all that Alex did was to forward the email he received to ArbCom, read the contents himself, and make a public post at AN/I about their existence and contents I would probably not bring up this proposal.

But Alex did far more than that - he forwarded the emails containing my personal and private conversation to people I have absolutely no trust in, ones who insulted me in the past and ones who very clearly bore me ill will. And he did this after being EXPLICITLY, CLEARLY and REPEATEDLY asked not to do this. If that's not poor judgement, and violating "outing", I don't know what is.radek (talk) 16:20, 20 September 2009 (UTC)

Ah yes - I didn't even notice this earlier, until Martin pointed out (some cabal, eh?) just now - Alex did not only ignore my requests not to forward the emails but he also ignored the instructions of an ArbCom member: [10].radek (talk) 16:22, 20 September 2009 (UTC)

The issue is that Alex passed on this archive containing personal private data without the consent of the owners and ignoring the request of an Arbitrator not to pass on this data to a third person who is not an arbitrator and thus has no valid business in viewing this data, while making speculative and inflammatory comments. --Martintg (talk) 14:41, 20 September 2009 (UTC)

Indeed. I can to a certain degree understand why he passed it to arbcom, although if it was me who has received an alleged @ archive of somebody's elses, I'd delete it (like some admirable people did) and not fwd it to anybody (in extreme cases I could consider fwding it to proper legal authorities). That Alex fwd it to "people he thought they should have it" makes his judgment very questionable. That said, I am not sure I'd support his desysoping - he has not really abused an admin power... although neither did I, yet I got desysoped. Perhaps somebody who is not a party can explain the difference here? --_{Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus| talk} 12:19 pm, Today (UTC−4)

Taking that as a serious question, the difference seems to be that the contents of the email archive and/or any accompanying evidence raise sufficient concerns in the minds of the arbitrators that they feel it's better for you not to have the tools while things are resolved, and they don't see equally prominent concerns in relation to Alex Bakharev. (I believe your position is that in order for the mail archive to raise such concerns, it must be have been faked / tamnpered with). Fairly straight forwards, I think. 87.254.84.181 (talk) 19:38, 20 September 2009 (UTC)

@Thatcher, unless you have concrete CU evidence that this person who cracked Tymek's account on September 16th, which you identified as a foreign IP, is one of the particpants in this case, then your assertion of whistleblowing is just a speculative hypothesis. --Martintg (talk) 14:47, 20 September 2009 (UTC)

I would also like to point out, in case anyone misses this obvious point, that Alex's activity was in no way any kind of "whistle blowing". At the time he forwarded my personal information to Deacon: 1) He was aware that at least two other administrators had emailed the "archive" to the ArbCom and that 2) That the ArbCom was reviewing the "archive" This case would have been opened w/o Alex's actions, and he was/should've been clearly aware that the case would have been opened w/o his forwarding of the email to Deacon. If somebody hacks your bank account information and sends it to me so that I can look at how rich or poor you are, I have a responsibility to go to the police. I do not have the right to show this bank account information to any private parties, particularly those in a financial dispute with you.

His action did not constitute "whistle blowing" in any sense, rather it was a clear cut case of transmitting sensitive private information to third parties who had (and have) no business possessing it. I.e. Outing.radek (talk) 16:43, 20 September 2009 (UTC)

I think the process here does not require any Arbcom rulings as User:Alex Bakharev is open to recall. (Igny (talk) 18:50, 20 September 2009 (UTC))

Well, that's a possibility. However I think that Arbcom ruling on this proposal would be an indication that ArbCom takes privacy issues on Wikipedia seriously.radek (talk) 19:38, 20 September 2009 (UTC)

The ArbCom has no mandate to ensure privacy of users pertaining to their off-wiki activities. The archives have been uploaded to a public website and are very much a common knowledge now. Unless you can prove that Alex is the one responsible, you're out of luck. Again. Óðinn (talk) 00:23, 21 September 2009 (UTC)

and I don't think that you fully understand what Alex have done. Can I suggest reading the proposal again for clues ?--Jacurek (talk) 00:32, 21 September 2009 (UTC)

He was asked by a member of the ArbCom to forward it to the ArbCom. Which is exactly what he did. Did I miss something? Óðinn (talk) 00:42, 21 September 2009 (UTC)

Yes, you missed something. I am not making this proposal because Alex forwarded it to ArbCom. I am making this proposal because Alex sent it along to various OTHER users after I explicitly asked him not to do so. The ArbCom does have a "mandate" to ensure that admins involved in this case can be trusted in this judgment. If there is some concern that they can't, they should be de-sysopped for the duration of the case.radek (talk) 01:45, 21 September 2009 (UTC)

According to the link you've provided, Deacon of Pndapetzim was the only party outside of the ArbCom that became privy to the list via Alex's actions. So, I'm not sure what various others users you're referring to. Óðinn (talk) 02:02, 21 September 2009 (UTC)

Please read things more carefully. To quote from the diff provided "I had given the link to a former Arbitrator " - I don't know who. And anyway, forwarding it to Deacon is sufficient.radek (talk) 02:09, 21 September 2009 (UTC)

I can't comment desysopping proposal because I am not aware what are general standards in wikipedia for dealing with problematic admin behaviour, but generally I would expect admin who somehow receives information that contains personal details of editor(s), to spread this information minimally or not at all without those editors permission. I can't see any good justification for sending such information to someone (administrator or not) after it had been already sent to ArbCom, and both Arbcom member and one involved editor had requested it to be not spread any further.--Staberinde (talk) 11:10, 21 September 2009 (UTC)

• I feel somewhat confused watching one side of the debate flooding the case pages with lawyering and now with attacks against AB. Guys, you're clean, why do you act like this? Don't you realize that this line of action works one way - against yourselves? PR basics, really. As for the starting "proposal", it's really noise, an episode in a philibuster campaign. Disregard. NVO (talk) 12:23, 21 September 2009 (UTC)

