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

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I am recused because user:Russavia is a member of m:Wikipedia Australia (see User:John_Vandenberg/recusal#AU). John Vandenberg ^(chat) 07:14, 13 October 2009 (UTC)

On Russavia

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

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

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

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

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

Clarification for editor please

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

On proposed temporary topic ban

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Guilt by association

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Time limit for collecting and presenting evidence extended

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

User Molobo unblocked for the purposes of participating in this case

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

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

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

Proposed principles

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

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

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

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

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

The Canvassing principle

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

making list of "opponents" ... goes counter

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Exclusionary rule

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

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

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

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

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

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

Request concerning the proposed decision

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

An additional principle

I think this principle should be added for clarity:

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Administrators

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

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

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

Purpose of Wikipedia

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

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

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

On consensus and participation

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Unconstitutional

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

---

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Another proposed principle - harrassment

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

On-wiki disruption (proposed principle)

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

very arbitrary break

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

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

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

Conspiracy

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

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

Comments by arbitrators

Comments by parties

Comments by others

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Change to active clerks

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

Disruption by list members continues

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Key principle that I feel is lacking

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Simple request

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Hmmm. Please see here [15] for another instance where P.U./A-N falsely claims that I'm a "friend" of some "Holocaust revisionist" Anon IP without any basis or evidence what so ever. I'm sorry but "slander" is actually a pretty mild word for what's going on here.radek (talk) 17:34, 12 October 2009 (UTC)

I didn't accuse you of collaborating with the Holocaust revisionist IP. I noted that he has a stark pattern of editing where Jacurek does, which is also where you sometimes edit. This was a question about whether I could go to CheckUser with the evidence, which anyone can see from your own link. That's very different from you repeatedly calling me a liar, then a "fan of Uncle Joe Stalin," then a liar again. Good luck on evading sanctions even as you've done this throughout this ArbCom–I'm sure you'll be a highly productive, consensus-seeking editor when you return to editing with your friends. (For the record, I misconstrued the IP's comments at the Jedwabne talk page and have apologized [16] after he registered and clarified [17]. I do not think this Jacurek, but the similar patterns for some time led to me to assume so and inquire about it.) Anti-Nationalist (talk) 17:44, 12 October 2009 (UTC)

Sigh. Again folks, just follow the provided diff.radek (talk) 18:35, 12 October 2009 (UTC)

WHAT SIMILAR PATTERNS YOU ARE TALKING ABOUT Anti-Nationalist?? YOU called me a Holocaust revisionist[18] and others slanders without any reasons, just to make me look bad. HOW DARE YOU?--Jacurek (talk) 21:28, 12 October 2009 (UTC)

No, I called you a likely sockpuppeteer due to the similarity of your editing and the IP's edits (ie, the same articles and similar times in which you edited them, and with some–much lesser–overlap with Radeksz's pattern), and I misinterpreted his comments on the Holocaust inappropriately, and issued an apology. It was not a "slander"–it was a request for clarification, as I've never filed an SPI request and sought the advice of an uninvolved admin familiar with the EE battlegrounds and editing conflicts, ie Jehochman. Anti-Nationalist (talk) 21:38, 12 October 2009 (UTC)

Ya right.... just read the link above with your own comments again. And also..I never saw an apology, you apologized to the anon IP, not me. AND SO YOU KNOW, some of my far family members perished in the Holocaust (YES!) and I felt deeply offended by your slender. Now, peace with you and God bless you.--Jacurek (talk) 21:47, 12 October 2009 (UTC)

I didn't accuse you of Holocaust denial, I wondered regarding the likelihood of you of being the person who made those comments, upon noticing some very odd similarities, of being this person's sockpuppeteer. (And I apologized to the person whose remarks I misconstrued, but extend these to yourself if you deem it appropriate.) Are any apologies going out for your coordination? Anti-Nationalist (talk) 21:58, 12 October 2009 (UTC)

You know what...? How hard it is to simply apologize, something like I'm sorry if I offended you... instead of Are any apologies going out for your coordination? What this supposed to mean?Just forget it....Good luck to you and I wish you well.--Jacurek (talk) 22:08, 12 October 2009 (UTC)

I didn't accuse you of Holocaust denial - right, you accused an IP that you *thought* was Jacurek of Holocaust revisionism. Or wait, no, more precisely - you accused Jacurek of using an anon IP to engage in Holocaust revisionism. But you never accused Jacurek of Holocaust revisionism. So no need for an apology to Jacurek, just the former IP. Right. This is just crazy.radek (talk) 22:06, 12 October 2009 (UTC)

For the record, I misconstrued the IP's comments at the Jedwabne talk page and have apologized - so... how about an apology for Jacurek (nm me)? Obviously one is in order.radek (talk) 21:32, 12 October 2009 (UTC)

• Getting back on topic, Radek makes the valid point that this list was never "anti-Russian". In fact the majority of the team commonly referred to as simply the "Cartel" or "Cabal" on the list (152 times, while the terms "Russian cabal" or "Russian cartel" appear exactly 7 times), PasswordUsername/Anti-nationalist, Russavia and Offliner aren't even Russian, while some of the fiercest critics of this team are. Heck, my partner of 13 years is ethnic Russian and she would puke at the thought of the antics of PasswordUsername/Anti-nationalist, Russavia and co. If the ArbCom wants to get at the root cause of the issues besetting EE topics, lets have some precision and clarity here. --Martintg (talk) 17:45, 12 October 2009 (UTC)

Community encouraged

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

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

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

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

I asked to have my block lifted in only one forum. The same forum at which you appeared, and which resulted in yourself being deemed to being disruptive and banned from discussing myself outside of this case for the duration of this case. As to the justification, it is within the email archive itself as to why such a proposal is warranted. --Russavia ^Dialogue 17:06, 12 October 2009 (UTC)

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

I've personally encouraged to focus on the past year or so, but I did not want to make a bright line timeout. I suppose it is reasonable to focus more closely on recent incidents, but I leave the relevance of different examinations to the community as a whole. I should point out that serial socking is unlikely to be overturned even over a cursory examination no matter who was involved in the original discussion! — Coren ^(talk) 17:04, 12 October 2009 (UTC)

I stand behind all the blocks made above: MVEi, Roobit, Jo0doe, etc. These were made independant of any efforts to manipulate the outcomes of such discussions, and the people blocked were particuarly nasty characters (MVEi and Roobit, in particular, I remember, had a history of vile ethnic slurs). Despite the despicable events of this RFAR let us not remember that there are very nasty and real Russian nationalists out there (doubtless some of whom coordinate their activities) who do troll and disrupt and to unban the lot would be to undo a lot of good work in a very short space of time. Moreschi (talk) 20:06, 12 October 2009 (UTC)

Proposed remedy - ban from process discussions

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

I don't think I agree with you, Russavia, about Poeticbent - the timing is hard to establish, but he - along with several other members of the mailing list - !voted in a rename here [19]. (Piotrus' request for action on the mailing list (20090907-0129) is timestamped Sunday, September 06, 2009 8:29 PM, and PB !voted at Wikitime 12:06, 6 September 2009). But yes, I'm grateful that closers no longer consider these by the numbers only. Novickas (talk) 16:46, 12 October 2009 (UTC)

Oh no! Somebody voted in a way that Novickas doesn't agree with! On a topic they've shown lots of interest in the past! Seriously - this is a ridiculous attempt to get one's way in content disputes, AfDs and RMs, when one has lost the argument on the relevant talk pages.radek (talk) 17:41, 12 October 2009 (UTC)

I perused my own evidence as well as found Poeticbent too, so have struck inline with my own findings and yours. --Russavia ^Dialogue 17:05, 12 October 2009 (UTC)

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

Radek, you need to stop assuming bad faith with me, because as of now, I will no longer stand for it. You may want to note that I am currently topic banned for some 6 months, so I am not able to discuss any articles which deal with Russia or Russians. But it is common knowledge, and it has been recognised also, that the mailing list attempted to subvert the gaining of consensus within policy by using the mailing list as the tool with which to do it. With such actions has to come some responsibility, and by excluding list members from such things for a period of time is a good way to show you that what you guys did is not OK and that there can and will be consequences. --Russavia ^Dialogue 17:05, 12 October 2009 (UTC)

Well, Russavia, I can't assume something that I know not to be true and neither does Wikipedia policy require me to do so. And the things you say are "common knowledge" and "recognised" (sic) are NOT in fact "common knowledge" or recognized except by yourself and your group of friends. As I say above - this is simply a cynical attempt to get one's way in content disputes, AfDs, RMs and other discussions. Apparently, since some people were incapable of making convincing arguments on the relevant talk pages those who disagreed with them (and who were capable of making reasoned arguments) must be silenced.radek (talk) 17:43, 12 October 2009 (UTC)

Here is a serious question. You write "Well, Russavia, I can't assume something that I know not to be true and neither does Wikipedia policy require me to do so." Does this mean that you do not assume good faith now, and you will not in future assume good faith? A very clear, concise answer to this question is needed. --Russavia ^Dialogue 18:43, 12 October 2009 (UTC)

Well, Russavia, I will take that as a serious question and answer it with good faith and not take it as some kind of baiting. Basically, both myself and other members of the list have made attempts in the past to "extend the olive branch" to you - which you rejected each time. I think that as of now I've used up all the olive branches from my tree. Additionally you've made some crazy accusations and statements, like comparing us to "gang rapists". I hope that clarifies the current situation.

As to the future - I can't say. The olive tree may grow more olive branches. But this in fact depends on you and your behavior. As I've said before I actually TRY to assume good faith - and I have no problem AGFing and respecting editors I very strongly disagree with like Igny or Paul Siebert for example. But at a certain point, TRYING to do something that is obviously not working (which is I believe the usual definition of "stupidity") just makes one feel foolish.

So, bottom line; up to you whether or not we can work on improving on the current situation.radek (talk) 18:53, 12 October 2009 (UTC)

For the record - my offer to you, Russavia, still stands. I am willing to work with you on content creation, assume good faith towards you, and if you do the same, I will support removing the topic ban that was placed on you. I believe we can all edit harmoniously to build a better encyclopedia. Can you assume good faith towards us and work together towards that goal? --_{Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus| talk} 18:57, 12 October 2009 (UTC)

Strong support for this. In general, I think Coren's proposal is fine. He did a good job in identifying the ring leaders (Piotrus and Digwuren) as well as one of the most disruptive editors (Martintg). But will this proposal stop other list members from gaming the system, stealth canvassing and swamping noticeboard and AfD discussions? I don't think so. At least there is no indication that they would. These users have been warned over and over again, but still (as the list affair proves) they have always continued the disruption despite the warnings. Therefore, I strongly support a ban from community discussions for all of these editors. Sanctions should be preventative, and this one certainly would prevent disruption. In addition, losing the right to participate in community discussion would not be a major loss for these editors (or to the community), as they can still edit articles and create new content, which is the primary task in Wikipedia. Offliner (talk) 09:22, 14 October 2009 (UTC)

To reiterate: this is nothing but a blatant attempt to accomplish indirectly - delete multitude of "uncomfortable articles" or move them to weaselly titles - what Russavia, Offliner etc. were unable to do with actual reasoned argument on the relevant talk pages and AfDs. It is a proposal to censor and silence.

In fact, the proper course of action is just the opposite - it is to more widely advertise such discussions so that a wide range of editors can participate which would prevent the potential of hijacking of various "votes" and "discussions" by any one group. The proposal to censor would be a step backwards, not forward.radek (talk) 09:27, 14 October 2009 (UTC)

Also, "warned over and over again" is of course, just false. And this is just a blatant attempt to silence a group of editors with opposing views. As we can see from proposed findings, an arbitrator has not found evidence of "swamping noticeboard and AfD discussions", probably because there weren't any. --Sander Säde 09:36, 14 October 2009 (UTC)

Proposed remedy - Digwuren's 3 month ban

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

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

And why should Digwuren's alleged "retirement" be allowed to have any effect on this case? Digwuren has already stated that retiring before an ArbCom case is good "tactic" which has been shown to work. In addition, Digwuren has already stated on the mailing list, that he intends to return with another account and a clean block log. Offliner (talk) 20:00, 12 October 2009 (UTC)

And if he does that, then the block would be useful exactly how..? Although creating socks while blocked (like Vlad fedorov) seems to be unpunishable now. And naturally, using the impeccable mental powers of mailing list member, Digwuren already knew about the ArbCom case in June and decided to leave. --Sander Säde 06:18, 13 October 2009 (UTC)

Digwuren is one of the most warned and sanctioned editors in Eastern European topics and probably one of the most warned editors in whole of WP. He has already been blocked for a year by ArbCom. After the ArbCom ban expired, Digwuren has been blocked for harassment,[20] disruptive editing,[21] and in addition has been placed on 1RR for edit warring. How many last changes is this editor going to get? I've seen absolutely no indication that this editor is going to change his behaviour (getting blocked by ArbCom appears to only have prompted him to create the mailing list). In the light of all this, the 3 month ban is lenient indeed. Offliner (talk) 19:54, 12 October 2009 (UTC)

Why two links to his block log? And where is the block for harassment, I seem to have a hard time locating it. Also, there doesn't seem to be that 1RR that you claim, unless you mean the same that you got and which was removed after lobbying - from both of you. --Sander Säde 07:41, 13 October 2009 (UTC)

Harassment, Disruptive editing, 1RR. If you want to act as the lawyer of the "retired" Digwuren, you'll have to do better than that. Offliner (talk) 07:55, 13 October 2009 (UTC)

The 1RR was imposed and lifted from both of you, as you conveniently forgot to mention again. Your other two links still don't have anything about harassment. If you want to act as a prosecutor, judge and executioner for Digwuren, you'll have to do better than that. --Sander Säde 08:23, 13 October 2009 (UTC)

• Yes, I agree. Too lenient by half. Moreschi (talk) 20:37, 12 October 2009 (UTC)

On the three proposed topic bans

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

As I stated above, I think even Russavia's topic ban could be revisited and shortened, if he can demonstrate that he is willing to work with others in good faith again. In either case, I think that instead of the sweeping "half of the continent" bans, several specific article bans or much more focused topic bans would be more constructive; most controversial editing occurred around the subject of "modern Russian politics", and I have already indicated I can adopt a voluntary restriction and avoid editing/commenting on that subject. --_{Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus| talk} 18:15, 12 October 2009 (UTC)

Use of other Foundation projects to store grievances

At last year's arbcom, there was some discussion of grievance lists maintained by Piotrus on PL WP. Altho the final decision was that 'Piotrus's activity on the Polish Wikipedia lies outside the Committee's remit'. [22], one arb opposed, and two abstained. He kept a similar list of grievances and diffs on Wikibooks between April and August of this year (its contents were deleted yesterday after this discussion [23].) Could the committee re-address this issue? Novickas (talk) 14:16, 12 October 2009 (UTC)

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

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

As last arbcom demonstrated, preparing DR drafts is within rights of editors. What I wonder is - how much time did you spend to track down my draft, why did you do that, and how do your actions benefit the project? I also wonder if there is a wiki term to describe what you did (looking through thousands of my edits to different wiki projects in order to... do what?). --_{Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus| talk} 18:25, 12 October 2009 (UTC)

Irpen's protests against the use of foundation space to compile this stuff were directly addressed in the last arbcom decision - that's why I felt it was appropriate to bring it up again. Your entries in Wikibooks are, right now, the fifth result of a Google search on Piotrus Deacon Wikipedia [24] - and one of the subpages mentioned it was taken from Wikibooks. So it didn't require searching thousands of edits; it was one Google search followed by three or four subsequent clicks. You could consider asking the site to remove them. Novickas (talk) 18:59, 12 October 2009 (UTC)

I will try to. Those wiki forks are really annoying. I have asked a wikibooks admin to delete the revisions, hopefully this will be reflected by the mirror when it updates again. --_{Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus| talk} 19:07, 12 October 2009 (UTC)

On the proposed decision

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

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

"Amnesty"?

About "Amnesty": What is this supposed to mean? "Granted amnesty for past behavior stemming from their participation" – does that mean all that behaviour is supposed to be written off and forgotten? Does it mean that, when considering possible sanctions against these editors in the light of any future (on-wiki) infractions, admins will in the future be expected to ignore this past history of theirs? That, I think, would be highly inappropriate. I don't mind these editors getting away without bans and the like for now, but I can't ignore that some of them have still been engaged in problematic editing over the last weeks – e.g., Jacurek had to be warned off about wiki-hounding of Matthead, and Dc76 appears to be engaged in some rather un-nice POV skirmishes with User:Anonimu ([25], see also Anonimu's talk page; I believe both sides are partly at fault there.) So, these editors are continuing editing in the spirit of their battleground mentality, and I can easily see further AE threads coming up.

