Wikipedia

Wikipedia:Arbitration/Requests/Case/Kurds and Kurdistan/Evidence

< Wikipedia:Arbitration | Requests | Case | Kurds and Kurdistan
Main case page (Talk) — Evidence (Talk) — Workshop (Talk) — Proposed decision (Talk)

Case clerk: Dreamy Jazz (Talk) Drafting arbitrators: BDD (Talk) & Primefac (Talk) & Maxim (Talk)

Wikipedia Arbitration
Open proceedings
Active sanctions
Arbitration Committee
Audit
Track related changes


Evidence presented by Supreme Deliciousness

edit

Paradise Chronicle repeatedly claims me and others of showing tolerance to ISIS

edit

User:Paradise Chronicle has repeatedly made the baseless claim that me and other users of showing: "tolerance towards ISIS" [1][2]"ISIS-Erdogan or Assad POV pushing" [3].

At the first diff Paradise Chronicle was defending the sockpuppet User:Konli17 who was the one that started the entire disruption at the Syrian Kurdistan article. Without that sockpuppet there wouldn't be any arbitration case right now. "That they now want to oust Konli17, who really improved many articles"[4] the sockpuppet Konli17 adding fake maps into Wikipedia:[5][6][7][8][9][10][11](This is the fake map: [12]) removes well sourced historical info that Kurds migrated from Turkey into Syria: [13][14]. There are many more diffs just like these by the sockpuppet Konli17 that Paradise Chronicle felt the need to defend while claiming the disruptive sock had "really improved many articles".

Expand: Take a look at this comment:[15] Not only does Paradise Chronicle once again claim me and others of having an ISIS POV but his comment seems like some kind of promotion or recruitment attempt. Does this look like someone that is here to build a neutral encyclopedia? --Supreme Deliciousness (talk) 06:20, 30 January 2021 (UTC)[reply]

User:Levivich removes reliably sourced information that shows "Western Kurdistan" as not being in Syria

edit

Today's Kurdish nationalist claim is that part of Syria is "Kurdistan". They call this "Syrian Kurdistan" or "Western Kurdistan". There are historical sources that show that "Western Kurdistan" is not in Syria. These historical sources therefore exposes today's Kurdish nationalist claims as having no historical basis. Levich decides to remove the well source historical information from the article: [16][17]

Admin User:Valereee introduces source restriction that gives editors veto power to remove undisputed historical info

edit

Valereee introduces source restriction [18] Valereee later clarified that it is "disputed" not because the content was disputed by another source, but because another editor disputed it: [19] Basically giving unprecedented veto power to Levivich and other users to remove sourced and undisputed content out of the article. This has now led to large amounts of undisputed and well sourced historical information and historical maps being removed from the article [20][21] and no one dares to say anything against this in fear of getting blocked. I ask the arbitrators to please lift this newly implanted source restriction.

I would also like to bring attention to a comment made my an uninvolved Administrator at the AN where he perfectly described the situation: "You can easily see how this could be gamed, though: somebody finds a historical detail they don't like, appropriately cited to a pre-2000 source, edits it out and boom, now it's "disputed" and the bar for re-adding it is much stricter than projectwide policy supports."[22]

Unfair behavior of admin Valereee

edit

On 28 November Valereee blocked me because I said "cherry picked sources" [23] and said at my talkpage: "Talk about the edits, not the editor.". On 7 January Levivich accused me of "cherry picking" [24] Valereee did not give him a block, not even a warning at his talkpage. Even when i pointed this out to her: [25] So there is one type of rules that only I have to follow and I get blocked for but "the other side" does not have to follow those rules and they will not receive any block for saying the exact same thing.

Rebuttal to Valereees comment:[26]. Anyone can clearly see the exchange between me and her at my talkpage and see that she blocked me mainly for "cherry picking", that was the main issue: [27][28]. Even when she added the block notice to my talkpage she only mentioned "cherry picking", nothing else: [29], this further proves my point. --Supreme Deliciousness (talk) 08:44, 29 January 2021 (UTC)[reply]
Note to arbitrators: Valereee has changed her initial response to my rebuttal: [30]. So lets recap: She blocks me and in the block notice at my talkpage only mentions "Cherry picking", nothing else:[31] and at the discussion at my talkpage she only mentions "Cherry picking", nothing else:[32][33] and when I bring up Levivich saying the same thing at her talkpage she never denies that the issue wasn't cherry picking:[34] Then when I bring up her unfair behavior in this section she all of a sudden states that it wasn't "cherry picking" that was the issue, now the main problem is something else:[35] Then when I bring up her past comments at my talkpage including block notice where she only talks about "cherry picking" and nothing else:[36] she then changes her story once again:[37] --Supreme Deliciousness (talk) 05:59, 30 January 2021 (UTC)[reply]