Editing restrictions proposal

At Wikipedia:Arbitration/Requests/Case/Eastern_European_mailing_list/Proposed_decision#Russavia NewYorkBrad suggested that I make a proposal on editing restrictions. As this Arbcom is partly centred around the topic of Soviet/Russian/succesor states history in relation to the history of the Baltic States, Poland and Romania, I feel that a fair proposal would be the temporary ban of myself, and all editors named as being on this email list, from editing articles relating to the history of the Soviet Union/Russia/successor states (including the Baltics), Poland and Romania, where the history is based upon any one of the named states interactions with any of the other named states, e.g. Soviet-Polish history, Polish-Ukrainian history, Russian-Estonian, Romanian-Moldovan history, etc. This would allow editing to continue by all editors in areas which are not related to this area of dispute, and where there is likely productive work going on, and for the duration of these proceedings. --Russavia ^Dialogue 06:39, 20 September 2009 (UTC)

This is too broad for some editors here who are prolific content creators. Why should User:Poeticbent be banned from expanding the modern history of Kraków (with the section on communist rule in Poland, 1945-1989), and so on? If the committee feels that there is a need for any temporary (or not) topic bans, I suggest that we look at what articles are being disrupted/edit warred over now (or were very recently), and create a list of articles that are subject to topic ban. Any editors who want to have such articles to be reviewed by the committee for the purpose of being included in such a topic ban can suggest them here. --_{Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus| talk} 16:24, 20 September 2009 (UTC)

I am a prolific content editor too Piotrus; that is until I became a target of stalking and harrassment. Anyway, there are articles in my userspace that I would have to leave alone for time being due to the proposed editing restrictins proposal. Go create or other material until the end of the Arbcom -- there is more to WP than the history of the Soviet Union, etc. Poeticbent, and all, can create articles on Polish writers, or people or whatever. It's not going to kill anyone. --Russavia ^Dialogue 18:08, 21 September 2009 (UTC)

Being on a private list is not a misdeed by itself, and the list is totally foreign to Wikipedia, therefore it is doubly nonsensical to sanction people for this. They can only be held responsible individually for their own disruptive actions on-wiki resulted from the discussions, if there are any (quite possibly there are, but not as many as you probably would like to think). That aside, I think creation of new articles by Russavia and editing in his own userspace should be exempt from the topic ban (not from the general Wikipedia policies, however). Colchicum (talk) 18:41, 21 September 2009 (UTC)

I believe everyone should have a chance to prove that they can contribute to this project in uncontroversial ways. Perhaps what Russavia needs is a mentor? --_{Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus| talk} 19:12, 21 September 2009 (UTC)

Proposal by Biophys

I suggest that any action by ArbCom in this case should be based only on actual deeds by users in wikipedia. Perhaps the reading emails will help to identify problematic actions, but the editors should be sanctioned only for something what they actually did here and not for their words in emails. Therefore, the content of of illegally intercepted emails should never appear in any evidence, public or privately sent by ArbCom. Note that any emails by ArbCom can also be intercepted and posted by the unknown players.Biophys (talk) 15:05, 20 September 2009 (UTC)

ArbComm's remit is only on on-Wikipedia actions, and if there's evidence the emails led to collusion that wound up detrimental to the project, Biophys, regardless of whether the emails were leaked or not there will be sanctions based on the on-Wiki actions. Forged correspondence shouldn't be taken into account in any circumstance. ArbComm is not bound by exclusionary rules, as has been pointed out above. -Jeremy ^{(v^_^v Tear him for his bad verses!)} 22:27, 20 September 2009 (UTC)

"Forged correspondence shouldn't be taken into account in any circumstance." Agreed (if I understood you correctly). But how do you determine if a correspondence was forged or not? I've been reading on it this past few days, and my conclusions are that 1) it is easy to forge emails and 2) it is next to impossible to prove this was (or wasn't...) done. --_{Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus| talk} 22:33, 20 September 2009 (UTC)

In your reading, Piotrus, have you run across any emails that you have reason to believe are forged? If you wish to respond to this question outside of public eyes, please feel free to email Arbcom-L. Risker (talk) 05:48, 21 September 2009 (UTC)

Risker I'm pretty sure when Piotrus refers to what he's "been reading on it this past few days" he means the general practice of forging e-mails via some fancy-smancy tech-wiz trick (which he's mentioned before as something he's been reading up on given this case). He's not talking about the e-mail archive the arbs have, and I'm guessing Piotrus doesn't even have access to those. --Bigtimepeace | talk | contribs 06:33, 21 September 2009 (UTC)

He has access to them. Fut.Perf. ☼ 06:42, 21 September 2009 (UTC)

Oh okay, but the previous comment was (I think—but then again I'm no mind reader!) about the relative ease of forging e-mails in general. I assume if Piotrus finds what he deems forgeries in the archive the arbs will hear about it. --Bigtimepeace | talk | contribs 06:52, 21 September 2009 (UTC)

Proposal 2 by Piotrus - to add Deacon of Pndapetzim as a party

Based on the comments and activity of Deacon of Pndapetzim (talk · contribs) I think it is obvious he consider himself a party to this case, and as such should be added to it.--_{Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus| talk} 16:21, 20 September 2009 (UTC)

Check the archive, not the dubious file that was circulated

Would the list administrator agree to let somebody inspect the archives? In real life I occasionally serve as an expert witness and get to peruse through people's highly private (trade secret) data and give my opinions to the court. If you don't trust me, would you trust somebody else to examine the archives and tell ArbCom whether there were nefarious activities going on, or not? Jehochman ^Talk 22:38, 20 September 2009 (UTC)

Please check discussion above. Durova³²⁰ 01:34, 21 September 2009 (UTC)