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

What about a little bit of a good faith from your part Future Perfect at Sunrise? User Matthead was blocked several times[[26]] for a reason and your controversial unblock of his account[[27]] was very unjust in my opinion. I never wanted to go into details here over this and I still don't, but if you continue to attack me and portray me in a bad light I will have to I'm afraid.--Jacurek (talk) 15:16, 12 October 2009 (UTC)

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

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

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

To be honest, given the fairly extreme battleground views taken by many on both sides of these debates, do you (ArbCom) really think that this amnesty will prevent it from being brought up over and over in every future dispute? Given the glee I see in some of the posts, this will be used as a hammer against specific people and groups with opposing views for quite a while. I think it's an admirable statement, but isn't it just wishful thinking? Ravensfire (talk) 16:46, 12 October 2009 (UTC)

Coren: in wikispeak, admonishment equals commendation, doesn't it? NVO (talk) 17:06, 12 October 2009 (UTC)

It doesn't appear you are asking this in good faith, but no it doesn't. It means "Don't have done that, and you had better not do it again." — Coren ^(talk) 17:09, 12 October 2009 (UTC)

Quite right, I don't have faith, good or bad, in the Committee. NVO (talk) 17:18, 12 October 2009 (UTC)

I know you say it should make them shy-away from off-wiki fora in the future. But I am going to ask a stupid question here. Has anyone asked any of the group members if this list is still operational? And if so, what has the response been? --Russavia ^Dialogue 17:35, 12 October 2009 (UTC)

It's simple. Blame it on the ringleader, let the soldiers elect a new chief. Back to square one. But I doubt that any wholesome punishment will change the pic; in the absence of an editorial policy wikipedia will remain a battleground, new editors will quickly radicalize into fighters etc. Deja vu. What year it is, doctor? NVO (talk) 17:04, 12 October 2009 (UTC)

If the amnesty is to work this time, it needs to be followed up by an attempt to restore good faith between radicalized editors. See my proposals for that here, here and here. I hope that the committee considers adopting / building upon some of them. If there is no follow up to the amnesty aiming to reform the editors, the underlying problem will not be solved. --_{Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus| talk} 19:03, 12 October 2009 (UTC)

The decision, as of today, relieves you and your ring of any of these formalities - you've won again, three months is nothing, go on as you wish. NVO (talk) 20:01, 12 October 2009 (UTC)

See, I am tired of the battlegrounds. I have no intention to see them resume, be it tomorrow, three months or next year. I don't want to see EE'10 arbcom. Hence I want to help in finding and implementing a solution that will ensure the cursed cycle of EE battlegrounds and cycles will end - this time for good. --_{Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus| talk} 20:04, 12 October 2009 (UTC)

Whatever you choose, it's not a matter of your own will (and it was not before). I doubt that the framework of WP:NPOV and WP:CONSENSUS allows any long-term solution. NVO (talk) 21:02, 12 October 2009 (UTC)

Coren, this is a good faith question. My question is just how many amnesties are we going to have? Editors have already had an amnesty as demonstrated at Wikipedia:Requests_for_arbitration/Piotrus#Amnesty. Are you aware of this? Given that, this amnesty is entirely inappropriate, as it is allowing editors to get away with the same thing every other day. The time has come, that being now, that editors take responsibility for their actions, and for this Committee to ensure that this responsibility is taken, even if forcibly. This proposed amnesty does not sit right with me, and I doubt it will sit right with other editors either. To put it in a humourous light, it reminds me of The Simpsons episode The Parent Rap: "Harm is just about to punish Bart when Judge Snyder returns from his vacation. Lisa moves for a motion that "boys will be boys", and Judge Snyder grants the motion, dismissing the case. The family returns back to normal, and Marge makes the family promise not to break the law for a year (after which Homer immediately hits Hans Moleman with his car)." What this Arbcom needs to do is to be firm but fair (too all sides), otherwise it is continually going to end up back here. --Russavia ^Dialogue 17:28, 12 October 2009 (UTC)

Great, another completely irrelevant analogy to a TV show or a movie. At least this time you're not comparing anybody to rapists.radek (talk) 17:47, 12 October 2009 (UTC)

I don't think I've commented on this case previously, and just happened to be reading the proposed decision... I find the "Amensty" proposal to be pretty risky territory, particularly with respect to the potential for unintended consequences. It seems unnecessary and not entirely reasonable, given the potential downsides. I'll be interested to see what the other arbitrators think about this provision. Nathan ^T 22:00, 12 October 2009 (UTC)

Amnesty needs to be followed up with remedies that will ensure that those editors who are not "scared away" (for a while) are otherwise convinced to deradicalize and be productive editors. See ideas at #Constructive proposals and #Community service: Wikisource. --_{Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus| talk} 21:05, 13 October 2009 (UTC)

Minor factual error in FoF

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

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

Actually, while we're on the topic here, I'd like to point out (I've only looked at some of the emails in the archive recently) that this is inaccurate: There are no technical inconsistencies, nor any indication that any part of it has been tampered with. - there is actually one very strong indication that the emails have been tampered with. Any email that had been posted by somebody with a Gmail account should've had headers like this:

MIME-Version: 1.0

Received: by xxxxxxx with SMTP id xxxxxxx; Date Time Time Zone (PDT)

In-Reply-To:

However, from the emails I looked at, the "Received: by..." part has been removed - presumably so that it couldn't be determined from what account the archive was leaked (basically the hacker/leaker covering their tracks). This was obviously done intentionally and deliberately as, for example, all the spam filter stuff was left in.

So there's definitely been *some* tampering with the emails (covering up of tracks) - the question is was this the only tampering that was done or was there further monkey business.radek (talk) 17:55, 12 October 2009 (UTC)

Listman software can apparently work this way, so there is not necessarily any truth to continued tampering claims. --Russavia ^Dialogue 18:12, 12 October 2009 (UTC)

Are you suggesting the mail list administrator leaked the emails? --Martintg (talk) 18:23, 12 October 2009 (UTC)

No. Exactly what I wrote is exactly what I mean. --Russavia ^Dialogue 18:25, 12 October 2009 (UTC)

Okay, so this alleged leaker used Listman to strip the "Received: by" line from all 3000+ emails in their inbox. So how does that invalidate what radek said? Presumably if this person is malicious enough to out you in the process of posting the archive, he would also be capable of injecting stuff to further incriminate list members, no? --Martintg (talk) 19:12, 12 October 2009 (UTC)

Please read 20090606-0903-[WPM] Security idea_ get rid of headers.eml (the title says it all.) Offliner (talk) 20:13, 12 October 2009 (UTC)

Except that ... the emails apparently still have headers. Strange, huh?radek (talk) 20:44, 12 October 2009 (UTC)

Constructive proposals

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

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

• Blunt instruments like ban hammers will not really benefit the project in this case, but I guess no sanction is not realistic either. In the case of editors who have proven to have made a positive contribution in the past, perhaps they could be sanctioned via a "community service parole" or a "project service parole". Certainly a project service parole would benefit a topic area that is chronically unrepresented, for example Culture of Estonia. I've been working extensively on the subtopic area of Estonian literature, creating and expanding many articles on literary figures and movements, and articles like Visual arts in Estonia, Sculpture of Estonia and related subtopics have yet to be created. By the same token, a community service parole could apply to those with admin tools. There are many areas in admin space that are sorely lacking in attention, for example I know that the move request board is chronically understaffed and could use some assistance, a service parole in that area would benefit the project more than outright loss of admin tools. The publication of the maillist in itself was punitive enough with the attendant loss of face and reputation without the need for additional ban hammers. Let's think outside the box and find solutions that benefit the project rather than continue down the same old path as before. --Martintg (talk) 17:15, 12 October 2009 (UTC)
  • The community service is an interesting idea. Have you thought about how it could work in practice? Would the editor have to fulfill a certain quote of uncontroversial content creation, for example a DYK per week? I think that some editors on both sides desperately need to refocus on content creation, and spend less time arguing pointlessly. Such content creation should also take place in articles / areas where they are unlikely to enter into conflict, although this could be addressed with an active mediation and mentorship where neutral experienced editors could oversee parties as they try to collaborate on subjects that were in the past prone to conflict. --_{Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus| talk} 00:41, 13 October 2009 (UTC)

I can understand why you two dispute the remedies here. However I wonder if you agree that the findings of fact are accurate or if not which of the proposed facts you dispute.--BirgitteSB 17:45, 12 October 2009 (UTC)

Speaking just for myself, regarding "List secrecy" I acknowledge secret lists are problematic and as I stated in many places I vow not to use them again in any fashion that could be interpreted as disruptive. Regarding "Use of administrative tools in dispute", I've addressed the Battle of Konotop semi-protection in my evidence here (re:Piotrus has abused his admin powers subsection); I believe it was an uncontroversial request that would have been granted at RfProt - but in retrospect I should've asked the editor who submitted this request to resubmit it publicly at RfProt (and this will be my response to any future private requests like this I receive). Since the FoF states that "has used his administrative tools in disputes" I'd appreciate it if other diffs could be added that would indicate other occasions I used my admin tools in an inappropriate manner, to justify the use of plural in the FoF and to allow me to address and/or learn from those diffs. Regarding "Disruption" FoF, I'd appreciate it if diffs were added to it so that I could again address and/or learn from them; regarding comments in private correspondence, see my first sentence in this post. --_{Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus| talk} 18:11, 12 October 2009 (UTC)

I've already commented on these emails that form the basis of the FoF against me on the workshop page, perhaps you would like to discuss it there. For example, this is cited 20090818-0353 "Can someone revert PU [PasswordUsername] on Neo-Nazism and Nochnoy Dozor (group)" yet when you look at the articles Neo-Nazism and Nochnoy Dozor (group) at that time, no disruption actually occurred at those articles. The same with the other emails cited, no on-wiki disruption resulted. Talking the talk is one thing, but actually walking the walk is something else altogether.. I thought there would be atleast some workshopping done to clarify some issues before the proposed decision is drafted. Now the proposed decision appears seemingly as a fait accompli without any significant discussion on the workshop page. --Martintg (talk) 18:13, 12 October 2009 (UTC)

Unless you go here [28] and see the stonewalling you guys did, which prevented a move to another title for several months. That's in reply to what you just posted. No disruption, Martintg? Anti-Nationalist (talk) 18:46, 12 October 2009 (UTC)

"You guys" - not me, I've never participated in this. I see a discussion involving several editors that lasted a few days in June. Martin solicited input from WP:3O - hardly an action that would be taken by a group of editors who want to keep a discussion under a control. But where is the disruption? Estonian editors interested in article about Estonia and disagreeing with other editors is wrong because...? But for the record: if I had taken part in this discussion I'd have supported your request and move per WP:DISAMBIG - (group) is much more encyclopedic than (pressure group), unless there is more than one group to disambiguate between (which doesn't seem to be the case). --_{Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus| talk} 18:54, 12 October 2009 (UTC)

Except that Password/Anti-Nationalist's move warring of Nochnoy_Dozor_(group) occurred a couple of months before the email cited as evidence of my disruption, and disruption of Estonia related articles are detectable via this tool, making the list redundant in any case. Let's have some semblance of cause and effect. --Martintg (talk) 18:58, 12 October 2009 (UTC)

Haven't you realized yet, Martin, that they are using this case to get rid of their content opponents and are willing to blame absolutely any edit by list members on the existence of the list? Not to mention, covering up their own "Child abuse is common"-style disruptions - something so evil and biased that no list member has not even come close to that level. --Sander Säde 19:06, 12 October 2009 (UTC)

So, the discussion for a move to a more neutral name was not advertised on the e-mail list, as I noted in my evidence? And it wasn't compounded by the e-mail list's enthusiasm for getting me banned should I "move war" the article in spite of your false "consensus"? And it was not stalled for months on the flimsiest of pretexts? And my-oh-so-evil inclusion of the pedophilia in Estonia material was something taken from here [29], where you can see the cases per population ratio for yourself. So it was sourced material, and I included it because I was tired of your team's stalking, stonewalling, and outright harrasment on every article I edited, and needed to distract your attention somewhere else. I did not reinsert the material again, so you're bringing up one edit over and over and over again: one freakin' diff, my one case of really lashing out at the dumb and persistent harrasment (in a way that seemed like a smart idea at the time). Every single other edit I performed was far more sober, in spite of your constant harrasment. Not that this even was, or even could have logically been, the cause of your hate campaign against me: you were active long before I made that edit or even registered, and your harrasment extended to everybody you did not like. I was blocked for this when your friends showed up on ANI to protest at what an egregiously bad edit this was. Prior to this, I appealed to admins for help and got none. Not only is this a very stale subject, showing this as some "evidence" of my horrible views–so horrible that coordinated action not only against myself, but at least five other editors was warranted–isn't sufficient. And I can provide far worse violations of tendentious editing by members of your team on request. (The edit history of Monument of Lihula and edits like this deletionist beauty from Martintg [30] speak far louder than my words ever could.) Anti-Nationalist (talk) 19:36, 12 October 2009 (UTC)

It's just simply amazing that P.U. (AN) is STILL defending the ==Molestation== "Children are molested there" edit that he is (in)famous for. I guess this was one of those "far more sober" edits - by his standard.radek (talk) 19:56, 12 October 2009 (UTC)

And since the article is not even mentioned in the list until June 14 when you started move-warring - long after the attempts by me and Martin to talk peacefully, as Martin pointed out, that doesn't naturally matter - there was a mental message to all list members to go and argue with you. And go look at your gleeful edit spree where you insert absolutely anything negative to Crime in Estonia, whether it was relevant to the article or not, sourced or not. Yet you have more then enough of self-justification - and dare to accuse others. --Sander Säde 20:10, 12 October 2009 (UTC)

How about we all try to assume more good faith, guys? This section is supposed to be about constructive proposals, after all. --_{Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus| talk} 20:15, 12 October 2009 (UTC)

I support these voluntary restrictions - they are preferable to a crude ban. I believe that Piotrus' believes in WP, suggested those restrictions in good faith and will abide them. His contribution to non-controversial articles will be easy to follow and judge. Leaving Piotrus on such field will be both profitable and safe for WP. Visor (talk) 19:25, 12 October 2009 (UTC)

While this offer has some merit I'd like to note that it's completely incompatible with the attacks on their opponents some mailing list members have made during the arbitration and still make (see threads below). Also, imho it would be not fair if the editors not guilty of off-wiki disruption who were punished in the course of this conflict end up with similar sanctions as the ones whose case is currently investigated. Alæxis_¿question? 20:42, 12 October 2009 (UTC)

I hope that none of my edits here can be interpreted as attacks. Please let me know if you think I made an improper comment anywhere here and I'll refactor it if possible. That said I agree that all parties should concentrate on constructive proposals, and stop attacking one another (see also my comment above). We need to repair our relationships, not make them worse. --_{Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus| talk} 21:19, 12 October 2009 (UTC)

Piotrus is proposing constructive and neutral solutions which will not harm anyone. He doesn't seem to be making any attacks at this moment. I really support Piotrus and keep in mind what he done for WP. Just make a little résumé of what he's done to WP. Quantity and quality of his edits, fighting with bias and pov, articles about WP outside it, etc. Look also at his barnstars and keep in mind that he is the most contributing Polish Wikipedian here, on enwiki. Isn't just enough? Fair, he done what he done, but I believe that by his contribution, we can give him a chance. Visor (talk) 21:50, 12 October 2009 (UTC)

All I can tell you all is that if Piotrus is banned for a year, Wikipedia will loose THE BEST Polish editor it have ever had. His knowledge of Polish related topics and dedication to this project is extraordinary and hard to match. ..And I don't want to hear now all the B.S. of the usual opponents of Piotrus PLEASE, I have heard it all already, so keep you comments to yourself. All I know is that one editor like Piotrus is worth more to Wikipedia than all of us Polish editors combined. I think it will be a huge loss to Wikipedia if Piotrus never comes back if banned.--Jacurek (talk) 00:01, 13 October 2009 (UTC)

• Who are you to speak so humbly on behalf of hundreds Category:Wikipedians_in_Poland (not including alien list members like Vercrumba and Biophys, not including unaffiliated Polish Americans etc.)? Did they all give you a proxy or is there another list in place? grin. Do you really equate spitting hatred and spreading misinformation to being a Pole? Is it 1919, again? Arbcom says you can go on, so you don't need anyone else's consent for so-called "building trust". NVO (talk) 03:00, 13 October 2009 (UTC)

And who are you to question my opinion?--Jacurek (talk) 06:22, 13 October 2009 (UTC)

I think Piotrus is right that some initiative needs to be taken to help resolve at least some of the conflicts in Eastern European subjects and re-establish good faith between editors (honestly, speaking for myself, due to the persistent personal attacks and the outting that has taken place, I've lost most of mine in regard to some editors. However I've also gained a LOT of respect for others - like Igny). There are actually two general aims here: 1) diffuse potential areas of conflict before it erupts, 2) get editors talking to each other honestly (but with civility and mutual accusations). Hopefully, success in 2) will lead to less of a need for 1) - but let's try to do what we can and not make the perfect the enemy of the good.

Diffusing conflicts would actually be better done with MORE editor involvement rather then less. With more editors there's less of a chance that a extreme view (or two polar extreme views) will take sway. Basically, articles and topics of potential conflict (including things like AfDs) should be advertised more widely - this would also make it "fair" in the sense that anyone interested could see it, and it would also eliminate the temptation to engage in off-wiki "letting people know" (NTTAWWT). To that end, I think that Wikipedia:WikiProject Eastern Europe/Noticeboard can serve as an appropriate tool.

For building good faith ... ugh, this is going to be the tougher one. A "mediation/mentorship good-faith committee", as Piotrus proposes would definitely be needed. The problem of course is that whoever joins the committee is going to have some really hard - and often thankless - work set out for them (a special award/barnstar would probably be the least the community could do to show its appreciation to such a person). It would be good to know at this stage what kind of interest in mediating these issues is out there. But one way or another, something like that has to happen, just so we're not back here a year from now with another ArbCom case (with same or different participants).radek (talk) 00:14, 13 October 2009 (UTC)

I agree with Radek, and naturally I would be in favour of constructive proposals such as those put foward by Piotrus. See my Thoughts below. We really need to sort out these endemic problems - in the name of building a good encyclopedia - and we won't do that by handing out arbitrary punishments to selected individuals (except for those who have clearly shown they've no interest in contributing positively). --Kotniski (talk) 11:27, 13 October 2009 (UTC)

Being involved mostly in the Central-Eastern European articles editing, I'd hate to loose any valuable editor because of content disputes, and I'm all for a constructive solution if one is possible. I believe that self-imposed restrictions plus parole is the way to go, although it would be good to contemplate which restrictions should be considered and what purpose would they serve. Myself, I've limited my editing mostly because I was not interested in warring, wiki-lawyering etc. but in the content and maintaining a neutral pov, so I can well understand similar disappointment feelings of the others. Anyway, I think by all means you should strive for a constructive constructive solution that would not harm wikipedia in this, already very delicate, area. --Lysy^talk 14:10, 13 October 2009 (UTC)

There are what - five? - edit diffs in evidence against Piotrus. He offers to put himself under long term voluntary restrictions. There are editors here from both sides who have been really disruptive, and they have not followed suit. Considering how Piotrus is trying to reach out to everyone and atone for any misdeeds, I think it would be a shame to ban the guy who wrote 80% of Poland-related Featured Articles (what - 20 total - probably more than all of the people criticizing him here put together...), and probably a good chunk of all Poland-related articles for even few days, not to mention months! And look - Piotrus has done nothing controversial in the past month, doesn't that mean anything? Tymek (talk) 05:13, 14 October 2009 (UTC)

Piotrus has been an incredibly productive contributor to Wikipedia content and process. If he has shown a few lapses, which of us has not? The tone of discussion, and the quality of documentation, at Wikipedia have been improving, and should continue to. I think we should take Piotrus up on his proposals. Nihil novi (talk) 14:59, 14 October 2009 (UTC)

He is not being accused of "a few lapses." We would not be here if this were over a few lapses. Please read the evidence page. csloat (talk) 01:50, 15 October 2009 (UTC)

Sure, he is being accused of all kinds of crazy things by people who have an axe to grind and who are blowing things way out of proportion (as well as making totally incivil comparisons to "gang rapists" and "pogromists" that, were this not the ArbCom discussion page, would have gotten them a hefty civility ban already). The actual concrete evidence that has been presented however shows at best minor infractions (like protecting a page that in fact should have been protected - but probably by an uninvolved admin).radek (talk) 02:05, 15 October 2009 (UTC)

I think it's also instructive to consider the behavior of both "sides" during this case. Piotrus (and others) are at least trying to make constructive proposals, and are looking for a way - through discussion and offers of cooperation - to mover forward.

