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User:Shell Kinney/EEreportsreview

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This is my in-depth look at the contributions of editors involved in the reports at WP:AE regarding Eastern European disputes, specifically Russian/Estonian related topics. I have chosen not to limit the review only to named parties since it quickly becomes evident that other parties are involved in similar behavior. When reviewing articles used as evidence, I've chosen to limit the review to edits made this year; for contribution reviews, I've limited it to going back no further than April 1. Its my hope that by using these time limits, I will be getting the full context of any disputes and involved parties while not dragging up older habits that might have been changed.

Interaction by all parties on reported articles

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Following is a review of articles that were reported to AE as being a spot where edit warring by one or more of the reported parties occurred. I've collapsed the section as it was becoming prohibitively large. In summary, many participants have edit warred across various articles in the topic area. There is very little attempt to discuss the issues or resolve disputes; reverting seems to be the preferred method of interaction.

Individual review by article
Dates Actions
January 16 - 20 Offliner and Biophys edit war which results in move protection
March 25 Offliner and Biophys reverting each other
March 28 - March 29 Biophys and Russavia revert each other
April 21 - May 6 Offliner and Biophys repeatedly revert each other
May 10 Edit warring by Digwuren, Offliner, Biophys

During each of the incidents, reverts happened while the editors argued on the talk page. There does not appear to have been a consensus on any of the issues that caused the edit wars as all the usual parties showed up to take their side when consensus was polled. Another editor not named in the reports, User:ellol, was disruptive on more than one occasion by reverting and attacking other editors on the talk page.

Dates Actions
April 17 Offliner reverted by Digwuren
May 3 - May 10 Russavia edit wars with Digwuren and Biophys
May 5 - June 18 Offliner reverted multiple times by Digwuren

There is a chilling lack of discussion on the talk page despite multiple edit wars. Russavia repeatedly disrupted the article by removing the sources and see also section while only discussing their changes in the edit summary. Offliner has repeatedly requested sources for the first two sentences which are missing an inline citation. Digwuren reverted this request each time and initially called it disruption. Neither has discussed the issue or used any form of dispute resolution.

Dates Actions
April 17 Offliner redirects and is reverted by Biophys
April 19 - April 23 Russavia and Biophys edit war

The incident on April 17th seems to be an application of WP:BRD though light on the discuss portion (which seems to be a pattern). The later incident involved no discussion except through edit summary and happened during a deletion discussion which both editors participated in. Note that this edit war managed to take place in an article with only 25 edits to its name.

Dates Actions
April 5 Offliner and Russavia redirect and are reverted by Biophys

This is one of several sub-articles of Russian apartment bombings which were first redirected and then put up for AfD. None of the AfDs achieved consensus and there's been little discussion of resolving the dispute otherwise. I don't see any particular disruption in this article, but included it since diffs were used in the AE reports.

Dates Actions
April 17 - April 25 Offliner and Biophys repeatedly revert each other

No discussion of the edit warring until April 21. Reverting continued during discussion until an apparent consensus was reached, if only by a lack of further action.


Dates Actions
February 10 - April 14 Offliner and Biophys edit and improve the article (along with others)
April 15 Offliner and Biophys revert each other a bit
April 18 Offliner and Biophys edit war
April 19 Russavia and Biophys edit war
April 22 - 24 Offliner and Biophys edit war, Beatle Fab Four and Colchicum also involved
May 16 Offliner and Biophys continue edit war

Things started out well at this article. Edit wars were minor until just before April 24 when the article was full protected. There was very little discussion after the protection with the usual editors taking their sides.

Dates Actions
April 20 - April 20 Offliner and Biophys edit war
May 16 Domitori reverts Offliner
May 28 Offliner reverts Digwuren

The majority of the edit warring on this article was over Offliner's removal of all external links; this same action has been the cause of edit wars on several articles. In some cases this removal of links appears to be due to the fact that they are duplicates of inline sources. In this case Domitori's edit restored the links. Again, reverting between Offliner and Biophys continued despite what little discussion happened on the talk page.

Dates Actions
April 28 - April 30 Offliner and Biophys edit war

As with other articles, reverting went on despite the little discussion on the talk page. Offliner appears to have made an unsourced claim that this BLP was a conspiracy theorist.

Dates Actions
April 21 Offliner is reverted by Biophys

Another case in which Offliner removed a number of links. In this case the links were listed under a heading of "Sources" and it is unclear whether these are sources used in addition to the inline references or external links. No discussion on talk.


Dates Actions
April 12 Russavia is reverted by Biophys
May 10 Edit war between Russavia, Biophys and Offliner(single revert)

Again about links, this time Russavia initiated the removal and Biophys reverted both he and Offliner. Biophys requested discussion on the talk page; there were no other comments.

Dates Actions
January 31 - February 4 Editing by Russavia, Biophys, Offliner, Grey Fox-9589 and Martintg including several reverts which resulted in protection
February 11 - March 30 Protection expires. Russavia, Biophys, Offliner, Martintg, Colichicum and Vlad fedorov involved with some reverting.
April 29 Revert war with Biophys, Russavia, Martintg and Offliner involved
June 8 Biophys reverts to older version and is reverted by Offliner

The major participants in the edit wars were Russavia, Biophys and Offliner. During the disputes there was discussion on the talk page. Russavia in particular suggested several compromises for the lead paragraph an additional compromise was contributed by Gray Fox-9589. There is considerably more discussion on this article than seen in any other example. Even though the edit warring here was not appropriate there was sincere effort by Biophys, Russavia, Offliner and Grey Fox-9589 to resolve the issue. Martintg and Colichucum were involved to a lesser extent and both contributed to the discussion.