Jehochman, we have no way of knowing whether the "official" list archives have been modified either. Should the list administrator wish to consent to such a verification process, he or she should contact the Arbitration Committee mailing list to discuss how this could be done. We continue to be very cognizant of the potential for harm to members of the list. Risker (talk) 03:39, 21 September 2009 (UTC)

The list owners have claimed there is no official archive at all. This may well be true (hint: compare the headers of the leaked mails from before April with those after). Fut.Perf. ☼ 06:32, 21 September 2009 (UTC)

How about skipping this "hint" business and all the cryptic talk (too much of that going around) and coming out and saying what you mean? If you're saying what I think you're saying, I'm glad you somehow figured it out on your own rather than one us having to explain it, since it's more credible that way. But yes, from what I understand (and I could be wrong), the list used to have an archive but for technical reasons these got turned off in April and the thing was deleted automatically by the server or something. No real archives since then and no real archives at all. The archive page gives the same message to members and no members alike - "there ain't nothing here". This is part of the reason why I really wanted you to join the list so that you could see for yourself.radek (talk) 03:01, 22 September 2009 (UTC)

Ditto. Talk to Digwuren, he took care of the listserv, and he should be able to give interested parties more technical details on that. --_{Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus| talk} 03:15, 22 September 2009 (UTC)

Have the archives up to April been deleted, or are they still available? Can the list administrator produce authentic copies of the email conversations? Piotrus, I suggest it is in your interest to help us get answers to these questions. The truth is often less damning than suspicions. I personally have not looked at the circulated archive; I won't unless the owner gives me permission. Jehochman ^Talk 12:23, 22 September 2009 (UTC)

As far as I know they have been deleted (which in hindsight might not have been the best thing to do... talk about not enough and too much paranoia at the same time :). Talk to Digwuren. --_{Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus| talk} 19:19, 22 September 2009 (UTC)

Digwuren does not like me too much. Jehochman ^Talk 13:59, 27 September 2009 (UTC)

Checkuser request

The following discussion is closed and will soon be archived: No more discussion which centers around hacking/whistleblowing (order by the Committee).

---

It was suggested from the beginning that the mailing list archive was leaked by a member of the list [11]. Even though Tymek's wiki mail account was used, something in that email Jehochman received alerted him to the fact that Tymek's account was compromised. Perhaps this person claimed in the email to be someone else, and Jehochman blocked the account as it had been obviously compromised. Thatcher revealed that someone with a foreign IP address was seen to be accessing Tymek's Wiki account on September 16th, but that no obvious user had been identified.

It is important to establish, with evidence, whether it was more likely a case of whistleblowing or a case of illegal intrusion and theft. The difference has wider implications in terms of whether the ArbCom is seen to be rewarding either the commission of illegal acts or rewarding legitimate whistleblowing in conducting this case.

I'm sure that ArbCom has the technical means to confirm via the checkuser process whether or not this foreign IP that accessed this account on September 16th was related any one of the participants in this case. --Martintg (talk) 03:11, 21 September 2009 (UTC)

It's likely they would have already done so, Marting. Compromising an account is blockable. -Jeremy ^{(v^_^v Tear him for his bad verses!)} 03:15, 21 September 2009 (UTC)

Then I guess the meme that this list was "leaked by a whistleblowing list member" is without basis. --Martintg (talk) 05:17, 21 September 2009 (UTC)

Marting, please don't make such assumptions. We are attempting to digest a large amount of information and to sort out what can be mentioned publicly (so as to not provide any private information about list members), what can be shared with the list users as a group, and what may have to be discussed individually. The details of the checkuser results are a difficult issue because they do involve private information about one or more list members; we are trying to determine what can be provided from them, and in what framework. Risker (talk) 05:36, 21 September 2009 (UTC)

I didn't think placing a  Confirmed against a username in a list in a CU investigation would reveal personal information. It is done every day. This foreign IP was using Tymek's account as a sock on September 16, either it is confirmed to be associated with one of the participants, or it isn't. --Martintg (talk) 07:09, 21 September 2009 (UTC)

You would know who did it, though, because as a member of the list, you'd know which member of the list turned your group in. Why would arbcom do this, especially given the anger that you all have displayed about your activities on that list getting out? No, far better that they keep which of the list members did this close to the vest. UnitAnode 11:30, 21 September 2009 (UTC)

I already said that it was unrelated to any current editor or account, as far as I can tell. It could be the IP of a wikipedia-watcher who does not edit; it could be a registered user who took his laptop to a wifi spot he has never used before and will never use again; it could be an anonymizing or proxy service, in which case it could be anyone including Tymek himself. Drawing any conclusion is pure speculation. And indeed, identifying the IP, ISP or even country could lead to reprisals, if any list member or known opponent happens to live there, whether it really was that person or just a coincidence. Thatcher 11:33, 21 September 2009 (UTC)

Martintg, we will continue to look for anything that will aid us in making a fair decision. But most likely we aren't going to have a definitive answer from checkuser data. And when you add to this that we know that password sharing was happening, then determining exactly how it happened becomes very difficult to pin down. FloNight♥♥♥ 11:49, 21 September 2009 (UTC)

The foreign IP could be a transient open proxy. There's no real meaning in that IP, unless it's a direct hit on a user account, which I think highly unlikely. Jehochman ^Talk 19:37, 21 September 2009 (UTC)

So, was it actually an open proxy or not (a checkuser can usually tell that) and what was the country of origin? Why one should make a secret of this? If it is not related to any WP user, there is no privacy issues involved. On the other hand, knowing this address might help an independent investigation of the incident. So far, we do not have any evidence that leak was made by a member of this group, as it was in CAMERA case, if I understand correctly. Biophys (talk) 22:21, 21 September 2009 (UTC)