It appears though that Offliner, Russavia and PasswordUsername (as well as uninvolved 'auxilliaries' like Dojarca, csloat and Viriditas) are not doing anything of the sort but rather can only howl for blood, based on false accusations and extremely offensive personal attacks (like comparing, wrongly, to Holocaust revisionists, pogromists or gang rapists).

In other words, one side is trying to end the battleground atmosphere in EE topics, while the other side is just trying to stir up pointless drama and propagate the battleground atmosphere.radek (talk) 03:52, 15 October 2009 (UTC)

So to summarize: Mailing list members are guilty of only minor infractions. They are trying to make constructive proposals. They are looking to move forward. The other side is only trying to stir up drama. They propagate the battleground atmosphere. They howl for blood. They make extremely offensive personal attacks. If things would only be that simple.

Here is my suggestion to the mailing list participants: Take responsibility for your actions (And no you haven't. Saying sorry for joining the mailing list makes you sound that you are sorry for being caught. Saying if the arb com feels that I did something wrong I will promise not to do it again is exactly the opposite of taking responsibility. And so on.). There is no need to apologize, but there is a need to acknowledge what you did wrong. Only this would make it believable that this secret mailing list will end, once and for all, and that your future contributions to the project will be constructive. If that would happen, I would be the first to support much more lenient editing restrictions. Pantherskin (talk) 05:47, 15 October 2009 (UTC)

This was our last chance

If such solid extraordinary evidence led to nothing, there is no hope at all. Suppose the archive was not dicovered. The cabal would continue their disruptive work without any obstacle, stonewalling dispute resolution and banishing other editors. But the very fortune gives us such a solid unprecedented evidence. But the arbitrators suggest to close eyes on this. What next? If the off-wiki coordination continue (this will be the case for sure), the particepants will keep it in even greater secret and take any measures to avoid detection. We cannot expect to get such exceptional evidence for a second time. This was the last chance for Wikipedia's neutrality. --Dojarca (talk) 18:37, 12 October 2009 (UTC)

Reds under beds and cabalists in the closet. Are we really that insecure that we cannot rely upon the judgement of admins closing debates or conducting dispute resolution on the merits of the arguments presented? How often are we told that "it is not a vote"? Any reasonable person involved in EE space knows who is who in the various factions, which existed long before the list was created. --Martintg (talk) 18:50, 12 October 2009 (UTC)

Was not it you who rejected the meditation [31]?--Dojarca (talk) 19:02, 12 October 2009 (UTC)

When it involves an article that had been stable for over a year and which yourself hadn't edited for two years, and a admin Hiberneantears (who was totally unaware of the previous dispute resolution processes) acting as proxy on your behalf, decided to split and edit a perfectly stable article unilaterally and use his admin tools protect the result, it had moved beyond mediation. --Martintg (talk) 19:24, 12 October 2009 (UTC)

It was stable because all your opponents were banished from it.--Dojarca (talk) 19:31, 12 October 2009 (UTC)

Can you link the relevant topic ban? --_{Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus| talk} 19:38, 12 October 2009 (UTC)

The outcome of the previous mediation case has been violently rejected and the mediator attacked: [32]. Any attempts to make the article more neutral were reverted on sight and any references removed.--Dojarca (talk) 19:47, 12 October 2009 (UTC)

"violently rejected and the mediator attacked", are you kidding? The participants approached the case in good faith but the case was subsequently closed prematurely by the mediator, citing the mysterious advice of some unknown arbitrator. Hardly conductive to dispute resolution. But regardless, the article was extensively re-written after the case, introducing additional viewpoints per WP:YESPOV, but you wouldn't have known that because you were away, returning later like Rip van Winkle with your baggage of bad faith assumptions. --Martintg (talk) 22:04, 12 October 2009 (UTC)

Nonsense Dorjarca. What prevented you from editing the article in the previous two years, your block log is clean. Instead you drew in Hiberneantears in this bad faithed manner, several days before you even returned to edit the article after your year long absence. This poisoned the atmosphere right from the beginning. --Martintg (talk) 19:44, 12 October 2009 (UTC)

It is impossible to edit article when all you edits quickly reverted.--Dojarca (talk) 19:48, 12 October 2009 (UTC)

How would you know, you hadn't edited the article for two years before making you bad faithed claims about events that occurred two years ago on Hiberneantears' talk page. --Martintg (talk) 19:52, 12 October 2009 (UTC)

Because I do not like edit-warring.--Dojarca (talk) 19:56, 12 October 2009 (UTC)

Well then participate in good faithed discussion on the article talk page rather than engineer bad faithed disruption via unsuspecting admin's talk pages. --Martintg (talk) 20:00, 12 October 2009 (UTC)

What the purpose of discussing if it cannot lead to any change in the article? Both meditations were rejected. It is impossible to convince nationalists in anything without policy enforcement.--Dojarca (talk) 20:44, 12 October 2009 (UTC)

I completely agree with you, Dojarca. Therefore, it is excellent that the current article is based on the opinions of the international historians/politicians and not just historiography of one country - which is there mentioned as well. --Sander Säde 21:06, 12 October 2009 (UTC)

Good faith

There is every indication that the mailing list's participants sincerely believed that there is an organized group or groups attempting to push a "pro-Russian" point of view on Wikipedia, going so far as to suspect involvement by the Russian government. - this is completely flawed argument. The group pushed anti-Russian propaganda anywhere they could, making no difference between Tsarist Russia, Soviet Union and modern Russia. They managed to insert anti-Russian statements into articles from Alexander Suvorov to Santa Claus. It is evident that such overwhelming POV-pushing cannot be made in good faith as well as removig the references. Could good-faith users reject a meditation? Or maybe they thought administrators Hiberniantears and John Carter were Russian government's agents?

This argument is completely the same as to say that people who organized an anti-Jewish pogrom should be pardoned because they believed that Jews really drink blood of Christialn babies.

Only Anti-Semitic government could pardon pogrom participants on such pretext.--Dojarca (talk) 19:01, 12 October 2009 (UTC)

Dojarca, please keep on posting these kinds of comments. Really. I'm not sure if comparing people to pogromists is an improvement on comparing them to gang rapists - I guess it's a horizontal move. But seriously, you're illustrating certain things very nicely here.radek (talk) 19:25, 12 October 2009 (UTC)

Good faith and facts seems to be sorely missing from this post. At least try to get your facts right: not a single of our members has ever edited Santa Claus: [33], and not a single post on a discussion page (including archives) mentions any anti-Russian comments. What's next, the accusation that we are promoting the flat Earth POV? PS. Dojarca, I am certainly willing to assume good faith toward you. What puzzles me is that I can recall only one instance of our interaction - and that was when I agreed with you here. So why not take up my offer and work with me to create uncontroversial encyclopedic content? I'll do my best to prove to you we can work together to improve this project. --_{Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus| talk} 19:16, 12 October 2009 (UTC)

But edited Ded Moroz [34], at least Molobo and Piotrus. And edit-warred in it.--Dojarca (talk) 19:29, 12 October 2009 (UTC)

2005 diffs? I can't really speak up for what Molobo did in 2005, but my edits from 2006 involved one revert and merging a fork into the article, which has been rather stable since then (and not edited by me). If you'd like to work on improving this article, I am willing to help. --_{Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus| talk} 19:37, 12 October 2009 (UTC)

Yes, revert restoring unsourced claim that after communism Dziadek Mróz disappeared from Polish culture. Why then Polish schools celebrate Christmas with Dziadek Mróz in 2008? [35] --Dojarca (talk) 11:35, 13 October 2009 (UTC)

Maybe because the 2008 page didn't exist in 2006? You are welcome to add a note that DMróz still exists in Polish culture, if you can find a reliable source for it. --_{Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus| talk} 17:04, 13 October 2009 (UTC)

But you're free to add that Dziadek Mróz does not exist in Polish culture without any source, yes? Because you have "consensus" for it, yes?--Dojarca (talk) 13:18, 14 October 2009 (UTC)

Good faith? A question to Coren

According to Wikipedia:Arbitration/Requests/Case/Eastern_European_mailing_list/Proposed_decision#Good_faith, list members thought that editors, including me, Russavia, PasswordUsername and others are connected with or paid by the Russian government or security services. I do note that in your own support you say that this is misguided.

In a previous case in 2008, the ArbCom found that found that There is no convincing evidence that any of the security organs of the Russian state are involved in Wikipedia editing, directly or indirectly; nor that any editors involved in this matter are acting as agents of or receiving instruction from said organs[36]. As Russavia notes in this case[37], an editor escaped enforcement[38], for what appears opposition from a couple of Arb members who noted a promise not to engage in such things again, and also escaped admonishment.[39]

Still, there are plenty of instances on the mailing list of editors claiming that myself and other editors are members of Russian security forces, etc. And there is also evidence at this very case in which the editor accuses myself and other editors of not only being employed by yet another Russian government-related entity, but in which he also calls us neo-Nazis. This happened right here on these very evidence pages, and it was picked up on by Russavia with this evidence that he presented.

The question to you is, given editors have denied unfounded accusations against them on multiple occasions in the past, and given the fact that an RFAR from less than 12 months ago found no evidence of this, and given evidence that has been introduced of the continuation of accusations since then, and given evidence that was introduced in this very case, how can this very well be assumed as being "good faith"? Is this not an insult to those editors who have long been at the receiving end of these unfounded accusations? Offliner (talk) 19:46, 12 October 2009 (UTC)

It is simple: if you say that they are agents of Estonian government, it is break with the policy and offense, if they accuse you being agent of FSB/KGB/NKVD, it is good faith because FSB is so evil, why not to believe they have agents everywhere? :-) --Dojarca (talk) 19:53, 12 October 2009 (UTC)

Offliner, on the subject of good faith, how about you take up my offer and work with me to create uncontroversial encyclopedic content? The two of us have never interacted much in the past, how about we try to establish a good editing relationship and give others an example of how we can help this project? --_{Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus| talk} 19:56, 12 October 2009 (UTC)

Not just KGB agents, but also "liars" and "big fans of" none other than "Uncle Joe Stalin" himself, as just posted by Radeksz in this very discussion. I'm glad that this kind of abuse flies under the radar is not considered by ArbCom as anything serious or damaging to Wikipedia's processes.

I'm just an American in his early 20s with Eastern European Jewish roots (not ethnic Russian) and a serious interest in the Eastern European topics and left-wing political philosophy, but apparently I'm a KGB agent and an operative of FSB as well, and it's apparently alright to violate all norms of WP:CIV and everything else in order to poison the environment for me and others (apparently, the Wikipediametric mailing list was not enough). And I'm sure that Radeksz will return to cooperative editing as soon as this affar is settled, after one or two be-nice-to-these-editors admonishments. Anti-Nationalist (talk) 20:13, 12 October 2009 (UTC)

Funny. You complain about my edits - which I can support with diffs, yet make no mention of Russavia comparing people to gang rapists or Dojarca comparing them to pogromists.radek (talk) 20:31, 12 October 2009 (UTC)

He is currently edit-warring in coordination with Loosmark in German-Soviet military parade in Brest-Litovsk without any pause even for this case. He knows it will lead to no punishment. This has been added to my evidence, but it seems it falls under amnesty now. --Dojarca (talk) 20:19, 12 October 2009 (UTC)

Folks, go to the article Dojarca's linking to. Look at the talk page. See for yourself.radek (talk) 20:31, 12 October 2009 (UTC)

Or look at the history page: [40]. One revert on Oct 6, two reverts on Oct 8, all with edit summaries, plus a lot of posts at talk. WP:BRD? Nah. Behold Radeksz, the wiki menace. --_{Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus| talk} 21:13, 12 October 2009 (UTC)

Ignoring the peanut gallery on both sides above (take bickering elsewhere, I for one have had a bloody gutful it). If we can stay focussed on this one thing, that being the issues that Offliner has raised. His sentiments mirror my sentiments in their entireity. To see the section entitled "good faith" with details covering consistent and persistent accusations of a multitude of editors being KGB agents and a whole lot of kooky things has me absolutely stumped. So I too ask the same questions of Coren, and I ask him these additional questions:

• Is the section so named because it is Coren's opinion that these editors have a good faith reason to believe this? If this is the case, why has zero evidence been presented in this case which would give a single one of these editors reason to believe there are spooks editing WP on behalf of the Russian government, and why is the committee going to vote on it as such?
• Is the section so named because Coren is assuming good faith that these editors truly hold these opinions of KGB spys and agents running around WP, even if he himself believes it is misguided? And is this good faith that is being extended ignoring previous cases where this exact issue was previously addressed, and also ignoring accusations of myself and others being Neo-Nazis made on the evidence pages of this case?

A response from Coren, or other arbs, appreciated. Russavia ^Dialogue 21:53, 12 October 2009 (UTC)

Russavia, please tell me: where have I accused you, publicly, of being a KGB agent, neo-Nazi or anything similar? Please let me know and I'll be more than happy to refactor that comment and apologize to you. --_{Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus| talk} 21:57, 12 October 2009 (UTC)

Russavia, the way I read that finding is it really just means: "they honestly believed this", and Coren's own comment below, "... however misguided" clearly indicates he isn't endorsing that belief. The phrase "good faith" is often misused or misunderstood in Wikipedia, of course. But if understood correctly it doesn't really indicate anything about whether that stance was objectively justified, it speaks only to the subjective state of mind of the people on the list. Fut.Perf. ☼ 22:03, 12 October 2009 (UTC)

• This FoF is flawed because it assumes that all list participants monolithically shared this same view, which is not the case. Some may have believed so, others didn't and even refuted the arguments of those who did. Why is it so difficult to verify things first, ArbCom could have privately emailed each and everyone of the list participants individually to poll them on their beliefs first before drafting a FoF in this regard? --Martintg (talk) 22:16, 12 October 2009 (UTC)

Thanks FPaS for your take on it too. However, the FoF as it stands now does appear to me to be giving these editors an excuse for their behaviour, particularly in regards to harrassment and teaming on their opponents or deemed enemies. I would recommend the following:

1) The section be renamed to "Involvement of Russian government in editing processes" or something similar.

2) Parts of Wikipedia:Requests_for_arbitration/Eastern_European_disputes/Proposed_decision#Involvement_by_security_organs be incorporated into the text, or a new FoF be created which reinforces that PD from the 2008 arbcase.

Is this a fair thing do you think? --Russavia ^Dialogue 22:27, 12 October 2009 (UTC)

No, because it assumes this was a common belief shared by all, but I count only one who holds that view. --Martintg (talk) 22:37, 12 October 2009 (UTC)

• Response to Offliner. Sorry man, but unlike you [41], I have never accused anyone personally and on-wiki of the said WP:COI problem. What I talked privately and off-wiki was my private business. Yes, I noted at the talk page of Colchicum some very strange claims by Russavia (e.g. Ezhiki making a phone call to Alex to "give him some incentive" [42]), but that was hardly a violation of any rules. As about Nashi in evidence, please read exactly what I said. There are no "neo-Nazi", and I did not blamed anyone of being a member of "Nashi". I simply do not know this. Yes, I am still watching this case, and my patience has certain limits.Biophys (talk) 22:45, 12 October 2009 (UTC)

  Never accused? What about this edit?DonaldDuck (talk) 04:46, 13 October 2009 (UTC)

What Martin said. I don't think I ever thought anybody was a FSB agent... well ... ok, maybe for like 2 seconds when the archive was leaked. I got the general impression from a few others that they didn't completely dismiss that possibility. That's about it.radek (talk) 22:47, 12 October 2009 (UTC)

Well if what Martintg and Radek say is the case, and it appears to be the case from looking at the archive, the entire FoF should be voted down by the committee, or stricked/retracted/whatever. --Russavia ^Dialogue 22:55, 12 October 2009 (UTC)

Things that are impossible to prove or disprove should not be seriously entertained (here's another one: "Computer trespass"). --_{Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus| talk} 23:00, 12 October 2009 (UTC)

Re Coren: Relatively-minor-infractions rationale

In response to Coren: "the infractions commited by other members are — in the whole — relatively minor and the remedy was crafted looking forward."

It is true that the mailing list did not manage to control the content of EE articles to the extend they envisioned, and it is true that the mailing list did not succeed to implement all the sanctions they thought of for whom they regarded their opponents yet. But the mailing list archive proves beyond doubt that they were making progress.

That several wikipedia editors and administrators were subject to off-wiki coordinated hounding, revert warring, deception campaigns, block evasion, votestacking and tactical plotting is a major offense itself, regardless of whether these campaigns in full accomplished or missed their stated objectives. That should be reflected in both the fofs and in the proposed decisions.

The Occasional disruption fof needs to be ammended, likewise the proposed decisions, based on the proposed principles Canvassing, Not a battleground, Gaming the system, Meatpuppetry and Off-wiki communication. Skäpperöd (talk) 22:14, 12 October 2009 (UTC)

Amnesties and admonishments are insufficient

In response to Coren: "I should expect that, given the admonishment, all of them will shy away from such off-wiki fora in the future."