Dates Actions
June 3 - June 16 Complex edit war involving PasswordUsername, Digwuren, Radeksz, Martintg, Offliner and Beatle Fab Four
June 16 Biophys attempts a compromise version

There isn't a single word of discussion on talk about the ongoing edit war. These seem to be the majority players in articles that degenerate into edit warring. Beatle Fab Four is already under a six month topic ban.

Dates Actions
January 11 - January 13 Complex edit war involving Biophys, Russavia, Martintg, Mukadderat, and Digwuren results in protection
March 28 Russavia and Martintg edit war

The first edit war involved a question of whether it was appropriate to add a section to the article discussing the results of a particular ArbCom case. During this discussion, Russavia's comments were frequently incivil and even personal attacks. Two merge discussions from January were eventually closed as no consensus and both had very little input. Despite having been involved in at least one of those discussions, Russavia redirected the page on March 28 which was reverted by Martintg who correctly pointed out a lack of consensus for such a move.

Dates Actions
May 12 - May 13 Biophys and PasswordUsername revert each other

PasswordUsername inappropriately labels these edits as vandalism. There is talk page discussion which eventually resolves the issues.


Dates Actions
March 21 - April 3 Edit war between Russabia, Biophys, Beatle Fab Four, Colchicum, Vecrumba, Martintg, Offliner and Digwuren
June 16 Biophys and Digwuren edit war with Beatle Fab Four and PasswordUsername

Edit warring began over a particular section of text and we again see the entire group get involved. Russavia contended that the source did not properly verify the information; it later turned out that Martintg had not actually read the sources he used to write the section and the sources did not support the text. It is clear that many of the editors involved blindly reverted without contributing to or even looking at the discussion on talk and supported claims without first making their own verification.

Dates Actions
June 3 - June 9 Edit war between PasswordUsername, Digwuren, Martintg, Offliner, Biophys

Discussion of the dispute didn't start on the talk page until June 4th. Despite a healthy discussion (mostly by PasswordUsername and Martintg), edit warring continued. Offliner, Biophys and Digwuren also made comments in the discussion. The discussion ended in a poll of consensus in which the only outside editor to comment felt the text should be removed. During the discussion many accusations of POV pushing and bias were thrown around, principally by Martintg and PasswordUsername.


Dates Actions
March 18 Russavia reverts Offliner, Biophys and Martintg
March 20 Russavia reverts Vecrumba and Martintg and labels them "estonian pov warriors"
March 21 Offliner reverts Vecrumba
March 23 Edit war between Martintg, Offliner, Russavia, and Digwuren

Unlike many other disputes, there was an attempt to work out issues on talk, unfortunately this doesn't seem to stop participants from edit warring.

Dates Actions
April 2 - April 15 Edit war between Offliner, Digwuren, Russavia, Colchicum and Martintg
June 6 Edit war between Offliner, Radeksz, Sander Säde, PasswordUsername, Russavia

Reverting continued despite discussion on talk. Digwuren and Russavia were incivil to each other during the discussion.

Individual editor's contribs

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Offliner regularly edit wars when involved with certain editors. When he doesn't encounter these editors, he appears to contribute productively. Recently Offliner has made a point of engaging more in discussion and resolving disputes productively [1], [2] again, especially in cases where these other editors weren't involved. In the project space, Offliner spends most of his time on WP:AN3 and has been warned before about making insufficient reports. Offliner sometimes lets his POV get the best of him.[3], [4]

Biophys regularly edit wars when involved with certain editors. He has contributed many new articles; outside of the Russian/Estonia topic area, they don't seem to be prone to problems. In the project space, Biophys spends most of his time on WP:AN3 and WP:ANI. He sometimes uses misleading edit summaries during content disputes [5] or allows his POV to get the best of him [6]. He's also shown some bad judgment for example when removing warnings from other editors talk pages[7].

Digwuren edit wars. Despite the case warning against accusations of nazism, Digwuren has accused other editors of being neo-Nazis[8], [9]. Digwuren has also made inappropriate comments on article talk pages [10].

PasswordUsername edit wars.

Russavia regularly edit wars when involved with certain editors. They also have difficulty remaining civil when interacting with those same editors.

Martintg edit wars. He occasionally lets his POV get the best of him.[11], [12]

Ellol edit wars and regularly (60-80%) marks his reverts and other changes as minor during edit wars.

Summary

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There is no doubt that the AE reports were not optimal; many claims were overblown and many of the diffs given weren't good examples. However, after reviewing recent contribs of the participants there does appear to be a need for intervention. Its clear that the involved parties bring out the worst in each other. It is also clear that there are sides and from time to time, editors blindly support those on their "side". Its also apparent that a number of the involved editors have difficulty keeping their POV in check when writing and sometimes even in discussions with other editors.