The checkuser tool does not actually report on whether an IP is an open proxy, that relies on other skills, some of which I have and some of which I lack. Part of the problem is that there are many different types of proxies, and proxies can be transient. It has port 3128 open, for whatever that is worth. If I could confirm it was an open proxy I would say so but I would not tell you what the IP actually is, if I can't confirm it I certainly am not going to disclose the IP. So either way there seems little point in pursuing this further, since neither line of inquiry leads to a user account. Thatcher 22:30, 21 September 2009 (UTC)

• The problem with revealing the IP address of the potential whistleblower is that IPs can be geolocated to particular countries, which would make a reprisal from list members much easier, if they knew from what country the IP originated. UnitAnode 23:19, 21 September 2009 (UTC)

You mean IP address of the potential whistleblower/hacker, right?--Jacurek (talk) 23:35, 21 September 2009 (UTC)

Jacurek please drop it. You have made everyone aware of your view that this is a hacker—we get it. Unitanode is clearly concerned that, if it is a whistleblower (hence the word "potential"), revealing their IP address could create real problems for them. If someone committed a crime and hacked someone's e-mail then their IP address would presumably be turned over to authorities, so Unitanode is not discussing that scenario. --Bigtimepeace | talk | contribs 23:42, 21 September 2009 (UTC)

O.K. sorry.--Jacurek (talk) 00:11, 22 September 2009 (UTC)

• Actually, BTP, if I had to set percentages as to what I think happened, I'd say there's about a 99% chance it was a member of the list, and about a 1% chance it was a hacker. I'd be very concerned if the CUs let out any information from the checkuser that was run. UnitAnode 02:30, 22 September 2009 (UTC)

I woder if you know the circumstances and timing of the alleged leak, I mean Rusava block etc.? Please get yourself familiar with these fact as well, your judgment may be different.--Jacurek (talk) 03:07, 22 September 2009 (UTC)

Sigh. Any action that was likely to be controversial to someone not on the list and thus seen as a good time to stir up trouble is also likely to be controversial to someone on the list who was on the edge of deciding that he had really had enough and a good housecleaing is in order. Is it two faces or one vase? Thatcher 04:23, 22 September 2009 (UTC)

Thatcher this theory that somebody "decided he had enough" is by far the most unlikely of all. Loosmark (talk) 09:01, 22 September 2009 (UTC)

And maybe it was a random script kiddie who got intrigued in this after hacking somebody's computer and decided to see if the wikidramu we talked about is real. Didn't I say something about not enough evidence and too much speculation? Isn't there an arbcom temporary injunction on this? Geez, maybe we could use a clear closing 9/10 of the threads here... --_{Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus| talk} 04:31, 22 September 2009 (UTC)

On proxies and checkuser evidence

A point of data that is important: there is evidence that the account who mailed (the original) batch of links to the email archive to nine editors did this through a proxy in a country other than the account's usual location.

There is no evidence of who was in control of that account at this time, nor is such evidence possible to acquire now. It could be the account's owner, it could be someone authorized by the owner of the account, it could be another member of the list not authorized by the owner of the account, it could be a housemate or family member of the owner of the account or of another member of the list, or it could be someone unrelated.

Given that making that determination is strictly impossible, further speculation is unwarranted and unhelpful. This means either way; both claims of hacking or pronouncement that a whistleblower is culpable — without supporting evidence — should not take place. — Coren ^(talk) 11:12, 22 September 2009 (UTC)

Has anyone tried contacting the proxy? Sometimes they coorporate and are able to track down who used their proxy (from what I heard). Grey Fox (talk) 16:21, 22 September 2009 (UTC)

Coren, do I understand you correctly that you say (if I may phase this) "it can not be concluded neither that it was a hacking, nor that it was a whistleblowing, so neither of these two possibilities should be assumed" ? In that situation, ArbCom should not welcome outside evidence in the format "look at email xxxxxx-xxxx". But ArbCom can review all edits all these editors did in 2009, and ask them questions about their edits (including whether those edits were influenced by off-wiki communication). Personally, I can answer for my edits. Given that it would put to scrutiny everything that everyone did for the last year, wouldn't this approach cover everything anyway? Dc76\^talk 16:46, 22 September 2009 (UTC)

Dc76, the method of procurement is irrelevant. As has been stated by the Arbs several times before and that your eyes keep glossing over, the Committee is not bound to an exclusion rule. -Jeremy ^{(v^_^v Tear him for his bad verses!)} 19:20, 22 September 2009 (UTC)

Jeremy, with all due respect, that is not what I asked. I am not asking for ArbCom not to look at them (it would be the right thing to do ethically, but seems impractical now). I am saying that ArbCom should not encourage people to acquire and read the archive, more so it shouldn't gratify editors for doing that. ArbCom can look at my edit record in comparison with the edit record of other editors, and ask me question "did you or did you not do that around that date". Do you think I am going to lie? Dc76\^talk 22:25, 22 September 2009 (UTC)

Ah, my apologies. I would agree with you there, but I heavily doubt, given the major privacy issues involved here, that ArbCom is going to encourage anything in re the email archive aside from blocks to anyone trying to post parts of it on-Wiki; I believe Coren stated that they have Oversight standing by in case something like that happens. -Jeremy ^{(v^_^v Tear him for his bad verses!)} 22:46, 22 September 2009 (UTC)

Well, saying "if anyone has any questions about any archive they should ask here", definitely does encourage people to go off looking for the "archive". Not that the ArbCom nec has said that - but it would be better if they explicitly said that they did not say that and will punish such attempts. Same with a situation where completely uninvolved folks like Novickas show up, smelling blood, and try to utilize this for their own agenda. The committee should at the very least make it clear that it will be the one asking questions.radek (talk) 22:57, 22 September 2009 (UTC)

Yeah, chummer, the thing is that the ArbComm wants to try and limit the spread of the archive, but at the same time they have no power to discipline users who are after it off-wiki. I'm pretty certain that anybody who has a brain will not try to start their own Spanish Inquisition on the Workshop; if they do they're just asking for an ArbComm block and oversighting.