• There already was an amnesty in the Piotrus1 case, that was also a fof in Piotrus2.[43]
• The Piotrus2 case already contains the remedies "Editors reminded" and "Editors counseled" and the fof Externally coordinated editing. Given the high activity of the mailing list on the WP:AE board citing the Piotrus2 case [44], and the participation of some of the mailing list members in that case as parties, there is no need to formally admonish them. They are well aware that what they did is deprecated, and kept their coordination secret for a reason.
• The mailing list has not discontinued just because the archive was leaked. Biophys is the only one who recently said he unsubscribed. Radeksz is maintaining a satirical EEML blog on his user page.
• Piotrus and Poeticbent were sanctioned in the Piotrus2 case already: Piotrus was admonished in the Piotrus2 Arbcom, and two month later he set up the mailing list in addition to the IM network his group maintains. The IM coordination evidence was only circumstantial in the Piotrus2 case and thus not reflected in the remedies, now there is direct evidence from the mailing list archive. Poeticbent was supposed to be banned in the Piotrus2 case, that was changed into a mentorship that did not even happen, half a year later he is on the mailing list.
• Biophys is the only one who apologized. Others fill these case pages with victim blaming instead, write essays on the benefits of edit wars like Radeksz, or have edit war trouble like Jacurek.

There is no reason to believe that the remainder of Piotrus' group ceased to coordinate themselves off-wiki via mailing list, IM or their parallel wiki, there is no reason to believe that this group has any intention to do so, and based on their behaviour in the past it is extremely unlikely that amnesties and admonishments will upset them. There is no other way to deal with such an off-wiki organized group (mailing list, IM, own wiki) than to disconnect them from their targets, article- and editor-wise. Skäpperöd (talk) 22:14, 12 October 2009 (UTC)

And then you will have a free hand to edit Polish-German articles[[45]] you "own" [[46]]without any "Pollacks" "messing it up", right?:)--Jacurek (talk) 22:20, 12 October 2009 (UTC)

I never said "Pollack" to anyone, as your quotes suggest. Don't falsely present me as someone using ethnic slurs. Skäpperöd (talk) 22:33, 12 October 2009 (UTC)

No, of course you did not and I never said that you did. But you agree that the only reason you are even posting here is to eliminate your opponents and possibly get a free hand to write the German-Polish history the way you want or am I mistaken Skäpperöd??--Jacurek (talk) 22:38, 12 October 2009 (UTC)

Hmmm, yes, I write a "satirical blog" and "satirical essays". Horrible of me. I'm perfectly willing to apologize for mistakes I've made in the past six months - six months is a pretty long time to go without making any mistakes. But I'm not about to back down before people who try to call me a "Holocaust revisionist" or compare me to a rapist or to a pogromist or try to slander me with other false hate filled accusations. When this kind of offensive behavior and personal attacks stop I will be quite happy to apologize to anyone who deserves an apology.

But that probably won't include people who've shown up on this case to cynically push their own agenda so that they can get a free hand in their POV pushing and content disputes.radek (talk) 22:29, 12 October 2009 (UTC)

Indeed, Skäpperöd posted an image on his userpage of a bottle of Russian vodka with link to this case page toasting "Skål!" to his expected "win" in the content space he shared with you guys, but it will be a loss to Wikipedia if balance is broken by the wholesale removal of one side. --Martintg (talk) 22:47, 12 October 2009 (UTC)

Actually, an image of a (good!) vodka is the most uncontentious way to link this EE madness. And if you think that there is anything to "win" here for anyone, you are badly mistaken. Skäpperöd (talk) 07:59, 13 October 2009 (UTC)

...just stop Skippered.. it so obvious what you meant by toasting "Skål!" and Russian vodka image...but I understand why you wanted to celebrate also.--Jacurek (talk) 16:36, 13 October 2009 (UTC)

I agree that "Amnesties and admonishments are insufficient". If they are to work this time, they need to be followed up by an attempt to restore good faith between radicalized editors. See my proposals to that goal here, here and here. I hope that the committee considers adopting / building upon some of them. If there is no follow up to the amnesty aiming to reform the editors, the underlying problem will not be solved.--_{Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus| talk} 22:40, 12 October 2009 (UTC)

Well Skäpperöd, having read much of the archive, I'm stunned Radeksz is escaping without even an admonishment. But I assume the thoughts of Coren are similar here to those of medieval kings putting down rebellions (not like the Basil Bulgaroktonus type of course): treat the ring-leaders severely and allow the remainder to return to ploughing their fields and paying their taxes. They might be right on this one, we'll see. It's too early to make much comment anyway, as only one arb has voted on the proposals, and others may still propose more.

Yes, they'll definitely continue to co-ordinate in some manner, but it's very difficult to see what ArbCom can do about that. Console yourself with the thought that the golden age of dumb "good faith" in the face of conspicuous tag-teaming and vote-stacking is probably over. Deacon of Pndapetzim (Talk) 23:01, 12 October 2009 (UTC)

Perhaps other Wiki "Tag-teams" and mailing lists members can learn something positive from it? You could not possibly think that this project is absolutely free of some kind of "coordinated editing", do you Deacon of Pndapetzim?--Jacurek (talk) 23:19, 12 October 2009 (UTC)

The main lessons are for the community dealing with it, not so much the participants. All the participants are adults. If I were a pessimist, I'd say the main lesson for cabals of nationalist edit-warriors is likely to be "we'll no longer be so dumb to have huge mailing lists with lots of members"; but the optimist in me hopes the whole thing will be a wake up call for at least some. Deacon of Pndapetzim (Talk) 23:40, 12 October 2009 (UTC)

The real question is whether list membership afforded any real advantage. It is almost an article of faith that it does, but did it really? Any objective analysis of the evidence will reveal that it didn't. As sure as night follows day, there is no doubt other maillists and other forms of off-wiki communication exists within other groups, to believe otherwise is simply delusional. The Foundation even encourages off-wiki communication through provision of the email feature on our userpage. Are we, as a community, mature enough to be confident in the robustness of our on-wiki processes, or should the community continue to hold on to this fear? Here the ArbCom have a golden opportunity to bust some myths and finally put to rest this "cabalist" bogeyman. --Martintg (talk) 00:47, 13 October 2009 (UTC)

Comparison

Compared to what members of EEML tried (successfully!) to get for their victims (that is indefinite blocks), three-month sanctions really seem too lenient.DonaldDuck (talk) 01:21, 13 October 2009 (UTC)

Nobody tried to get you indef blocked, Donald. You did you 17 reverts-in-a-row and such by yourself, nobody was steering you from behind the scenes... --_{Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus| talk} 01:27, 13 October 2009 (UTC)

Your blatant denial of reality is just unbeliavable. [20090506-1615] "Help appreciated, I would like to avoid more then 2 reverts per day..." This is quotation from you email, calling to attack me, from the workshop section.

I've been reminded by ArbCom to ignore edit warring, I am trying to say on 1-2RR a day in that article, so I cannot by myself ensure it is correct. - this is also your own words.DonaldDuck (talk) 01:43, 13 October 2009 (UTC)

Run it by me again: how is my attempt to avoid multiple reverts per day translates into your multiple 3RR violations? --_{Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus| talk} 16:54, 13 October 2009 (UTC)

Please clarify, Piotrus. Did he revert the same thing 17 times, or did he revert various items in the article 17 times? I guess specifically I would like to know how many times in his 'spree' he actally broke 3rr. To avoid confusion, to break 3rr for the purposes of this question he must revert the SAME piece of information in an artice MORE than 3 times in one day. In addition, if he reverted the same piece of info 5 times, I would concider that breaking 3rr twice (once for the fourth revert, once for the fifth). I realise admins have some leeway for interpreting 3rr but for the sake of this question I'd like to see the technical answer.198.161.174.222 (talk) 20:08, 13 October 2009 (UTC)

DD broke 3RR many times (see his block log). The (in)famous 17-reverts in a row spree is covered here (see also my evidence). --_{Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus| talk} 20:32, 13 October 2009 (UTC)

Don't treat us all as fools Piotrus. You know very well that you and list members provoked editors into breaking 3RR. This does not excuse editors for breaking 3RR, but you and your list members do explain why members may have broken 3RR on occasions. Do I need to add this to the evidence so that others can see it for themselves? --Russavia ^Dialogue 20:19, 13 October 2009 (UTC)

Gee, I see your point now. By making edits we provoke DD and others into disruptive behavior; like, let's say, I am to be faulted for creating tsarist autocracy, as this baited DD into making dozens of reverts in that article. Obviously, if I have not created the article, or at the very least, if I have not dared to disagree with him, he would not have had to resort to reverting me. Hmmm. --_{Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus| talk} 20:32, 13 October 2009 (UTC)

Good link, had the evidence I needed, and I have to say that 'spree' is all in your mind. When your going to accuse someone of having a spree you really should tell people EVERYTHING. Like the fact that the 17 reverts were spread over the course of a week. The way you go on about it you act like it was in one day. Then I suppose that there is the fact that only 3 of his 17 reverts broke 3rr, not excusable mind you but concidering you could have called him on breaking 3rr with 6 revisions one wonders why you had to jump up and down about 17. The other 11 didn't even matter... and three of those weren't even relevant. The only thing I can think of is that saying 17 reverts is sexier as long as you rely on people to not actually check the diffs. I guess my other question is, if you treat your mailing list as a unified voice... how many times did you break 3rr in that week? 198.161.174.222 (talk) 22:30, 13 October 2009 (UTC)

Actually, a revert does not necessarily have to be the same piece of information. Check the relevant WP:3RR policy: "a user who makes more than three revert actions (of any kind) on any one page within a 24-hour period" --Martintg (talk) 22:42, 13 October 2009 (UTC)

(ec)Luckily that point is irrelivant since I checked the diffs. 15 of the reverts removed russian despotism from the article lead 3 of them changed byzantism to something else (one did both, thats why it adds up to 18). So even accounting for that my numbers dont change. Oh, and unsuprisingly, I have also answered my own question. The unified mailing list voice (in this canse Pioturs, Radeksz, Digwurgen) also had a 17 revert 'spree' in that time. They managed to rack up 6 3rr violations in that time but obfuscated it by coordinating off-wiki so that no particular individual violated 3rr. (Caveat: that may be less. I trusted the edit summaries and ASSUMED someone had to revert between DD's reverts I did not actually look directly at the diffs themselves but I am confident that who was doing the reverts was self evident from the history and the edit summaries).198.161.174.222 (talk) 22:59, 13 October 2009 (UTC)

I am pretty sure that at that time Radek was not a member of the list... this may change your analysis a little. --_{Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus| talk} 23:45, 13 October 2009 (UTC)

Radeksz exchanged a lot of emails with you at that time and you invited him to the list [20090515-1304-[WPM] Radeksz].DonaldDuck (talk) 00:58, 14 October 2009 (UTC)

Also, Martintg. I must say I was suprised by the 3RR thing. In retrospect I can see the reasoning behind it, but in my mind I separated reverts of different information as unique. I wonder how many people have fallen into that particular mistake by accident. Live and learn, I guess. 198.161.174.222 (talk) 14:37, 14 October 2009 (UTC)

Community service: Wikisource

The idea of community service has been raised #Constructive proposals. How about each participant be required to transcribe 500 original pages of text on Wikisource as a form of community service? see s:Special:IndexPages for a list of transcription projects which are already set up. John Vandenberg ^(chat) 01:28, 13 October 2009 (UTC)

An interesting idea. I am not familiar with wikisource, but looking at the index page you linked, would the transcription needed be indicated by the red parts of the bars? Is there a way to parse the index page by language? --_{Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus| talk} 01:38, 13 October 2009 (UTC)

Hmm? How does this work exactly? I'm also not familiar with this.radek (talk) 01:41, 13 October 2009 (UTC)

A How-To would be nice indeed. --_{Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus| talk} 01:42, 13 October 2009 (UTC)

see s:Help:Page Status, s:Help:Side by side image view for proofreading and s:Help:Djvu (and other help pages). Red indicates that the page, with text, exists but it is at OCR quality. Where there is a white background, the page has not been created.

John Vandenberg ^(chat) 01:43, 13 October 2009 (UTC)

There are nearly 600 pages that mention Poland; most of them will be OCR quality, however the text for some of them may already exist on the internet, and a copy&paste is all that is required. We can easily set up new transcription projects if required. John Vandenberg ^(chat) 01:54, 13 October 2009 (UTC)

Thanks, I'll check it out. I think you are on to something interesting here, John. There are a lot of wikignomish tasks on various WMF projects that can be quantified and are in need of attention. On Commons many images are in need of renaming, categorizing ([47], [48]), describing and translating, for example (just see this useful page for a list of tasks to assign). On Wikipedia there are scores of articles in need of project tagging and assessment. There are backlogs of articles tagged with cleanup tags. Perhaps we can try to compare and quantify them, and introduce a system of points. For example, an editor who would be usually sentenced to a 1 month ban could have it be put on suspension in exchange for a pledge that he will do a 1,000-points worth cleanup job within a given period of time. Similarly, he could be awarded points for uncontroversial content creation (community reviewed as DYK/GA/etc.), and deducted points if he is proved to be engaging in disruptive behavior. If accompanied by voluntary restrictions and mentorship this could turn a banned and likely resentful editor into a productive member of the community. A nice idea, John, indeed. PS. John, is there a transcription project for works in Polish language? I have seen many public domain books in Polish on Google Books, I'd happily help to transcribe some notable positions such as works by Zygmunt Gloger ([49]). --_{Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus| talk} 01:58, 13 October 2009 (UTC)

archive.org has many of his works, and Polish Wikisource could use some help. Pick one, and I'll set it up for you. John Vandenberg ^(chat) 02:05, 13 October 2009 (UTC)

Polish Wikisource already has some of his works at s:pl:Zygmunt_Gloger, however they are not backed by pagescans, so it would be a simple matter of copy&paste. --John Vandenberg ^(chat) 02:16, 13 October 2009 (UTC)

Opis ziem zamieszkanych przez Polaków would be the best one to work on, as it has been scanned by a library without Google watermark on it.[50][51] John Vandenberg ^(chat) 02:19, 13 October 2009 (UTC)

I'd be happy to work on it. As Radek said, it is an interesting project that if I'd known about in the past, I'd have worked on already :) If we can manage to work this into a more general arbitration principle, for this case in particular and for other cases in general, that would be a great example of a productive arbitration case :) --_{Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus| talk} 02:25, 13 October 2009 (UTC)

s:pl:Indeks:Opis ziem zamieszkanych przez Polaków 1.djvu and s:pl:Indeks:Opis ziem zamieszkanych przez Polaków 2.djvu. --John Vandenberg ^(chat) 03:33, 13 October 2009 (UTC)

s:pl:Specjalna:IndexPages for a list of existing Polish projects. John Vandenberg ^(chat) 02:07, 13 October 2009 (UTC)

There are over 3000 Polish books to be transcribed. John Vandenberg ^(chat) 02:22, 13 October 2009 (UTC)

Well, if I can figure out how this works I can do some of this, ArbCom case or no ArbCom case (I'd be happy to help out simply if just asked).radek (talk) 01:59, 13 October 2009 (UTC)

This is certainly a constructive approach that I would be willing to be a part of. There must be tons of stuff that would otherwise be neglected that would benefit from this type of thing. --Martintg (talk) 02:01, 13 October 2009 (UTC)

Ok - I'm a little bit confused (sorry - like I said, never done this before). Do you mean 'transcribe' or 'proofread' or both? And if it's proofread, the way it works is that I go to say this source [52], click on one of the yellow pages, like this one [53], read and proofread that the text matches up and then change it to green (not sure how yet)? Is that about right?radek (talk) 02:43, 13 October 2009 (UTC)

Proofreading and verifying come after transcribing. see the history of s:Page:Old-Time_Recipes_for_Home_Made_Wines_Cordials_and_Liqueurs.djvu/59 - the first edit is transcribing. John Vandenberg ^(chat) 02:51, 13 October 2009 (UTC)

Hmmm, wish that particular one hadn't all been done.radek (talk) 02:57, 13 October 2009 (UTC)

Would proofreading and transcribing be also acceptable as part of the community service? Should this be done by two (or three) different editors? I can see how our teamwork can be of use here :) --_{Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus| talk} 03:02, 13 October 2009 (UTC)

I'm a little confused but for different reasons. The problem appears to be that a coherent group of editors has abused their status as editors (and an admin) and basically shown that they cannot be trusted to make edits and abide by the rules in good faith and without disruption. So the solution is to put even more faith and trust in their edits? I understand the impulse to give them something useful to do in an area where it is perceived that they will do less harm, but until they have shown that they can be trusted to abide by the rules, I'm completely unclear as to how this will help. csloat (talk) 02:49, 13 October 2009 (UTC)

On Wikisource it does not matter how much they collaborate; they will not be able to change the glyphs on the printed page. John Vandenberg ^(chat) 02:53, 13 October 2009 (UTC)

I agree it will not help, but it does not harm. It otherwise occupies their time, and makes them reconsider doing this again. John Vandenberg ^(chat) 02:55, 13 October 2009 (UTC)

Content creation in non-controversial areas (in addition to the above Wikisource stuff) would assist some editors refocus on building the encyclopedia rather than on conflict, which can be addictive to some. 3 months of conflict free contribution would go further in rebuilding confidence rather than a 3 month ban where suspicion and doubt is simply frozen for the duration only to be resumed 3 months down the track when that person returns. --Martintg (talk) 03:18, 13 October 2009 (UTC)

Indeed. Such bans simply delay the problem for a while. We need innovative solutions to remedy it once and for all, and this looks like one of them. --_{Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus| talk} 20:52, 13 October 2009 (UTC)

Like this [54]?radek (talk) 03:16, 13 October 2009 (UTC)

Or this and this? --_{Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus| talk} 05:01, 13 October 2009 (UTC)

I think it's a good idea for most of them, for the ones who might not be that bad and just got wooed in by feelings of fellowship and charisma of the more senior users. If for no other reason, it will be good because it should make it easier for the community to forgive them and let them move on, while at the same time they show their commitment to the project's core aims. Deacon of Pndapetzim (Talk) 04:57, 13 October 2009 (UTC)

While it is nice to see so much enthusiasm now, please think about what you are trying to voluntarily subscribe to. 500 pages that is roughly 2MB of text, which is 35hours of work for an average typist. I assume that you are all highly qualified individuals earning some 20+ dollars per hour, so that is roughly 700$ worth of your time, probably more. Playing on Wikipedia battlefield might be fun for you, which you all do not mind to spend your free time on, but I want to see whether you change your mind after first 10 hours of actual tedious work. Are you sure that after 50 pages or so there will be no outcry that it is "too much work" and "too big of a punishment"?(Igny (talk) 05:52, 13 October 2009 (UTC))

Igny, thanks for the warning. But I don't see doing that kind of work as any different then looking up sources and reffing articles here or going through an article line by line and rewriting to avoid copy vio (as I've done before) - it's just another way to contribute to the project. Note also that I'm just doing it to be helpful.radek (talk) 06:12, 13 October 2009 (UTC)

Also, some of those sources are pretty interesting to read - how to make tasty liquor (I might actually try out one of those recipies), or about how Germans falsified Polish population statistics in the 19th century ;).radek (talk) 06:39, 13 October 2009 (UTC)

There was a blog sometime ago about how Wikipedia volunteer work can be similarly seen as worth many millions of dollars. Most of us here are are quite aware that we could be spending our time making $ instead of volunteering here. For some reasons, most of us do so nonetheless. 35h of work? Try to estimate how many hours I've dedicated to this project so far :) And no, Igny, "playing on Wikipedia battleground" is not fun for me. I'd much more gladly write another DYK/GA/FA or transcribe a book for Wikisource then deny I am beating my wife here :> --_{Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus| talk} 06:30, 13 October 2009 (UTC)

• I think once the particulars are sorted (or tested out), it'd be a useful idea. Ncmvocalist (talk) 12:40, 13 October 2009 (UTC)
  • I am ready to start serious wikisource work as soon as the committee gives me an indication that this is the right thing to do... for now, I've transcribed 6 pages at en wikisource and 4 on pl wikisource as the proof of concept. --_{Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus| talk} 17:03, 13 October 2009 (UTC)
    • I would like to invite editors from both sides of the dispute to try to develop good relations by collaborating on wikisource. Some of us have already started doing that, but we need many more to join! --_{Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus| talk} 18:34, 13 October 2009 (UTC)

To Igny, I've spent 2x to 3x that $700 to buy sources being misrepresented on WP regarding Transnistria, the Holodomor, and other spheres of Russian interest because they were not even available at the New York Public Library. As for the proposal, I scanned and transcribed all the materials on LATVIANS.COM, with a good deal more in the wings that's not up yet. This is the first truly constructive suggestion I've seen so far out of all of this, I am glad to support this regardless (and also get back to History of Riga). VЄСRUМВА  ♪  01:26, 14 October 2009 (UTC)

I would endorse this proposal, the only problem is that I have never been involved in Wikisource, and I do not know anything about it. Tymek (talk) 05:17, 14 October 2009 (UTC)

It seems rather easy and fun. Check this out: [55]. Click on one of the red numbers, and try to copyedit the editable text (mostly it involves splitting/merging paragraphs and fixing typos). --_{Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus| talk} 05:33, 14 October 2009 (UTC)

Oppose this idea. Sanctions are supposed to be preventative, not punitive. "Community service" is by nature punitive, and I don't see how it would prevent any disruption on WP. Offliner (talk) 11:07, 14 October 2009 (UTC)

If it helps to build the encyclopedia, why not? The common purpose of building a free encyclopedia trumps both the spirit and the letter of the rule. --Martintg (talk) 11:55, 14 October 2009 (UTC)

All punishment deters, and all deterrence contributes to prevention. The preventative/punitive meme is intellectually vacuous. In any case, unless this is incorporated in the remedies, it's purely an optional measure that allows these users to get back in the good books of the community. Deacon of Pndapetzim (Talk) 12:22, 14 October 2009 (UTC)

Shouldn't you oppose the blocks than? I think community service is a laudable alternative to blocks, although it may be and probably should be combined with other restrictions (such as the ones I proposed to voluntarily adopt myself). --_{Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus| talk} 16:21, 14 October 2009 (UTC)

Crime and Punishment

Two new projects on English Wikisource:

• s:Index:Crime and Punishment - Garnett - Neilson - 1917.djvu, translated by Constance Garnett with notes by William Allen Neilson; text available from s:Crime and Punishment
• s:Page:Continental Classics Volume XVIII - Mystery Tales.djvu/67 - 1909, translator unknown; text available from
• The Continental Classics, Volume XVIII., Mystery Tales by Various at Project Gutenberg

It would also be good to find a Polish translation which is public domain. There are at least two[56]

Enjoy, John Vandenberg ^(chat) 10:57, 14 October 2009 (UTC)

Maybe the list members would like to know what good this is going to do them if they do it. I'm kinda curious myself. What do you envision? Deacon of Pndapetzim (Talk) 12:22, 14 October 2009 (UTC)

I'll second Deacon this time. I'd love to dedicate more time to wikibooks, but the distraction and stress generated by this case and threat of ban are somewhat demotivating. --_{Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus| talk} 16:21, 14 October 2009 (UTC)

Back to Amnesties and Admonitions are Insufficient

Like anyone else involved for some time on the Wikipedia project, I have made my share of friends and encountered others who would not consider me to be their friend. It goes with the territory. To deny that there is off-wiki communication truly would be "delusional". Of course there is. There is nothing wrong with such communication, but what has transpired here truly puts the project in jeopardy and would make a mockery of its rules and regulations if it is allowed to go unpunished (with a mere wimpy slap on the wrist). The above proposal reminds me of having to write, "I will not be a bad boy," a hundred times on the blackboard (sure beats getting a switch, or expelled). There is no need for me to recapitulate what has occurred here for the benefit of anyone, let alone the members of this ArbCom. The evidence is there, and those guilty should not be able to slough off their guilt, unique in its enormity, with the hope that "this too shall pass". During other attempts to remedy these types of transgressions, and the behavior of some of the participants of the mailing list at previous ArbComs and the like, the arbitrators were unsuccessful only because of the lack of fortitude necessary to correct such transgressions. But regarding these people, this is the "Mother-of All-of-Transgressions" on their part. I have had the misfortune of having read a great number of their correspondence, if one can call it that, as I was one of the earlier recipients of the list. It saddened me to read those particular emails in relation to myself, and their conspiring to have me banned or otherwise "neutralized". I think one of the major tactics was to "ignore" Dr. Dan. Never had a problem with that guys, and I too have done my best to ignore you as well. Until now that is, because while you lied about the cabal being a figment of one's imagination and burbled a lot of euphemistic nonsense about assuming good faith, that was was not the case. All I ask of those capable of remedying this clear violation of what this project is supposed to be about, not to blow this one too. It's not about supposed previous "contributions" to the project, or associations made at Wikimania or the like, it's about reality. This reality is very ugly and will haunt this project in the future if not remedied appropriately. Dr. Dan (talk) 02:08, 13 October 2009 (UTC)

Have they really planned to "ignore" Dr.Dan? Man that's a really diabolical plan, I hope the ArbCom advises them to stop ignoring you at once! Loosmark (talk) 04:41, 13 October 2009 (UTC)

Loosmark, are you just trolling straw man nonsense, or did you really believe Dr Dan claimed to be bothered by cabal members planning to ignore him? If the latter, then reread his comments. If the former, then ... well, you deserve a good trout slapping. ;) Come on, your friends don't really need you to be acting like that atm. Deacon of Pndapetzim (Talk) 04:49, 13 October 2009 (UTC)

Hopefully no one else thinks this is all a big joke. Dr. Dan (talk) 04:55, 13 October 2009 (UTC)

Simple request 2

Umm, this one's related to my previous request - noting that no one on the list was "anti-Russian" but this one is even weirder and more inaccurate: encouraging each other to fight editors perceived as being "opponents" and generally assuming bad faith from editors editing from a Russian or Western European point of view.

Uhhh... weren't we just being accused of *representing* the Western point of view? What is this referring to? Where did we say "those damned Western Europeans!"? We used mainstream Eastern *and* Western European sources (sometimes in the face of objections). This one really has me scratching my head.radek (talk) 06:16, 13 October 2009 (UTC)

Perhaps a reference to your conflicts with Germans ... But I don't think that you guys will ever be accused of arguing a "Western point of view". Deacon of Pndapetzim (Talk) 07:18, 13 October 2009 (UTC)

Well in the dispute with Skapperod over expulsions I used ... German sources! And for that specific accusation - I believe it's on this very page in several places.radek (talk) 07:33, 13 October 2009 (UTC)

Not exactly, you used Molobo as a source and Polish websites Molobo posted on the mailing list, one of them contained a translation of a German scholar which you used selectively resulting in the article being protected because of BLP. (Use of other information from the same source was instantly reverted by you [57], btw). Skäpperöd (talk) 07:52, 13 October 2009 (UTC)

Uh, no, I did not use Molobo as a source. What, was he published somewhere that I'm not aware of? I found a bunch of German language sources and since I don't speak German I asked Molobo for help with translation (while struggling with my own Babel fish translation).

Also, please don't misrepresent the fact that you were trying to hide the extreme far right nature and Holocaust-denialism of Heinz Nawratil and that BLP noticeboard completely agreed with me on this. And I reverted your edit simply because you were misrepresenting the source.radek (talk) 08:05, 13 October 2009 (UTC)

Well, the statement is not specifically about the sources, but about cultural standpoints. Deacon of Pndapetzim (Talk) 07:37, 13 October 2009 (UTC)

I have no idea what's that supposed to mean and I'm not even gonna ask.radek (talk) 08:05, 13 October 2009 (UTC)

Coren has already responded here. Skäpperöd (talk) 07:52, 13 October 2009 (UTC)

Err, I finally understood the question: I just realized I had rewritten this so often I had ended up reversing the sense I intended! Imma go fix this now! — Coren ^(talk) 10:50, 13 October 2009 (UTC)

Thanks!radek (talk) 16:31, 13 October 2009 (UTC)

---

The way it's formulated now editors like Skapperod and Matthead end up with 'Russian or against the prevalent Western European point of view' position. I don't think it's accurate.

Also, the ML members did not always defend 'prevalent Western European point of view' as could be perceived from current wording (Human rights in Estonia and the Amnesty International report about them come to my mind). Alæxis_¿question? 19:13, 13 October 2009 (UTC)

I also wonder about the oversimplification regarding Russian POV. I'd suggest rephrasing it to indicate that the list members dealt with "perceived undue weight POV"; it doesn't really matter where it came from. --_{Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus| talk} 23:38, 13 October 2009 (UTC)

Thoughts

Being totally unfamiliar with the detailed facts of this case, I would nonetheless like to offer a few impressions:

1. We don't (or shouldn't) do retributive punishment on Wikipedia. We shouldn't be applying sanctions because of what people have done in the past, but because of what they might otherwise do in the future (and the good things they will incidentally be prevented from doing ought to come into the equation too).
2. In subject areas where strong points of view are prevalent (such as those of different nationalities) the normal editing model breaks down (I'm sure ArbCom doesn't need me to tell them that). Ordinary well-meaning editors tend to be shouted out and lose patience, leaving the POV-pushers to fight it out. There is no effective system for ensuring good content in these cases; the best we can hope for is a truce between sides that isn't biased too far in one direction or the other (but still probably won't be well-written or particularly factual). This is a fault of the system, not of individual editors. Enough cases like this have come to ArbCom by now that surely we can be thinking of ways to repair the system, not continually papering over the cracks by imposing punitive sanctions on individuals and describing them (perversely) as "remedies"?
3. Given the system we have, if one group of POV-pushers is allowed to work their stuff, then it's no surprise that editors with opposing POVs work to counter them, even to the extent of coordinating their actions. It might even seem negligent of them not to, given that the system offers no alternative course of action.

I edit in the "Eastern" (Central) European area too, and am quite frequently annoyed by POVers of various nationalities editing to an agenda to the detriment of the encyclopedia (such as by removing places' former names and information about their having belonged to other countries in the past). I haven't been involved in any of the major content disputes that this case seems to be about. But my impression of User:Piotrus has always been extremely positive - unlike some Polish editors, he genuinely strives to improve the content of the encyclopedia and keep POVs out rather than in. He has also made vast and extremely valuable contributions to WP, and continues to do so. I would have hoped that the amnesty (which, following from the above numbered points, I clearly support) would be applied to him first and foremost. Effectively it is proposed (if I understand correctly) that he be excluded from his area of interest at WP for 15 months, which will undoubtedly harm the project significantly, for no visible gain. I don't know the other potential sanctionees so can't offer an opinion there, but would ask the Committee to reconsider the case of Piotrus. If we're in a retributive mood, is the desysopping not sufficient as a punishment?--Kotniski (talk) 08:23, 13 October 2009 (UTC)

Pasting together two parts of your statement: Does the presence of one competent editor justify the absence of those editors who turned away from EE battles managed by this editor? Which evil is lesser? Who will care to improve Franciszek Smuglewicz, for example, if even such benign (and well-researched) topic is a slow-burning minefield? NVO (talk) 12:28, 13 October 2009 (UTC)

I don't know what you're alleging here, or what your point is about this article. I doubt that "battles were managed" by any one editor.--Kotniski (talk) 13:01, 13 October 2009 (UTC)

What's the problem with Smuglewicz, other than some anon disruption (solution: request semi-protection)? If there are interested editors here, please keep in mind my offer - I will gladly help you or anybody else improve this article. --_{Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus| talk} 16:41, 13 October 2009 (UTC)

Lets see. I figure I can respond to each of those points individually.

1. This is not retribution, this is responce to ongoing disruption. What people have done in the past represents what they are likely to do in the future. Poitrus has had previous brushes with the law and each time it gets more damning. This mailing list represents long term commitment to actions the commitee is against and therefore their responce must be commensurate with it.

2. The 'System', as flawed as it is, did not make them do anything. They chose their actions, recognised its negative nature, and actively hid it from view. If you want the system improved then you should help improve it, not actively subvert it while waving a flag that says 'I only did it cus the system sucks'.

3. So its negligent to not edit war if someone else is doing it? You really think that ones gonna fly? Ever?

If the comittee believes what was in the FoF's are true, then no only has Poitrus actively persued multiple avenues of longterm disruption on wikipedia, but he has also used his position to assist others to do so as well. He was warned in previous cases it would come to this, and now it has. If he is such a good contributor, then he can be a good one in other parts of wikipedia where he can do so without worries of evil russian cabals.198.161.174.222 (talk) 16:58, 13 October 2009 (UTC)

Could you perhaps log in so we know who you are? (Seems courteous if you're going to make potentially defamatory accusations against named editors.) But it seems you - and the Arb who wrote the proposed decisions - are trying to make Piotrus a scapegoat for everything that's been going on. Even through my limited involvement I am quite aware that there is nationalist-motivated disruption going on from all sides, and there always will be if we think that singling out individual editors for punishment counts as a "remedy".--Kotniski (talk) 17:31, 13 October 2009 (UTC)

The case is not closed yet; nowhere near it. If you have evidence in favor of anyone involved, you still have time to present it. "Why do you wonder at me? I gave an onion to a beggar, so I, too, am here. And many here have given only an onion each — only one little onion.... What are all our deeds?" NVO (talk) 17:55, 13 October 2009 (UTC)

I haven't logged in yet, and I really have no intention of doing so. Any potentially defamatory accusations I have made are based on currently voted on FoF's, noting that the accusations only stand if the FoF's are taken as true. As for Piotrus being a scapegoat, the current voting list makes it out more that they are focusing on who they believe is the ringleaders as opposed to hitting the list with a carpet bombing of bannination. Anyone who agrees with that assessment will call it that, anyone who disagrees with it will call it scapegoating. Po-tay-toe, Po-tah-toe. As for solving the nationalist-motivated disruption going on from all sides, I am sure Arbcom will be happy to hear your thoughts on how to solve the issue that does not involve either singling out individial editors for punishment and calling it a "remedy" or promoting editwarring as a method to combat nationalist agenda's198.161.174.222 (talk) 18:48, 13 October 2009 (UTC)

If we could focus our discussion on that subject, then maybe they would hear all of our thoughts on it, and offer some of their own. Then we might achieve something useful. (But I think it would need a powerful discussion mediator - and all-round change of mindset - to make that happen.)--Kotniski (talk) 19:25, 13 October 2009 (UTC)

Yes, I fully support the need for some mediation-like post-arbcom proceeding. Remembering past grievances is not helping anyone, we have to move forward (or we will end up here again in few months). --_{Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus| talk} 19:55, 13 October 2009 (UTC)

My thoughts are precisely this. And I have made it known to the Committee. It is fine and dandy for members of the mailing list coming up with alternative remedies, and rolling out all sorts of character witnesses from wikiproject who are not involved. But the problem is, is that not a single member has yet to acknowledge that they did a single thing wrong, not a single list member has acknowledged that they have harrassed editors (even though evidence shows this clearly), and not a single list member has yet agreed with a single finding of fact. No, it is a complete denial. In my world, this is how children behave, and children who do such things are sent to their room until such time as they are willing to acknowledge what they did, and apologise. Only then should any of them be allowed to play with the grown ups. And the members of this list are no different. Why not encourage your colleagues to acknowledge what they have done...for this is the first step on the road to regaining an ounce of respect from the community. --Russavia ^Dialogue 18:11, 13 October 2009 (UTC)

I certainly encourage everyone who has participated in this warring on whatever side to acknowledge and apologize for their deeds; but more noble and productive still would be for all sides to leave off the mutual accusations and help work out together what needs to be done to stop this type of situation repeating. --Kotniski (talk) 18:34, 13 October 2009 (UTC)

"not a single member has yet to acknowledge that they did a single thing wrong". Sigh. For evidence of acknowledging of past mistakes, apologies and constructive proposals seek no further than here (and links that lead on from there), for example. --_{Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus| talk} 18:38, 13 October 2009 (UTC)

Piotrus, despite overwhelming evidence [20090102-1220] [20090506-1615] you still deny organizing edit wars and provoking other users. You are still trying to decieve other editors. You are still blaming your victims and have not shown a bit of remorse. I hope, you will finally feel a fraction of what you made others to suffer. DonaldDuck (talk) 01:12, 14 October 2009 (UTC)

I have observed the work of User:Piotrus over time and found him to be a productive and helpful editor. I only wish he would change his signature tag. Newport Backbay (talk) 23:28, 14 October 2009 (UTC)

Statement by Petri Krohn

Petri Krohn asked me to post this comment here:

---

Unrelated contents

5) Most of the mailing list traffic is not material to this case. It consists primarily of friendly banter and discussion such as would normally be found on users' talk pages, or of discussion unrelated to Wikipedia. [58]

From what I see, about 90% is discussion of ways to disrupt Wikipedia. Much of this is off-line coordination of edits. The rest is about constructing software tools to disrupt Wikipedia or harass editors. Some is about attacking real life people or using Wikipedia to attack them.