As for Novickas, I'm not sure what hole he crawled out of or what his motives are. (Mine is to keep an eye on Russavia mainly and the final decision to update my tally secondarily.) -Jeremy ^{(v^_^v Tear him for his bad verses!)} 10:04, 23 September 2009 (UTC)

Thank you, Jeremy, for understanding what is the core concern. My suggestion was/is to say: "Guys, you are wasting your time reading the achieve. Better list the articles/discussions/AfDs/etc in which you interacted with those editors over the last year." Dc76\^talk 12:08, 23 September 2009 (UTC)

Suppose there is a message saying, "please help me at Foo, Smith is edit warring and I don't want to do more than 2 reverts per day." Two more people revert once each against Smith, Smith gets blocked for 3RR. Smith is wrong to edit war, of course, but what about the conduct of the 3 list members? The list messages provide the key to understanding patterns in what otherwise might look like random events. Thatcher 12:21, 23 September 2009 (UTC)

At what point does one distinguish between so called "tag teaming" and consensus - especially if all 3 users engage in discussion. Smith could be just stubbornly reverting in spite of everyone.radek (talk) 04:07, 24 September 2009 (UTC)

IMHO, Thatcher has a point here. I would distinguish between two cases. First case: all 3 editors that reverted Smith were established previous editors of that article and/or active participants in discussion (preferably "and"). I'd say that there is no problem in this case. Second case: all other cases. I'd say there is a problem then. You see, this underlines my earlier suggestion: look at all edits of these 17 editors over the last year and list all such potential cases. Anyone can do that through available WP tools and does not have the ethic issue of reading through private email. Dc76\^talk 08:23, 24 September 2009 (UTC)

The only problem is that everyone, at some point, has to edit an article for the first time. Maybe the person just found out about the article - that doesn't mean that they're not interested, just that they were not informed about its existence before. I'd make the test, if there is a need for one, whether or not the person had made an attempt at engaging in discussion or just blind reverted (though I can certainly think of cases where this "discussion" is not done in good faith and will probably point out such instances in my evidence).radek (talk) 08:42, 24 September 2009 (UTC)

Clarification needed

Is voting following an announcement that a certain article is on AfD or editing following an announcement that there is an edit war somwehere policy violations, if the subscribers are not called to vote in a certain way or revert? Let's consider eight hypotherical situations.

1. Message from P: Hi there, X is on AfD. No on-wiki action.
2. Message from P: Hi there, X is on AfD. On-wiki list member Q casts his vote.
3. Message from P: Hi there, X is on AfD. Let's get rid of the article. No on-wiki action.
4. Message from P: Hi there, X is on AfD. Let's get rid of the article. On-wiki list member Q casts his vote.
5. Message from P: N is edit-warring on X. No on-wiki action.
6. Message from P: N is edit-warring on X. On-wiki member Q makes a revert on X.
7. Message from P: N is edit-warring with me on X. I've run out of reverts, please join. No on-wiki action.
8. Message from P: N is edit-warring with me on X. I've run out of reverts, please join. On-wiki member Q makes a revert on X.

Who is in trouble when? In my opinion, Q in 4 and 8, possibly P in 8. Colchicum (talk) 08:17, 22 September 2009 (UTC)

From WP:CANVASS: "Under certain conditions it is acceptable to notify other editors of ongoing discussions, but messages that are written to influence the outcome rather than to improve the quality of a discussion compromise the consensus building process and may be considered disruptive." —Dark 11:36, 22 September 2009 (UTC)

WP:BATTLE comes into play when a group of editors are engaging in disputes across many different places on Wikipedia. With the request for help, it may be more obvious that the reverting or the same vote in a discussion was not just editors with a similar point of view editing the same article in the same way. But rather they are deliberately fighting off the other side of a dispute. So, canvassing is a way to help win the fight on site. FloNight♥♥♥ 11:55, 22 September 2009 (UTC)

The other question that needs to be raised is that given the nature of the email list, the mere posting of AfDs and other discussions on the list could be seen as an implicit call to arms anyway. I say that this could be the case, as the postings should have occurred onwiki on relevant user talk pages or wikiproject talk pages. --Russavia ^Dialogue 12:20, 22 September 2009 (UTC)

In particular, WP:CANVASS takes some pain to remind that several factors are important — in particular, calling for participation to a discussion may be improper because of the choice of forum: partisan or secretive fora are problematic, for instance. In other words, the choice of wording in isolation means very little. — Coren ^(talk) 13:24, 22 September 2009 (UTC)

Please note also how little it takes to change a comment from (1,2) into (3,4) - a few words. Done skillfully it may take as little as a single word. This would particularly be a problem if #2 becomes #4, or #6 becomes #8.radek (talk) 19:25, 22 September 2009 (UTC)

Canvassing is the attempt to call for participation amongst a wider group of people not normally involved or interested. Given my involvement and interest in Soviet, post-Soviet and the Baltic topics, I would want to participate in any AfD concerning these topics. The form of notification, either via seeing an AfD notice on an article, via a wiki-project notice board or via email, makes no material difference in the way I vote, which is on the merits of the article that is of interest to me. I have no real interest in Polish-German or Romanian-Ukrainian articles for example, as I have no real knowledge concerning the topic and thus have never participated in AfDs on such articles. For me it is a matter of convenience since my time available for wiki-ing is limited, if Wikipedia could implement a feature to watch list particular topics (as opposed to articles) for AfD nominations and email a half-weekly digest to me, that would be great. --Martintg (talk) 23:11, 22 September 2009 (UTC)

No emailing, but I find Wikipedia:WikiProject_Deletion_sorting/Compact to be very helpful. Shell ^babelfish 23:29, 22 September 2009 (UTC)