Very few messages and even fewer threads are pure political commentary. I now ask you, which is the longest thread without conspiracy?

---

--Dojarca (talk) 09:10, 13 October 2009 (UTC)

I can only concur with Petri's assessment of his disputing of the nature of the FoF. Rather it appears to be quite the opposite, little of the list was friendly banter, whereas the majority was nefarious in nature. I would urge Committee members to reject the characterisation as suggested in the proposed FoF, and come up with one which is more to the reality of what we have all read in the archives. --Russavia ^Dialogue 13:29, 13 October 2009 (UTC)

I have not read the list, but think the committee just has a larger threshold than you for 'nefarious'. Idle banter about possibly doing various things don't rise to the level of nefarious unless someone actually does something. Perhaps you should read it as saying 'Most of the mailing list traffic cannot be tied to specific acts of on-wiki distruption and therefore is being treated as idle chatter that is unactionable'. So even if a couple of them were chatting about how they wanted to attack someone (which you would concider nefarious), unless that talk can be tied to a specific action then it was just that, friendly banter between people of like minds. I'm sure you don't like it, and I'm sure you really don't like it being called friendly, but it was friendly for the people who were supposed to read it. And that was not you. 198.161.174.222 (talk) 16:38, 13 October 2009 (UTC)

You're wrong. In this case [59] the ArbCom banned Petri Krohn for a year even without looking at diffs (which were provided by the Cabal members with false descriptions). Petri Krohn by the time did not edit anything related to Estonia for severtal months and even did not know about the ongoing arbitration. He never attacked anybody and never disrupted Wikipedia. This was after Martintg complained that the proposed remedies were "assymetric" (in fact the case was opened after Digwuren traded GA-promitions in IRC with another editor). In the end Digwuren and Petri Krohn who was not guilty of anything (and even was uninvolved but very much hated by the group) were punished equally just as Martintg proposed.--Dojarca (talk) 18:03, 13 October 2009 (UTC)

I'm afraid I fail to see either your point or what this example even has to do with the discussion. Are you saying because you have one example of conspiricy that every word of every email is part of that conspiracy? Are you prepared to prove the the entirity of the mailing list revolved exclusively around screwing over Petri Krohn? All I'm saying is that its reasonable to assume that even if they were hatching plots on the mailing list, most of it would just be blather, pipe dreams, and pillow talk. Saying Petri got one pulled over on him doesn't rebutt that in any way, shape, or form. 198.161.174.222 (talk) 18:32, 13 October 2009 (UTC)

If you read the mailing list, you can easily find the announcement of the attempt to banish him from Wikipedia by vote, which finally led to his ban by voting where the majority of voters were the cabal members. Anyway I was just responding to your thesis of supposedly large ArbCom's treshhold for taking harsh action.--Dojarca (talk) 18:54, 13 October 2009 (UTC)

Petri Krohn was banned by the Arbcom well before the maillist was even created. Can we drop the weird time warping conspiracy theories? --Martintg (talk) 18:58, 13 October 2009 (UTC)

Yes. First time for a year by the ArbCom. As I said two comments before. After your, Martintg, appeal to the ArbCom that the proposed remedies were "assymetrical" and suggested to ban Petri who was completely uninvolved with the case.--Dojarca (talk) 19:00, 13 October 2009 (UTC)

The relevance of this 2007 ArbCom case is? Krohn was banned on the basis of these FoFs, which included making generalized accusations that editors of a particular national or ethnic group were engaged in Holocaust denial or harbor Nazi sympathies. --Martintg (talk) 19:20, 13 October 2009 (UTC)

The trouble with that one is that we know that this coordination has being going on since 2007. See my evidence. The mailing list may not have started then, but proves that there was a coordinated effort to get some people banned from Wikipedia. Anonimu was named in that discussion. --Paul Pieniezny (talk) 07:45, 14 October 2009 (UTC)

Yes Paul, the evidence you posted, this single diff where Digwuren discusses and compares Marxism, Marxism-Leninism, Stalinism and Neo-Stalinism is convincing proof that maillist co-ordination existed for years. Simply brilliant detective work. --Martintg (talk) 10:27, 14 October 2009 (UTC)

Have you read my entire comment? I of course referred to the whole thread. Here in Digwuren's own words:" Piotrus might not know the details of mineral composition of eastern Latvian soil, or the detailed history of interwar Estonian spies in Germany, but he knows Ghirlandajo's tricks, and he also knows Soviet history. Building on this shared knowledge, we could pool our resources. On Wikipedia, an actively expressed consensus is more powerful than a silent agreement, and this is a force that can be harnessed to counter WP:TE so loved by worshippes of a certain moustached Georgian." ([60]) - yes, I bolded certain points myself. Is it not obvious that this is what happened? We even have one participant being proud that he created "actively expressed consensus" between Poles and Ukrainians. Come on, why didn't you start your own Wiki, while you were at it?--Paul Pieniezny (talk) 12:35, 14 October 2009 (UTC)

See this Polish unhelpful coordinated editing - well known. M.K. (talk) 07:51, 14 October 2009 (UTC)

Indeed, the participants in 2007 ArbCom case that led to Petri Krohn's ban were really Polish socks. --Martintg (talk) 10:27, 14 October 2009 (UTC)

What M.K. is saying is: "we told you so". And unfortunately, he is 100% right. Clearly suspicious support gathering among Polish Wikipedians (under the heading "Piotrus advocates the use of IM", Tymek gets mentioned, echoes of HG Wells and "The Shape of Things to Come") was, under the good auspices of Ursul pacalit de vulpe, turned into a Polish-Romanian alliance to counter editors seen as pro-russian, pro-lithuanian or pro-german. This old and long since archived discussion on Dc76's talk page is the beginning of the third step. It not only involves more than two nationalities or self-felt identities but an attempt to create artificial consensus, reached off-wiki. --Paul Pieniezny (talk) 12:35, 14 October 2009 (UTC)

Ever heard of a self-fulfilling prophecy? Check the Wikipedia:Words of wisdom#On Wikipedia and the Cabal, third paragraph. Cause and consequence, folks. The mailing list was created as a last resort to deal with disruption that was continuing after several arbcoms failed to put an end to it. The system failed time and again to bring an end to the plague of disruption that affected EE topics. Is it that surprising that after years some editors decided to work outside the system? In hindsight, however, I agree that we should have not done that and instead tried to work with the system even more, by pursuing alternatives like major mediation, dedicated wikiproject/noticeboard and such - which is what I am now advocating here. We need a radically new solution to deal with this mess, or we will be back here - in 2010, 2011, 2012... and banning a few people will not help, as both sides (if we can talk of just two) have demonstrated in the past to have a steady supply of leaders and man-at-arms. Some leave, some are banned, new ones step into their empty shoes. The only way to end this battleground once and for all is to get the sides talking to one another again and assuming good faith. Nothing else will work. --_{Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus| talk} 19:28, 14 October 2009 (UTC)

Doskonale. Unfortunately, self-fulfilling prophecy has worked both ways. You know very well that at the beginning of my editing here I tried to work together with you and your friends (for neutral parties who have trouble believing that, and I understand you: [61], and the Dutch version of that article). There is no way I would then ever have supported the actions taken by some of the obviously desperate "Russian" editors but now I can see clearly how I was worked into a plaything myself. And I see that you and your people are now, in this very discussion, doing the exactly same thing to User:Pantherskin who should normally be on your side on most of your battlegrounds, but he will not blindly follow you into the kitchen, so ... No, you are not the Borg, and I refuse to be assimilated. Now, you ARE obviously basically a good guy and a (horresco referens) intellectual: how does it feel to have people like Digwuren, Martintg, Sander Säde and Miacek (who links to his blog from his Wikipedia page) on your side, rather than csloat, Pantherskin and Irpen? Please write that wonderful book you could write about Polish history (for third parties: this is NOT sarcasm, on the contrary), drop your adminship and stop participating in secret mailing lists, Gadu Gadu and other off wiki to create an actively expressed consensus. Other Polish editors could then refer to your book on Wikipedia. Csloat is not really disrupting the Wikipedia, life is a beach and poka my zyjemy. Do widzenia. --Paul Pieniezny (talk) 08:11, 15 October 2009 (UTC)

"I was just responding to your thesis of supposedly large ArbCom's treshhold for taking harsh action." - Dojarca. Ah, I see now. Well, without commenting on how they chose to weight the evidence of the previous case, my point about raising the evidence bar to a higher level on THIS case is related to the unsundry way the evidence was presented to them. They are accepting the mailing list as factual, but are refraining from acting on everything in the list unless backed up by on-wiki evidence. Many people are upset that things on the list that they would concider horrible are being left unanswered for, but unless they want to have everyone and their dog send them haxxored mailing lists they need to keep the level of acceptance to things they can corroborate. For some, especially the ones on the list, its bad enough that they are looking at the list AT ALL let alone concidering handing out bans for something that may or may not even be true. I don't know why they chose to do what they did to Petri, or wether he did or did not deserve it. What I do know is that the mailing list ALONE is not enough damn them. If they said "lets get so-and-so banned today!" and nothing happend on-wiki, then its not a conspiracy, its people sitting around talking. 198.161.174.222 (talk) 19:53, 13 October 2009 (UTC)

Any instance of of mailing list coordination has on-wiki consequences. There is plenty of on-wiki evidence both with apparent connection with the list and standing alone. There were numerous ArbCom cases in the past where massive evidence of disruptive on-wiki behavior of the cabal members was shown and most of them resulted in amnesties. This case is unique in that it shows their internal kitchen.--Dojarca (talk) 08:41, 14 October 2009 (UTC)

While true statements, lets not get too far from the topic here. The past Arb cases and the amnesties have little to do with wether or not the mailing list NOW containg more socialising or more plotting. I'm not saying there isn't evidence of disruption, nor am I claiming their innocence. All I am saying is that I doubt Petri's assesment of the mailing list being 90% disruption, and that Corens assesment that most of it is just people talking is a more reasonable conclusion. I am further stating that its likely the difference of opinion on that matter stems from a greater willingness on Corens part to dismiss things that cannot be directly corroberated into disruption as just talk and a greater willingness of the lists 'enemies' to latch onto things that were just talk and call them disruption. Where does the real line lie? I'm not sure.

Again, I'm not saying there weren't diamonds in that mine... but most of it was just dirt.198.161.174.222 (talk) 16:07, 14 October 2009 (UTC)

As you did not read the mailing list, so do not judge about what you've not seen.--Dojarca (talk) 17:01, 14 October 2009 (UTC)

I do judge what I have seen. I have seen the noted opinion of a third party who has read the list and I have seen the the opinion of an involved party who has read the list. I find the third parties opinion to be more reasonable while admitting I have not literally seen it myself and providing a reason for that decision. Do you care to provide a reason why I should change my mind other than 'we caught them doing other things so the entire thing must be evil'. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 198.161.174.222 (talk) 19:25, 14 October 2009 (UTC)

Shrug, Dojarca thinks discussing Wikipedia:Wikipedia_Signpost/2009-05-18/Multilingual_contests is evidence of seeking support of government bodies in disrupting of Wikipedia --Martintg (talk) 19:43, 14 October 2009 (UTC)

Coren is trying to do right thing

Coren considers people at the both sides as misguided participants of this project rather than hardened criminals who must be exterminated. This is a noble approach. Digwuren and Piotrus appear in sanctions as ringleaders and Martingt as a scapegoat. Indeed, it was Digwuren who created and administered the list and therefore initiated the entire thing. It is also true that only involvement of Piotrus made the entire enterprise legitimate in the eyes of people in the list, not so much through administrator's status of Piotrus as through his authority as an excellent content creator and a friend. Well, maybe he was not such a good friend, since he did not warn others of potential dangers of participating in the list. And maybe he manipulated his friends? Or maybe people wanted to be manipulated and Piotrus simply has excellent leadership skills? Whatever it was, Piotrus is undeniably the most prolific and neutral content creator in the mailing list. It may be fine to place him on probation and some set of voluntary/involuntary restrictions, but not allowing him editing articles on Poland-related subjects does not serve any purpose.Biophys (talk) 15:37, 13 October 2009 (UTC)

It seems I should apologize to anybody whom I might have drawn, purposely or accidentally, into that list, without fully explaining and/or realizing myself the consequences. In hindsight, I should have never supported discussions that could (and some that did) result in real edits; those should have been kept, as much as possible, on Wiki. Now that we have Wikipedia:WikiProject Eastern Europe, I expect that all such discussions are moved there. --_{Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus| talk} 16:47, 13 October 2009 (UTC)

You might also like to apologise to the community at large, and to those who you harrassed also. Some priorities and some responsibility taking is long overdue, don't you think? And this doesn't just go for you, but every single one of you who were on the list. --Russavia ^Dialogue 18:03, 13 October 2009 (UTC)

I have issued my series of apologies already. And whom have I harassed? Diffs please. --_{Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus| talk} 18:23, 13 October 2009 (UTC)

Wikipedia:Arbitration/Requests/Case/Eastern_European_mailing_list/Evidence#Response_to_denial_by_Piotrus -- everyone has read this Piotrus, and yes you blatantly lied on that thread, and actually had the nerve to pull the line that it was everyone else who was libelling/slandering/harrassing other editors on your mailing list. The Arbcom may want to avoid this issue, but I will argue until I blue in the face that they recognise there was a massive harrassment of editors (not only myself) by your mailing list; the rest of the community basically already recognises it. --Russavia ^Dialogue 19:15, 13 October 2009 (UTC)

Starting one ANI thread which doesn't even mention your name = my long term and nefarious campaign to harass you. Yes, I wonder why Arbcom is avoiding making this a cornerstone of this case... EOT for me. --_{Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus| talk} 19:21, 13 October 2009 (UTC)

Russavia, please see my talk page for Offliner's harassment, Viriditas' harassment, et al. Not to mention PasswordUsername's contributions in that department as well. Then there is your invective all over the place. Which, apparently, has been rewarded at least to some degree.

   When you were first topic banned and you asked about some of your content under development (e.g., Russia-Australia relations), I was going to suggest I correct a few bits regarding Whitlam's recognition of Soviet sovereignty over the Baltics and that an admin post your article. I was clearly mistaken that there is any ground here for cooperation.

   Please show me where I need to apologize to anyone for "harassing" them. Your incessantly vituperative and combative attitude (shared by Offliner, PasswordUsername, and others) is a prime motivator for why I might wish to discuss topics with other editors in a venue offering peace and tranquility. I attribute the phenomenon of a mailing list not to my "depraved" (per another observer) behavior, but to yours, et al. Your use of these proceedings to berate others, and the apparent indulgence for you to continue to do so, rather disinclines me to apologize to anyone for anything. And so to you and to those who indulge you, you can collectively thank yourselves that I will be deleting the "apology" part of my "going forward" response to these proceedings. I am sure such action will be denounced by yourself and others as proof of Vecrumba's bad faith and recalcitrance. VЄСRUМВА  ♪  19:04, 13 October 2009 (UTC)

Vecrumba, works in my userspace are my works, and I will post them in my own time, when I am satisfied that it is complete. Thanks for offering that anyway, but it is not complete, and it can wait until March 2010 when I am able to edit on enwiki again in that area. --Russavia ^Dialogue 19:15, 13 October 2009 (UTC)

Piotrus, your posts on the mailing list provide ample evidence for Russavias claim that you were engaged in harrassment. That you are still denying this makes it rather clear a topic ban is not punitive but preventive. All that even ignoring that your so called series of apologies is in fact a rather meagre collection of excuses (just look at Wikipedia:Arbitration/Requests/Case/Eastern_European_mailing_list/Workshop/Archive#Proposal_by_Piotrus_-_voluntary_restrictions) and counter-accussations. And btw, I am not one of those who would normally support Russavia or any of the other rightly banned "pro-Russian" editors. Pantherskin (talk) 19:11, 13 October 2009 (UTC)

Well, Vecrumba rather proves my point. Makes me really, really confident that things will change in the Eastern Europe topic area. Pantherskin (talk) 19:14, 13 October 2009 (UTC)

Please stop with the thought police arguments. What I wrote on a private list may offend Russavia now - but it was private and never meant to offend him if he hasn't started reading somebody's else private correspondence. If I and you were talking face to face or exchanging emails in which I'd say something uncivil about Russavia, this is not harassing him. WP:HARASSMENT clearly states that it is concerned with on-wiki edits - and such are not present in evidence. EOT for me, till evidence is given that contains some on-wiki diffs. PS. I have no intention of discussing issues such as whether I am still beating my wife. PPS. On the subject of apology, where are the apologies from people reading private correspondence that was not addressed to them? EOT. --_{Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus| talk} 19:27, 13 October 2009 (UTC)

Discussing people in private correspondence is not harassment, as someone else said somewhere above, discussing pipe dreams, engaging in pillow talk and daydreaming is just that, idle discussion. Whether it consumed 10% of the emails or 100%, it does not matter. What counts is what was translated into on-wiki action, and the only evidence of harassment that Russavia cites is the ANI report discussing his alleged account sharing, which was a legitimate concern that needed to be aired in my view. Whether it is because he is attempting to over compensate for his own conviction for harassing Biophys last year or it is some kind of persecution complex that is driving Russavia to claim he is being harassed, I don't know. But I do know that Piotr did not harass him. --Martintg (talk) 19:44, 13 October 2009 (UTC)

I will let Wikipedia:Arbitration/Requests/Case/Eastern_European_mailing_list/Evidence#Response_to_denial_by_Piotrus and associated evidence speak for itself. You do not have an ounce of credibility on this issue Piotrus; none of your fellow list members do either. And I am afraid to say, that I don't have an ounce of respect nor good faith for a single one of you, so long as you all continue to deny what is clear to everyone else and is written in black and white. Echoing Panterskin, perhaps the 3 month vacation and a 12 month topic ban from the area will give you enough time to reconsider just what you have been responsible for. Now that is EOT. --Russavia ^Dialogue 19:48, 13 October 2009 (UTC)

Your "Response_to_denial_by_Piotrus" contains no diffs to on-wiki harassment. Piotr has already asked you several times already on this page to provide diffs. None have been provided thus far. --Martintg (talk) 20:25, 13 October 2009 (UTC)

I have provided an entire thread of harrassment, which is tied up with emails from the list archive. It's there in black and white. Anyway, I see the harrassment is already covered at Wikipedia:Arbitration/Requests/Case/Eastern_European_mailing_list/Proposed_decision#Improper_coordination so it is being recognised in a proposed finding of fact. The only question remains whether editors are going to continue to deny absolutely everything? Only then can respect and good faith be truly restored and the community in general can move forward. --Russavia ^Dialogue 20:57, 13 October 2009 (UTC)

Diffs? Yes, you provided an entire thread claiming harrassment, but you have not provided any diffs to support those claims. If you are offended by reading emails about yourself, then perhaps you shouldn't be reading other people's private correspondence in the first place. --Martintg (talk) 21:50, 13 October 2009 (UTC)

Thats really chutzpa. Russavia provides a thread linking your and others posts the emailing list with diffs on Wikipedia and you come hear and just claim that there are no diffs, no proof, whatsoever. You know as well as me that this is not about you and mailing list members badging about their perceived opponents on Wikipedia, it is about you (yes you, specifically you according to the evidence presented) and other following up, here on Wikipedia. That you (and Piotrus) are denying even the fact that Russavia presented evidence which include diffs (sic!), let alone are willing to acknowledge the wrong you and other mailing list members did and the disruption you caused., all this only allows the conclusion that nothing better will come out of this. Seriously disgusted, Pantherskin (talk) 05:22, 14 October 2009 (UTC)

• Most people on the both sides should appreciate the generous offer by Coren and just move ahead with content creation, as time allows. But I believe that Piotrus is precisely the person who is best equipped to move the effort in the right direction of creating good content. If he did something wrong (and apparently he did), let him do some good community service to fix/improve whatever needs to be improved.Biophys (talk) 19:57, 13 October 2009 (UTC)

(od) <<Sigh>> more lecturing. As for proving points, Pantherskin's rush to judgement knowing nothing about me is the real point. For Pantherskin, who pretends he knows anything about me, and to those wish to believe defamatory evidence about me that I stick labels on people I don't like, please feel free to read this interview here. Cedrins, by the way, is probably the best-versed WP editor on the Baltics I know, and by no means a nationalist apologist, and driven away from WP by the incessant attacks of those pushing Russian interests. VЄСRUМВА  ♪  19:59, 13 October 2009 (UTC)

You talk an awful lot about opponents and attacks and extremist editors. Of course you are on the right side, what makes it ok to treat Wikipedia as a battlefield, right? Pantherskin (talk) 05:22, 14 October 2009 (UTC)

Clerk note - Due to the depth of feeling about this issue I have for the most part given considerable leeway on discussions. However this particular thread is now veering into an incivil dispute. This will STOP now. Any further discussion in this thread or on this page which does not directly relate to discussion of the proposed decision will be removed without notice or explanation. Voluntary striking of your own incivil comments would not be a bad idea. Manning (talk) 05:28, 14 October 2009 (UTC)

Seeking support of government bodies in disruption of Wikipedia

I have added a new section to my evidence, showing that the cabal members attempted to establish contacts with Estonian government and involve them in the mailing list activity. [62]. This has been pointed out by Petri Krohn.--Dojarca (talk) 08:29, 14 October 2009 (UTC)

Uhm, Suva was not even a member of the mailing list, see List membership. So it would have been kinda hard for him to post there, methinks. And once again, what on-wiki action occurred, or just thought crime again? We are not in Soviet Union anymore, Toto. Do realize already that even private discussions involving murder of Jimbo Wales and replacing him with a sockpuppet on a stick is not actionable unless something actually happened on-wiki. --Sander Säde 08:47, 14 October 2009 (UTC)

Uhm uhm. Since Suva did in fact intervene in the 2007 discussion on the Romanian talk page. So, unless we were to know that he never subscribed to the or a mailing list from the moment it was started up, you cannot say for sure. Of course, this claim is silly (counterproductive too), so that Suva point is moot.--Paul Pieniezny (talk) 08:47, 15 October 2009 (UTC)

I think he's referring to the fact - this was before I was on the list so I just looked in the archive - that according to the Wikipedia Signpost [63], the Estonian Wiki held a contest for writing Norway related articles, which was supported by the Norwegian Embassy in Estonia. And then somebody suggested that ... brace yourself ... this is going to be awful ... if it was a movie it'd be rated PG-13 so hide your kids ... look at your own risk ... not for the meek ... it's trully an evil cabal at work .... somebody suggested it'd be more useful if those articles were written for the English Wikipedia!!!!!!!!! (This is the "involving Estonian embassy in mailing list activity" that Dojarca is referring to ... oh boy)radek (talk) 09:44, 14 October 2009 (UTC)

No. I am just referring to the mailing list evidence.--Dojarca (talk) 09:52, 14 October 2009 (UTC)

... ... uh ... you ... you might want to fix the heading of this section. If you read the "e" in the last word as a soft Russian "ie" it's sort of ... unintentionally humorous. At least I think it's unintentional.radek (talk) 08:48, 14 October 2009 (UTC)

Oh! I completely missed the heading. I like this, may we have "Wikiperv", too? --Sander Säde 08:53, 14 October 2009 (UTC)

It may or may not be relevant that some list members (such as Sander Säde here) edit warred heavily to remove all criticism (by Amnesty International and other sources) from the article of Estonia's secret police, Kaitsepolitsei—an organization which has been called "the political police" of Estonia. [64] Offliner (talk) 08:57, 14 October 2009 (UTC)

I suggest to add this to the evidence section.--Dojarca (talk) 09:01, 14 October 2009 (UTC)

(irrelevant discussion removed by clerk)

Don't forget to add my attempt to collude with Polish Ministry of Foreign Affairs, it should fit somewhere in that kitchen sink :D For details see here. --_{Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus| talk} 16:14, 14 October 2009 (UTC)

Constructive vs. Destructive Proposals

I want to extend on something that has already been said, in particular in Kotnisky’s comment – and that is that the I hope that the ArbCom, in addition to being fair and dispensing “justice”, also considers the impact of the Proposed Decisions on the quality of the Wikipedia project.

Specifically I want to address the proposed 3 month block and the 12 months topic ban for Piotrus which for all practical purposes amounts to a 15 overall month block since Eastern European and Polish articles is pretty much all that he edits (a lot!). In judging the appropriateness of this, the committee should look at how Destructive such a long block will be to the project, and how alternate remedies are going to be Constructive for Wikipedia as a whole.

From all the evidence that’s been presented, it seems that there was only one instance where Piotrus “abused” his admin powers (note that he never unblocked Biophys). He protected the Battle of Konotop article after being alerted to an edit war on the article through the list. But that article in fact SHOULD HAVE been protected and WOULD HAVE been protected had somebody posted a request to Protection/Noticeboard. This can be seen as an inappropriate action by a “involved administrator” but it is about as mild of a transgression as one can imagine with respect to “administrator power abuse”. Especially since Piotrus protected the “other side’s” version!!

Destructive approach

De-sysopping and a 15month block seems like an extremely disproportionate response to such a minor mistake.

And what would the effect of the 15 month block be? Well, without meaning to be dramatic, first, WikiProjectPoland would probably collapse. Piotrus has already asked for anyone else to step up and take care of it while the case is ongoing – but no takers, and it’s doubtful anyone will be willing to fill in this huge gap. And I want to emphasize that this project does not involve any current controversies but mostly a lot of simple but mundane work.

Piotrus’ absence from Wikipedia, given his usual high productivity, will also result in quite a number of articles that will not be written. From what I can tell Piotrus averages about 300 edits in mainspace (all uncontroversial) and about 6 DYKs per month –for the duration of the block that’s about 4500 useful edits and ‘’90’’ DYKs that are not going to be made. And to that you got to add several GAs and a few FAs that are not going to be written either.

I think that makes it obvious how pointless and destructive such a block would be. What benefit is there to this project from loosing all these contributions?

What would the potential benefits of such a block be? Well, Piotrus is not involved in any controversies or edit warring right now nor has he been in the recent past (the few instances that can be called controversies seem to have been worked out through regular talk page discussion) so the answer is … pretty much none. I guess it would “send a message” (although as Kotnisky points out – that’s not how ArbCom decisions should be made) and may partially mollify some of those screaming for blood (but that one should definitely NOT be how ArbCom decisions are made).

Constructive proposals

On the other hand a Constructive proposal would be something like what John Vandenberg made with regard to Wikisource. This would create additional benefits to the project and would be inline with the kind of positive work that Piotrus carries out all the time. Combined with the voluntary restrictions which Piotrus has already proposed here [.] it seems like that would more than adequately deal with any potential problems. Even those who are of the opinion that Piotrus “deserves to be punished” should be able to see that it makes no sense to cut off one’s nose to spite the face.

The arbitors should take the above into account and consider the impact on the project of the proposed punitive and disproportionate ban and block.

--I am not going to respond further in the thread that is likely to develop and will ignore all the usual flames, personal attacks and false accusations that I’m sure will follow. I encourage others to likewise ignore these kind of provocations here.—

radek (talk) 09:10, 14 October 2009 (UTC)

For what its worth, I think the bans and topic bans should run concurrent, not consecutive. It is unusual for arbcom to hand out anything past a year and I see no reason to change that now. As for losing Poitrus' use as a volunteer, I think it should be taken as a constructive proposal that he focus his good side towards other things (i.e. the topic ban). Yes, project poland will suffer, but wikipedia will be fine. No ban, topic or otherwise, has destroyed wikipedia yet. Assuming he is the great contributor he is, he will improve other areas greatly in need of his eye and I don't see the problem with that. If he can escape the controversy and the mud-slinging, so much the better. The same goes for anyone else topic banned. If you are here to improve wikipedia, then do it and do it anywhere you can. Don't try to dictate terms with it, cus it can live without you. 198.161.174.222 (talk) 16:41, 14 October 2009 (UTC)

How can one improve Wikipiedia on topics one is not familiar with? Can a plumber fix an electrical panel? Piotrus is an expert on Polish history and Polish related articles and I don't know any other Polish editor with so much knowledge on the subject and dedication to this project. Just so you know...--Jacurek (talk) 18:43, 14 October 2009 (UTC)

I agree. The standard argument about how indispensable someone is to Wikipedia always make me think of s:The Last Department.--BirgitteSB 18:01, 14 October 2009 (UTC)

He seems an intelligent man to me, and I think it would be a service to himself if he researched other topics with such dedication. In fact, wikipedia prefers people who know LESS about a subject to research it and post about it because experts bring O.R. baggage with them while amatures are forced to use sources to back them up. This next bit sounds so cheery and upbeat it makes me want to gag, but he really should use this as an oppertunity to get away from the crap and brush up on something else so as to make himself and wikipedia a better place. Post about fine wines, learn about french cooking, invest yourself in the culture of ming dynasty china, research the construction techniques of Irish castles... all of these things can be done to make yourself a better and more knowledgeable person while helping wikipedia without the stress and mud-slinging. 198.161.174.222 (talk) 20:42, 14 October 2009 (UTC)

Well 198 and Birgitte, you guys are not flaming but are calmly discussing things (thanks!) so I will actually respond. Yes, of course Wikipedia will survive with Piotrus banned. But the question is whether or not the Wikipedia of 15 months from now will be better or worse than it could have been had Piotrus not been banned, but instead put on parole, allowed to adopt the voluntary restrictions he proposed and made to devote some time to the above mentioned "community service". And the answer to that is that if Piotrus is banned, the Wikipedia of January 2011 will be a much inferior Wikipedia to the one that could've been. Why loose this opportunity? Why cut off your nose to spite your face?

And I want to reiterate; the worst thing that Piotrus did was to semi-protect an article that should have been semi-protected anyway (and he protected the "opposite" version). Piotrus is not involved in any edit wars or controversies and "mud-slinging".

Lastly please remember that ArbCom decisions are NOT meant to be punitive. The impact on the project and its quality however is something that is usually taken into account by the ArbCom.

Thanks for the constructive (yuk yuk) comments guys.radek (talk) 00:51, 15 October 2009 (UTC)

The worst thing Piotrus did was to reinforce the idea that the coordination and battleground mentality was appropriate and encouraged this while maintaining adminship. I don't know what things might be like after the bans any more than I know what they might be like during the voluntary restrictions he proposes. I do know that things can not just go on as they were. I look at Arbcom as an experiment by trial and error to try to make make things better. Not punishment. If I thought any remedies existed that would be particularly effective at stopping only the inappropriate behavior, I would be promoting them. Arbcom obviously took a narrow view of this case; too narrow to really change the larger situation. I would probably like to see more explicit Findings of Facts built on the FoF's from the previous EE Arbcoms which better tracked the history of problematic behavior with regard to everyone involved in the topic area. I don't have a strong opinion either way of the remedies (besides desysoping). I do think this Arbcom decision could to a better job of laying the groundwork for the next EE Arbcom. But maybe next time they will just liberally ban everyone who reappears making detailed investigation unnecessary. If anything really bothers me in the current decision it is the uncertainty of whether some involved in getting amnesty might have gotten amnesty in the past. I wish they would explicitly name who they are giving amnesty to in these things for future reference. Mostly I am ambivalent about it. It seems to be neither the end of the world nor a magic bullet for the EE topic area.--BirgitteSB 02:06, 15 October 2009 (UTC)

Birgitte, actually Piotrus has consistently tried to get editors to voluntarily follow 1RR, reprimanded them not to edit war but instead to focus on content creation and in many cases actually argued for lesser restrictions to be put on folks like Russavia. If anything he has tried very hard to make EE topics less of a battleground - and I think this is reflected in his proposals which seek to promote mediation as well as dialogue between various parties. And these proposals are exactly the kind of remedies that would do a "better job of laying the groundwork for the next EE Arbcom" or in fact, avoid a need for another one in the future.radek (talk) 03:04, 15 October 2009 (UTC)

I think you are better off not bringing up things Piotrus tried to do.--BirgitteSB 03:14, 15 October 2009 (UTC)

Birgitte, in 2 years of editing EE topics I have never seen you there. May I ask how have you acquired such a profound knowledge on what going on in that area? You seem to have parachuted yourself here from nowhere and attacking Piotrus non-stop. Did you have some previous interactions with him or sth? Loosmark (talk) 03:39, 15 October 2009 (UTC)

Clerk, please take this comment off of this page and move it to Birgitte's talk page. Per the clerk, If a comment is not directly related to the subject heading then it will be subject to either refactoring or removal. If it isn't removed by you, Loosmark, I will ask the clerk to delete it. Viriditas (talk) 03:41, 15 October 2009 (UTC)

I believe my comment is related to the subject. If you feel like removing it, ask the clerk, I won't hold it against you. Loosmark (talk) 03:54, 15 October 2009 (UTC)

The subject is constructive proposals, not the history of Birgitte's interaction with EE topics or users. Is that clear? Viriditas (talk) 03:57, 15 October 2009 (UTC)

(EC)I am not aware of any significant previous interactions with Piotrus. I think we talked once about a Polish language reference that had gone dead in a backlog I was working on. I do not have a profound knowledge of the EE topic area, which I have pointed out myself before. I do however believe I understand why Piotrus has focused all discussions on things that were accomplished rather than things which were suggested. I don't think radeksz does his friend any favors by moving the discussion towards suggestions as he did above. I don't know who sth is. I have not been attacking Piotrus non-stop. I expected better of him as an admin. I am disappointed and frustrated that he could be an admin for so long and so thoroughly fail to understand how to protect Wikipedia. I am refuting those who see no issue with all that. That is not attacking. If everyone else would stop claiming that Piotrus did nothing significantly wrong, I would have run out of things to say about him some time ago.--BirgitteSB 04:02, 15 October 2009 (UTC)

I will respond to Radek's mistruths here. Piotrus at no stage argued for lesser restrictions against myself. No-one in the web brigade did. In fact, at the ANI thread, Piotrus' own words were Disruptive users should be taught a lesson. It is only after the web brigade was outed that there was any such argument for lesser restrictions on myself, as it was plain to see that disruptive users should be taught a lesson, and Piotrus knew this would now apply to him. As to claims that Piotrus encouraging users to adopt 1RR, this is a half-truth, as it is plain to see for all of us that the web brigade's mailing list was in a large part a tool for users to break 3RR by essentially operating at meatpuppets. The only real constructive proposal is one that has been mooted; not the unworkable and weaselly proposals put forward by Piotrus and others. The entire web brigade gamed and teamed the entire EE area, and a constructive proposal is removing the most disruptive brigadiers from that area for a period of time, in order to let some sanity and collegiality to return to that editing area. --Russavia ^Dialogue 04:12, 15 October 2009 (UTC)

I've said at least two times - including at the original AN/I thread before the archive was hacked - that I would support rescinding certain parts of your topic ban, in order to let you work on non-controversial articles, if you stopped the personal attacks and all the incivility. You didn't. You amped them up. With "gang rapists" and the like. So....radek (talk) 04:30, 15 October 2009 (UTC)

Piotrus is admitted by everyone to be an excellent editor. I think he does particularly well when he is not working on controversial subjects. He and the encyclopedia would benefit greatly from a year or so of his working on topics not connected with Eastern Europe. I don't see the point of blocking him: what is it supposed to remedy? What is it supposed to prevent? Everything brought up here that needs censure is relating to Eastern Europe, and a good case could be made that having him working elsewhere would improve the prospects of cooperation in that area (I am less familiar with the work of other editors on this topic, but I suspect that this could be said of quite a few of them, of a political and national inclinations.) The topic ban is a good idea--and it needs to be extended enough to make a significant difference, not just postpone the conflicts--I think a year is about the minimum. I think such a ban is much simpler than the complicated arrangements he has proposed. DGG ( talk ) 02:44, 15 October 2009 (UTC)

DGG, I think Piotrus' proposals are "complicated" because he is trying to be exhaustive and because he is willing to try many different things - since, honestly, no one really knows what kind of arrangement is going to work in this topic area.