I've seen this, but in my experience AfDs often get wrongly categorized (either via a genuine mistake or attempt to fly an AfD discussion under the radar). Some people manage to list AfD discussions on various wiki-project boards, but not always. Anyway, it is time consuming to click through all the categories and project boards every day. An automated maillist based on watchlisting based on wiki-project tags would be better than a manual maillist that uses human eyes to watch articles. --Martintg (talk) 00:17, 23 September 2009 (UTC)

In edit war against me this was surely case #8 with Piotrus calling for help in the edit war, stating that he run out of reverts and advising others also not to run out of reverts, and Digwuren, Hillock65 and Radeksz joining edit war.DonaldDuck (talk) 03:38, 23 September 2009 (UTC)

As to the overall question of "who is in trouble if..." I think the best way to handle this is for Arbcom to post examples at the workshop and then take comments, particularly comments from established users who are not personally involved in this conflict on either side. It may be that the community will shrug its shoulders at certain examples and be outraged at others. It depends on the specifics of each case. Hopefully Arbcom will quote exact wording wherever possible. Thatcher 14:34, 23 September 2009 (UTC)

Proposal by (PasswordUsername) Anti-Nationalist

It has been obvious that Vecrumba, a member of the Eastern European mailing list, was in communication with Sandstein (Russavia's blocking administrator) around the time of Russavia's block (see [12]). Since Alex Bakharev's summary of the mailing list members' activity includes cultivating good relations with administrators such as Sandstein (and User:Shell Kinney has similarly confirmed being in communication with Piotrus during the AE investigation this June), I propose that Sandstein (with Vecrumba's permission) post the e-mail in the evidence page or somewhere else, in a redacted form that omits any undisclosed personal information. Alternatively, Vecrumba may post the e-mail himself, with Sandstein's confirmation regarding the text's authenticity. It would be interesting to see if this e-mail invovled Vecrumba's comments on Sandstein's actions vis-a-vis Russavia's banning (which the mailing list spent–allegedly–a very long time lobbying for). Anti-Nationalist (talk) 21:16, 22 September 2009 (UTC)

Collective versus individual guilt

I think you may know about the physical phenomenon of microscale versus macroscale. On individual level, contributions of the editors do not matter much, individual conflicts do not matter either, and individual articles are well almost nothing. On individual level, contributors may join, they may leave, they may vandalize or fight vandals, it would not matter, very few would even notice. But on a macroscale, Wikipedia as a project, has enormous effect on internet, information, style of life of many. And naturally, Wikipedia may ignore problems of individual editors, but it should defend its macroscale image and dynamics.

Now Piotrus et al individual contributions may indeed look harmless and innocent and have a natural explanation. And if you drive away an individual contributor, such as DonaldDuck, it means little on the grand scale. However on the mesoscale, impact of your group as a whole may be much more harmful to Wikipedia than you think, again due to the fact that phenomena usually appear differently on different scales, and the group synergies should be taken into account. And if it appears you attack all of your most dangerous opponents to drive them away, and even worse you succeed at that, that would have much bigger impact on Wikipedia project and its macroscale dynamics.

I believe ArbCom should be looking not into your individual actions, which are more or less defensible, but into the bigger picture of your effect on Wikipedia as a group. ArbCom should look into ways to break up your group, and if you want to keep it, you should try to defend not your individual behaviour, but the actions of the group as a whole. But if you recognize the dangers of such groups, you just should apologize, self-disband and hope that ArbCom has mercy on you. After all, even if the group is proven to be guilty, individually you may be innocent (just misguided). (Igny (talk) 15:11, 23 September 2009 (UTC))

Easy, as our group had beneficial effect on the project. We created quality content (our recent collaborative project, German-Soviet military parade in Brest-Litovsk, is the 6th most popular DYK ever, and the most popular this month). In the short period our group existed, we never drove anybody away - editors who got banned, like DonaldDuck and Russavia, did it due to their own actions after multiple warnings. Our group was created to help this project and there should be plenty of evidence for our dedication to content creation and respect of Wikipedia core policies such as WP:NPOV or WP:RS, which should be obvious from reading the archives (unless they were doctored even more than I thought it would be possible). And while I cannot speak for everyone, I will just finish by saying that I am pretty sure I know how to differentiate NPOV from "personal POV", being a major contributor to over 20 Featured Articles, none of which was even criticized in a review on the grounds of being POVed. In all this dramu, please don't forget why we are here (to build a neutral, reliable encyclopedia), and please look at our group and our members contributions in that light. PS. I'll further say that THIS is the main reason why we were and are the target of virulent attacks from certain editors - the editors who have failed to push their POV and disrupt/censor/vandalize articles not to their liking, and are now (as they have been in the past) attempting to damage our reputation (by framing a discussion group as an evil cabal) and by creating this stressful situation drive us away from this project, so that they get a free reign at rewriting articles from NPOV to POV. PPS. Please consider carefully who are the victims here: the people who had their private information stolen, doctored and revealed in an attempt to destroy them, or the people who are responsible for this (or taking the opportunity of the situation)? --_{Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus| talk} 15:37, 23 September 2009 (UTC)

Undoubtedly you and other members of the list have done excellent work for the project. However that fact and the possibility that your off-wiki discussions resulted in on-wiki disruptions and various breaches of policy are not remotely mutually exclusive. Of course your good work is a factor here, but it is a well-established (and utterly necessary) principle that good work on behalf of the encyclopedia does not (or at least should not) give one a free pass to be disruptive (whether that refers to gross incivility, vote-stacking at an AfD, or any other activity that harms the project). So while emphasizing your good contributions is certainly a valid point, it doesn't actually refute the notion that some of your coordinated activities may have been disruptive.

Also, you and other group members continue to make reference to things like "people who had their private information stolen, doctored and revealed in an attempt to destroy them", over and over again, in comments you make in these case pages. Obviously I'm not a clerk or an Arb and don't speak for them, but I think that needs to stop. Coren said specifically that "both claims of hacking or pronouncement that a whistleblower is culpable — without supporting evidence — should not take place." When you mention "hacking" or "doctored evidence" there is, even if unintentionally, a bit of a poisoning the well effect, which I think is no doubt part of the rationale for Coren posting that note asking everyone to refrain from speculation as to the provenance of the e-mail archive. Please adhere to that, even if you're just making an offhand comment. --Bigtimepeace | talk | contribs 22:26, 23 September 2009 (UTC)

I never supported the idea that some editors who do some great stuff should get a free pass to get them out of trouble, but there are several issues to be taken into consideration: 1) editors who are productive in many areas but not in few should probably be mentored/surgically restricted instead of hammered out of this project (essay) and 2) few (even alleged...) misdeeds can overshadow tons of good work (essay). Care should be taken to avoid falling into the wiki-fallacy that banning is always best for the project.

Further, demonstration that an editor was driven out of this project due to actions of others is next to impossible; I've attempted to demonstrate that in the past and failed - and I had a diffed statement by the editor driven out. Other things to consider include - was the editor driven out helping, or disrupting the project (if you look at it one way, every time a vandal is banned, it can be seen as an editor driven from the project... ArbCom has driven many editors away by indefing them, for example :D). Finally, what does it take to drive an editor from the project? If you report an editor to ANI/3RR and he gets blocked, have you driven him out? Or is it his own fault? What if you reverted him at some point? Have you contributed to him being driven out? What if you said somewhere that he is a vandal and needs to get blocked? Did you later revert him with the intent to contributing to him getting banned? How serious were you when you said that? All of that is very grayish indeed.

Regarding poisoning the well. I think all that needed to be said, at this point and in lack of further evidence, was said, so I'll not continue this - at this point it would be rather pointless. I'll just point out to one piece of evidence that has become available recently: User:Piotrus/ArbCom. Either one of "us" is lying, or the person who leaked the archive via Tymek's account claiming to be a member of that group lied. And I don't know about you, but I have trouble accepting anything that comes from a proven lier. --_{Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus| talk} 00:30, 24 September 2009 (UTC)

User:Piotrus/ArbCom isn't evidence. It's a charade. Ever hear of W. Mark Felt, better known as Deep Throat. If the whistleblower who kicked off the Watergate scandal, leading to the resignation of Richard Nixon, could keep mum for 20 years about his identity, I am sure that the whistleblower amongst you can keep mum for more than 5 minutes; particularly given the tactics and activities by list members on other editors on wiki, there is no doubt as to what you as a group would do to a traitor in your midst. --Russavia ^Dialogue 01:10, 24 September 2009 (UTC)

Do tell what we would to the this "traitor"; I am really out of ideas :) --_{Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus| talk} 01:19, 24 September 2009 (UTC)

Well considering that the tactics of your group correlate precisely to the tactics of the so-called web brigades, which are supposedly linked to the FSB, who says that your group wouldn't also resort to such tactics that some accuse the FSB of resorting to. :) --Russavia ^Dialogue 01:30, 24 September 2009 (UTC)

If accusing others of wanting to resort to assassinations is not crossing the line, I don't know what is. I think with this lovely comment in mind I will be leaving these discussion pages. Thanks for helping me made my mind, Russavia. --_{Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus| talk} 01:34, 24 September 2009 (UTC)

Piotrus, that was clearly humour, one can clearly see that. Of course I don't believe you would resort to assassination of your whistleblower, but I do believe you could all make their life difficult, that isn't outside the realm of possibility, is it? Also, Piotrus, I do hope that the irony that the fact all of the list members have acted exactly like the supposed Russian FSB web brigades is not lost on you all. But of course, it wouldn't be the first time that groups who are so anti-current Russian government have resorted to taking a play out of the alleged FSB handbook. The more one thinks about it, the funnier it is, isn't it :) --Russavia ^Dialogue 01:51, 24 September 2009 (UTC)

Russavia, I have a piece of good faithed advice for you and I hope you take it as such. You seem to have a problem with civility, personal attacks and general lack of ability to play with others - and then you sometimes try to cover up your outbursts with a "it was just a joke", which is a pretty transparent way to try and weasel out of getting trouble for the said episodes of temper loss. But I understand that editing Wikipedia can be stressful and various people can sometimes really piss one off. But if you really need to say what you think about some people, call people names, or make empty threats (say, about legal action, or maybe about harassing someone), then you should ... start a private mail list (and hope it doesn't get hacked).radek (talk) 05:40, 24 September 2009 (UTC)

Then it's pity that article is going to be merged/deleted [13]. But who cares? This is a conspiracy theory anyway. I am sure that you and your friends will have an ample opportunity to correct whatever you want when Arbcom bans me for writing personal emails. Jacob_Peters and MVEi will also return at force, unless ArbCom will allow me editing pure science, and I will be occasionally looking after the puppets.Biophys (talk) 05:00, 24 September 2009 (UTC)

Interesting point by Igny. Perhaps we can create a Noticeboard or a Wiki-Project umbrella about Eastern Europe. I'd rather read announcements on WP "several EE related articles listed for AfD" than emailing privately "please, let me know if that and that articles are listed for AfD". Igny, would you be able to set up such a forum, please? Dc76\^talk 08:38, 24 September 2009 (UTC)

Or even write a script which you can put on your user page which will alert you to all AfD's and articles that have been edited >x times in the past three days (or something) - why shouldn't it be common knowledge that an edit war is brewing - the more eyes the better, the more likely things will settle down (in my experience most persistent edit wars occur when there's only a few stubborn editors involved. Articles with many editors usually end up achieving a consensus, though it usually doesn't come without some natural labor pains). The tricky part is going to be figuring out which articles should be included in the alert but that can be handled through the standard Wiki practice of setting up a page where these can be added and removed.radek (talk) 08:50, 24 September 2009 (UTC)

The number of EE related articles is quite high; even Moon is there because the occupants sent their tank there back in '70. Seriously, the conflict can backfire at unexpected, apparently benign topics and having people deliberately pinpointing these hot sleepers is another recipe for more drama. "Hey, Abdelatif Benazzi was born on the day of Warsaw Pact invasion of Czechoslovakia, let's rock!" NVO (talk) 09:31, 24 September 2009 (UTC)

But then everybody (all sides) will be equally aware. Isn't the aim to have all this on-wiki than off-wiki?