I seriously doubt that Piotrus' absence from EE topics will improve cooperation here - if anything the opposite; do you really think that having Wikipedia go through the "GDansk/Gdanzig Wars" (or proxies of these) or "What was Copernicus' *true* ethnicity Wars" again, as it may very well happen if some unscrupulous persons try to take advantage of this, is going to benefit the project? Even if nothing dramatic like that happens you will have a lot more smaller fires break out, and loose a moderating voice in this topic area - particularly in the Estonia/Soviet disputes in which Piotrus was not very much involved except in calming people down.

And of course, this still doesn't address the loss of quality articles that would result.

More generally, sure, one can "stabilize" a particular topic area by banning everyone involved in it, or banning the most active and productive editor in it - but then, who will be left to write the actual encyclopedia? Would this kind of "stabilization" really be worth it, given the great drop in content quality that would result? And a few seconds of thought should make anyone realize that even this "stabilization" is going to be very temporary as various sides replenish their ranks with new, inexperienced and more uncompromising NEW editors.radek (talk) 03:04, 15 October 2009 (UTC)

Note to arbitrators, with special thanks to Coren. It is increasingly disconcerting to see editors, who wouldn’t give a damn for the honest and balanced wiki coverage of the histories and misfortunes of all the Eastern European nations represented in this case, crying wolf about the deeds of Wikipedians who do care. Personally, I don’t see Piotrus as deserving of the proposed punishment. His own proposed restrictions are quite sufficient, considering how extensive they already are. Please take this into consideration. --Poeticbent talk 03:35, 15 October 2009 (UTC)

Clerk, please remove this comment. It appears to be divisive, distracts from the subject at hand, and attempts to bait editors into responding with angry replies. Viriditas (talk) 03:45, 15 October 2009 (UTC)

Why amnesty for web brigade only?

This is something that the Arbs should consider, if they are considering in passing Wikipedia:Arbitration/Requests/Case/Eastern_European_mailing_list/Proposed_decision#Amnesty. Why is it that it is being suggested the web brigade get an amnesty for their despicable behaviour, yet those editors who are victims of this despicable behaviour don't have any such remedy or decision for things which could be reasonably assumed to be a result of actions by the web brigade. And I say this as there is absolute denial on the part of the web brigadiers that they did a single thing wrong, and are continuing the line that no-one has presented evidence of any wrongdoing on their part. All we see so far is web brigadiers rushing around on these pages looking for lesser sanctions for team members, and not an ounce of regret, remorse or taking of responsibility. This demonstrates at least to me that these are not the actions of editors who are looking forward, but rather the actions of editors looking to weasel their way out of a situation that they put themselves in thru no doing of anyone but themselves. It is incredulous to me that an amnesty would be considered for such people, but not extending an amnesty to their victims and their self-proclaimed enemies. Anything but a complete amnesty for all editors would be a traversty, and unbecoming of the Committee if they truly are impartial. Hence, the committee should reject the PD relating to this amnesty, or make it more encompassing to include victims of this unremorseful, unregrettful web brigade. Myself, I would prefer that the committee reject it outright, as it is not making editors take responsibility for their actions; past, present, and perhaps more importantly, in the future. --Russavia ^Dialogue 14:41, 14 October 2009 (UTC)

Because they did the Right Thing by defending the Point of View of Civilized Nations but slightly inaccurate, but you doing bad thing because you protect the evil Russians.--Dojarca (talk) 15:06, 14 October 2009 (UTC)

Guys, it appears that both camps are taking the draft decision, as it stands now, for granted. It's not. Not even close. Coren wrote it, signed it, but no other arb has spoken publicly. Don't hurry things up, they're brewing. Let the perpetrators excel in their art, just watch them dance, and stay cool (did I already say it?). NVO (talk) 15:15, 14 October 2009 (UTC)

In the past the drafted decision was usually adopted.--Dojarca (talk) 15:17, 14 October 2009 (UTC)

The weaseling is a correct word for a situation like this. Offering amnesty is a way ArbCom is trying to weasel itself out of an extremely inconvenient situation like this. The arbitrators probably considered different ways to handle this, and any solution would quickly draw criticism from the the affected parties. A harsh punishment like a ban for expressing thoughts freely in an off-wiki channel, or total amnesty for what is perceived as sabotaging Wikipedia? Either way it is going to be heavily criticized, and in some cases it could be criticized (as too harsh/ too lenient) by both sides. Actually the offer of amnesty is precisely what I would expect in return of pleading guilty to the minor charge of non-systemic disruptions of Wikipedia. I consider it possible that some members or most of them did plead guilty to the ArbCom in private messages to accommodate a quick and easy solution in form of an amnesty. But if that is true, ArbCom should insist that members offer a carefully worded public apology to the community, but that may be hard to do in an uncommitted form. And you are right that drafting this decision could be a way for ArbCom to test waters and check what feedback it might get. (Igny (talk) 15:19, 14 October 2009 (UTC))

It is easy to issue apoologies especially if there are no remedies proposed. They already issued apologies many times at any arbitration dealing with Eastern Europe, and promised not to do anything wrong. It is their standard weapon to avoid remedies (but they do not apologize if it is not necessary of course, if arbcom gives them what they want without any apologies). Anyway I do not have such high estimation of the Committee as you do to suspect the proposed decision is a psychological trick to test the participants. All previous ArbCom history shows the opposite. You're trying to explain the Committee's actions presuming it's neutrality. That's why your hypothesis that this is only a trick or that the Cabal mermbers apologised secretly. In fact the ArbCom's actions cannot be explained supposing their neutrality, otherwise we would not see here such blatant violations of all Wikipedia's rules starting in 2005.--Dojarca (talk) 16:30, 14 October 2009 (UTC)

The committe is hoping people will independantly review that bans/punishments of the victims/enemies of the list to verify they are correct on their face (see remedy 12). So in a way, amnesty IS being extended to them. Further, take a step back and stop acting like its the end of the world that these people aren't being dragged into town square and beaten to death for their horrible crimes against humanity. There is NO requirement for them to apologise to anyone, there is NO requirement for them 'plead guilty' to anything, and there is no requirement that says they have to accept what you say as fact dispite how much you scream its a smoking gun. Arbcom is not here for justice, and especially not here to placate you.198.161.174.222 (talk) 15:34, 14 October 2009 (UTC)

(Irrelevant discussion deleted by clerk)

Well my point was that if the email list members were offered an amnesty for a private apology/guilty plea to ArbCom, they do have to give a public apology to the community as the whole, otherwise there will always be someone who would not accept such a solution. But I find it hard to write the public apology without admitting at least some guilt. (Igny (talk) 17:47, 14 October 2009 (UTC))

I partly agree with Russavia. Yes, it would be good if Arbcom looked at the evidence with regard to another side (Russavia, Offliner, LokiiT, PasswordUsername and some others) and explicitly stated if they did anything wrong. With regard to other questions, no, I never contacted Arbcom by email, excluding one response to an arbcom member because he asked me a question (long time ago). Yes, it's really important what people can learn. That's why I started my Evidence section from the apology.Biophys (talk) 23:09, 14 October 2009 (UTC)

It does look ridiculous. Only a few mailing list members will be punished and relatively lightly? Others like Biophys will get away with nothing? Biophys was pretty much proven to be a disruptive user who shamelessly edit wars and pushes his POV. He himself even expected heavy punishment.[65] I can see it now, when this case is over Biophys once again will come out of his "retirement" and continue to do what he has always done (same for the others on the mailing list). -YMB29 (talk) 17:24, 15 October 2009 (UTC)

Request to clerks

Could you please keep discussion here at least on topic of the section titles, if not the Proposed Decision. The Evidence and Workshop talk pages would be more appropriate. Thanks. --Martintg (talk) 20:10, 14 October 2009 (UTC)

As per my note above, I have given all of the leeway I am prepared to give and strict topic enforcement in now in operation. If a comment is not directly related to the subject heading then it will be subject to either refactoring or removal. Thread drift is not being tolerated either - if you have a specific point to raise (which had also better be related to the general topic of "Proposed Decision") then create a new subject heading.

If things are a concern and a clerk does not appear to be around, please alert the clerks-l list clerks-llists.wikimedia.org. Manning (talk) 22:44, 14 October 2009 (UTC)

On Proposed Remedy 12 and the sanctioned editors from the other side

Proposed remedy 12 strikes me as a well-intentioned but also overly optimistic proposal. The idea of leaving it to the community to carry out an objective review is admirable, but I fear that any review will degenerate into an unproductive free-for-all. Mailing list editors (and those who hold similar editorial views) will likely argue that the sanctions were correct and that any baiting doesn't justify whatever response may have been provoked. Hard-line administrators will also reject any justification position, likely supported by those administrators who view themselves as virtually incapable of error. Supporters of those sanctioned will argue that the baiting was extrordinary and highly coordinated, and will probably make all sorts of allusions to how bad the content of the archive is. Uninvolved editors and administrators will either stay as far away as possible, or will hope to help - but will have to wade through the entrenched views and won't have seen the relevant evidence (on the archive) in any case. If you want to allow the community to look at these sanctions and believe that a useful review is possible, please please please at least put a back-up in place. Delegate to the BASC a right to review any sanction at the request of the sanctioned editor. That way, a decision can be made by people who have read the archive and so are in a position to assess the severity and context of any baiting. BASC would also not have the "noise" of barracking from the onlookers and those with vested interests. I believe it would be unfair to the sanctioned editors to not make 100% clear that an objective review of their sanctions is assured. EdChem (talk) 05:27, 15 October 2009 (UTC)

Passwordsharing

Tymek (talk · contribs) has willingly shared the password to his account,...

Let me ask a stupid question: Why? What was the sense of sharing his password? The mailing list members are all well established users, so there is (should be) no reason to use any other account but their own. So again: WHY? I can only imagine two possible answers a) other users should be enabled to use one more vote in any voting or dispute or b) blocked or banned users should be enabled to use a different "unsuspicious" account. It's in fact the invitation to use the account as a sock. There is a policy for such behaviour WP:NOSHARE and WP:sock puppetry#Blocking and both policies have a clear consequence: a) "Sharing an account – or the password to an account – with others is not permitted, and doing so will result in the account being blocked" and b) "If a person is found to be using a sock puppet, the sock puppet accounts should be blocked indefinitely. The main account may be blocked at the discretion of any uninvolved administrator". Well, here it's not the usage of a sock, but the incitement to do so, however just saying: don't do this again and take care to find a new password is really ... generous. HerkusMonte (talk) 07:19, 15 October 2009 (UTC)

Herkus, this is a good question and the answer seems to be "out of momentary stupidity" (sorry, Tymek, it's true). And this is why Tymek is being admonished. It's also why people on the list told him not to do it, that it was a dumb thing to do, and why nobody on the list actually utilized his password/account.radek (talk) 07:26, 15 October 2009 (UTC)

mmh, a lot of things happen "out of momentary stupidity", however WP:NOSHARE doesn't say.."if the account is effectively used", it's sufficient to share a password, the incitement is as condemnable as the offense. HerkusMonte (talk) 07:43, 15 October 2009 (UTC)

Well, I guess here's where the whole preventative versus punitive jazz comes in. The policy you cite refers to blocking as the immediate administrative measure designed simply to stop the situation. Indeed, Tymek was blocked, right in the beginning of this affair when it transpired his account was compromised. And as is customary in such cases, he was unblocked a few days later when he had secured the account again. But I agree the apparent intention would have been to allow sockpuppetry – from the wording of the mailing list post, he is offering that people should use his account "if any of you need my help". The "help" could only realistically be a show of support in some debate, vote or revert war. Fut.Perf. ☼ 07:59, 15 October 2009 (UTC)

Well, I'm not familiar with the whole story, I just don't think "don't do this again" is an adequate reaction. I'll leave it to the admins.(P.S.: How can we be sure, nobody used the account as a sock?) HerkusMonte (talk) 08:34, 15 October 2009 (UTC)

We can't, probably, but IIRC the account was checkusered and apparently no edits from other than his normal IP(s) were detected, except for the use of the e-mail function by the person who leaked the archive. Also, Tymek made his announcement on the list in the context of saying he'd be away for holidays, and the account then in fact remained silent during the time he had said he'd be away. Fut.Perf. ☼ 08:59, 15 October 2009 (UTC)

And as I said before, feel free to run a checkuser on myself. I also proposed already that everyone listed as a party in this case (plus a few of those who thought it pertinent to show up and comment) should be checkusered - I'm pretty confident that if any socks are detected they're not going to be those of the list members. Nobody from the "other side" has had any inclination to support this proposal.radek (talk) 09:03, 15 October 2009 (UTC)

You've been here since 2005, and it's safe bet that you know how this place works. This means that you also know that per Wikipedia:CheckUser, on the English Wikipedia, such requests are typically declined. So, why do you keep repeating this proposal? Viriditas (talk) 09:44, 15 October 2009 (UTC)

Because this is an ArbCom case, not a typical situation. So, why do you not support the proposal?radek (talk) 09:49, 15 October 2009 (UTC)

1) Where did I express my support or opposition, and 2) you are inferring that I am a sock puppet. Thanks for that, this is precisely the level of discourse I have come to expect from you and the EE mailing list group. Viriditas (talk) 10:00, 15 October 2009 (UTC)

You didn't - that's why I'm asking why you're not supporting it? And no, I am not "inferring" (I think you mean "implying") that you are a sock puppet. In fact I'll come out and say that I'm pretty certain you're not. I'll also come out and say that I think your whole sole purpose here has been to "get" certain people by accusing them and ... implying ... certain things about them - which is why I'm saying - checkuser all around. You also might be worried because in your heart of hearts you know that if anybody's been sock puppeting here, it ain't anybody on the list.radek (talk) 10:13, 15 October 2009 (UTC)

And here you've done it again. You've distracted away from the topic of the proposed decision by proposing something that has zero likelihood of occurring and yet, you continue to propose it after this has been pointed out to you. Tell me, Radeksz, what would checkusers "all around" prove if the logs of suspected sock puppets are no longer available to CU's? Of course, you know that as well, which is why you proposed a red herring in the first place. Nice try. Viriditas (talk) 10:19, 15 October 2009 (UTC)

Thanks for all the bad faith. I actually don't think that check user all around would not prove nothing. I think it would prove the opposite of what you and others have been falsely accusing people of. But you're right, at this point, this is becoming irrelevant.radek (talk) 10:23, 15 October 2009 (UTC)

"Nobody from the "other side" has had any inclination to support this proposal." I actually announced that I was prepared to give my full name, address and local e-mail address and family history and any links to any government to arbcom. Stating that my real address and e-mail address should remain secret outside arbcom. (Yes, I am prepared to mention all the other things on my user page) And I am prepared to authorize a local administrator of Wikipedia to check my birth certificate to see that I am telling the truth. Unfortunately, the administrator here decided to delete that part of the discussion, but it is still in the history. The problem with this email list is of course that it is hard to keep assuming good faith: someone bursts in to have material deleted and then less than a day later, someone makes unnecessary assumptions based on the absence of that material. Cannot you guys see that from now on AGF will always be a problem? --Paul Pieniezny (talk) 10:40, 15 October 2009 (UTC)

Paul, what are you talking about? The proposal is for a CU all round to see if anyone has used Tymek's account, what has your name, address and local e-mail address and family history and any links to any government got to do with anything? --Martintg (talk) 12:48, 15 October 2009 (UTC)

Voluntary CUs will always be denied. Correctly so, since people will only propose them when they are sure that the IPs will be different, because they went to an internet cafe or whatever. Giving one's real email adress may actually be more interesting. But you need not worry, I have in the last few days made a small number of completely innocent minor edits on another wiki which show my IP (now ain't that naughty). By the way, Radek has answered on my talk page and he does see the connection between the two proposals. When he made that assumption above, he had not yet noticed which side I was on, or whether I was on any side.--Paul Pieniezny (talk) 14:45, 15 October 2009 (UTC)

Clerks, please

The FoF "Disruption", which deals with Martintg, is currently in a sub-heading under the section dealing with "Tymek". Could you fix the heading hierarchy please? Fut.Perf. ☼ 08:07, 15 October 2009 (UTC)

Sorry - I couldn't immediately make sense of this. Some links would be appreciated. Manning (talk) 08:56, 15 October 2009 (UTC)

Sorry, didn't notice there were several headings "Disruption". I was talking about Wikipedia:Arbitration/Requests/Case/Eastern European mailing list/Proposed decision#Disruption_3, currently section 3.2.10.2. It's a sub-section filed under the wrong parent section. Fut.Perf. ☼ 09:03, 15 October 2009 (UTC)

Hmmm... I suspect this is a drafting error by Coren. I'm not entirely sure of his actual intent here, so I shall bring it to his attention immediately. Thanks for alerting me. Manning (talk) 09:11, 15 October 2009 (UTC)

• [Noting here as this is the first header relating to the clerks that I could find, and not in response to the above thread:] I consider myself recused as a clerk for matters relating to this arbitration case. AGK 10:26, 15 October 2009 (UTC)

The current solution is a part of the problem

On reflection, this whole remedy system of blocks and bans is actually exacerbating the battleground environment. The multitude of conflicting narratives within the EE space means that this area is prone to conflict, there is no escaping that, and the prospect of gaining the upper hand via blocks and bans is actually working as an incentive to battle. Just to illustrate what a powerful incentive it is, check out this user page with a bottle of Russian Vodka with the link to this case, toasting Skål! his "win" at the likely demise of his Polish opponents. Look at the number of AE, ANI and 3RR reports from the all sides, and ofcourse, ArbCom is the ultimate battle ground where all sides can slug it out. We need a new paradigm if progress is to be made. Piotr has some deep experience and insight into the issues, his proposals on possible remedies to break this cycle is worth serious consideration. --Martintg (talk) 13:06, 15 October 2009 (UTC)