When a reasonable editor writes "edit war brewing in x", assuming good faith one reads "let's prevent that edit war, anyone can help mediate?", but assuming bad faith one reads "let's revert". Which conclusion do you draw? Depends on you, not on the person that wrote. You can not claim that everybody draws the same conclusion. And I've seen a lot of "NPOV problems with article x" on WP Noticeboards. Dc76\^talk 11:34, 24 September 2009 (UTC)

Two points. First, the community is not too large to digest a significant number of real mediations. We can easily list 1,000 dubious articles in no time, but who will actually mediate them? Second. What you perceive as assumption of bad faith is, in fact, assumption of common sense. A lot of editors, including your truly, will shy away from anything attended by the mailing list users ... back to square one. NVO (talk) 12:58, 24 September 2009 (UTC)

Dc76, there is no need for any script to alert editors to AfDs, as something already exists and it is how I have come across many AfDs in the past several months. --Russavia ^Dialogue 22:44, 25 September 2009 (UTC)

Re DC:Well I suggested this at some moment, but it went largely ignored. (Igny (talk) 13:03, 26 September 2009 (UTC))

I wouldn't participate in such a project, but I wouldn't begrudge others doing so. This is only because the way that I operate on WP in this regard is largely already habit for me, and I find it easy to do things the way I currently do them. I spend some of my editing time adding {{WikiProject Russia}} to the talk pages of articles which fall under the scope of WP:RUSSIA. This is to ensure that any WP:PROD, WP:AFD, etc which are submitted will show up on the WP:RUSSIA homepage as part of Wikipedia:Article alerts. I also regularly browse the results from User:AlexNewArtBot/RussiaSearchResult and add talk page templates, and also add potential problematic articles onto my watchlist. It is via those methods, not including the articles that I have nominated myself, that I have been informed of the articles at Wikipedia:Arbitration/Requests/Case/Eastern_European_mailing_list/Evidence#AfD.27s, not via a mailing list or elsewhere. That's why for myself, such a noticeboard would not be useful. --Russavia ^Dialogue 13:39, 26 September 2009 (UTC)

Piotrus. You can't have it both ways, you can't dispute the evidence and speak about editors who are productive in many areas but not in few should probably be mentored/surgically restricted instead of hammered out of this project. Dy yol (talk) 20:37, 27 September 2009 (UTC)

Note for PasswordUsername

As I can not post on your user talk, in relation to the message that you left on Biophys' talk page, if Biophys disputes your interpretation of the cited emails, and he obviously will not allow you to quote verbatim, I would suggest that you send an email to the Arbcom committee directly comparing your interpretation along with the actual text, so as not to risk putting information from the emails directly on the case pages, and then create a section "Response to Biophys" (or whatever) in your evidence section, and note that you have sent an email to the Arbcom on whatever date and at whatever time which details yours response. --Russavia ^Dialogue 22:41, 25 September 2009 (UTC)

Why the pro-mainstream cabals?

Why was this mailing list needed? Almost all western sources are biased against Russia. Most of us in Western Europe consider Russia's views on matters such as the Occupation of the Baltic States as deeply misguided. (And you see this again and again on Wikipedia: defenders of the mainstream resort to nefarious methods in order to defend their position.) If anyone from the list finds it worthwhile, could you please explain?

1. How is it that even with the abundance of sources in your favor, you felt the need to have secret co-ordination and subvert Wikipedia rules to win revert-wars?
2. At this moment in time, do you even recognize the depravity of your actions, or do you find it justifiable for the greater good of defending the encyclopedia against the axis of evil?
3. What is lacking in Wikipedia policy (or more likely the implementation thereof) so that you could not achieve your goals of creating a high quality encyclopedia by playing fair?

If it wasn't clear from my sarcastic formulation of the second question: although I'm puzzled about why the "good guys", i.e., those pushing my POV, often behave badly, I resent the idea that excellent content work should constitute any excuse for this kind of behavior. Nevertheless, it is worth understanding why the editors on the list did what they did, so that we could make Wikipedia a better place. A place where people that resort to these kind of tactics are not on my side of content disputes. 77.4.93.4 (talk) 00:00, 29 September 2009 (UTC)

It was needed in order to spread their propaganda, which is extreme even by our already anti-Soviet/Russian biases which have always been present on English wiki. As much as we demonize the Soviet Union and Russia, often deservedly so (ie. Stalin was a mass murderer, is certainly no one to praise, and Putin is rolling back democracy in Russia), it's nowhere near the extent that can be found in certain parts of Eastern Europe (ie. Stalin is worse than Hitler, he ate babies, and Putin is Hitler). The former is accepted by most people in the western world. The ladder is not, hence the need for a cabal. LokiiT (talk) 02:24, 29 September 2009 (UTC)

Please give a single instance of an edit which says "Stalin was worse than Hitler" or "Stalin ate babies" or "Putin is Hitler". If you can't then quit making shit up. On the other hand, I CAN give you an example of an edit where an editor inserted "Children are molested there" into an article on Estonia.radek (talk) 02:35, 29 September 2009 (UTC)