Gpinkertons behavior

edit
  • "You need to give up this propagandistic claptrap, it's not fooling anyone. It demonstrably false." [38]
  • "Open your eyes and unblind yourself before you open your mouth." [39]
  • "No-one is going to let you openly push Arab nationalism, you can stop trying to claim neutral facts are Kurdish nationalist conspiracy. No-one believes this frantic pearl-clutching by the the Arab nationalists themselves." [40]
  • "Neither is this your personal page to scrawl delusional conspiracy theories on." [41]
  • "This is so illogical its hard to know where to begin in the refutation of its stupidity."..." I expect it will be you who will be blocked, we don't maintain private spaces in this project to incubate pet theories"....[42]
  • "When I say "we", I mean the rational beings that are intended to use and improve the encyclopaedia, as opposed to those that merely lurk in groups, crafting silly and vicious conspiracy theories believable only to themselves and carefully and shamefully pushing a nationalist POV, such as may be found littering this very conversation" [43]
  • "You have provided nothing but your contorted claims and factual errors. You have nothing further to say here." [44]
  • "Taking your uncalled for and hypocritical advice, I have removed the some of the more gross NPOV violations you have been cultivating here." [45]
  • "Wrong again, and if you'd actually look at the source, instead of repeating the same old lies" [46]


These quotes above are all from one single discussion with GPinkerton at the Syrian kurdistan talkpage.

Take a look at this AN discussion to see the history of GPinkerton and all the disputes she has been involved in:[47]. That AN discussion was only closed because she was indeffed. Unfortunately an admin lifted her indef block. Her current topic ban is only temporally and she will return to the Syrian Kurdistan article. Look at the quotes I posted above, do we need more of those comments at the Syrian Kurdistan article?

Look how calm the Syrian Kurdistan article became as soon as GPinkerton and the sockupuppet Konli17 were removed from the article. 0% edit warring or disruption for several months now.--Supreme Deliciousness (talk) 14:41, 7 February 2021 (UTC)[reply]

Rebuttal to GPinkertons "evidence"

edit

GPinkertons "evidence" about me is really mostly a compilation of good edits on my part, but if anyone thought otherwise let me go in to detail:

Here:[48], GPinkerton claims: "Supreme Deliciousness misrepresents sources". Look at the diff: [49] I'm quoting academic scholarly sources.

Here: [50] GPinkerton claims: "Supreme Deliciousness eradicates mentions of (Iraqi) Kurdistan" The name of the country Hawler/Erbil is located in is Iraq, not Kurdistan. I was therefore correcting false text in Wikipedia. [51].

Here: [52] GPinkerton claims: "Supreme Deliciousness eradicates mentions of (Syrian) Kurdistan". My edit was a revert of the sockpuppet User:Konli17 after he got indefd. The sock who started the entire disruption at the Syrian Kurdistan article.

Here: [53] GPinkerton claims: "Supreme Deliciousness seeks to remove the names "Syrian Kurdistan" and "Rojava" altogether" She bring these comments from me: [54] [55] [56][57] What exactly am I trying to "remove" ? I am trying to correctly describe what "Syrian Kurdistan" is. I stand by my comments 100%. They are 100% accurate. "Syrian Kurdistan" is not an official name for an area in Syria, and it is not a historical name for an area in Syria. "Syrian Kurdistan" is a conception held by some people. And this is not my personal pov, this is the words of academic scholars:

Academic scholarly sources
The following discussion has been closed. Please do not modify it.


  • "The maps of greater Kurdistan produced in the 1940s and onward are examples of such maps. These maps have become some of the most influential propaganda tools for the Kurdish nationalist discourse. They depict a territorially exaggerated version of the territory of Kurdistan, extending into areas with no majority Kurdish populations. Despite their production with political aims related to specific claims on the demographic and ethnographic structure of the region, and their questionable methodologies, they have become 'Kurdistan in the minds of Kurds' and the boundaries they indicate have been readily accepted." Kaya, Zeynep N. (2020). Mapping Kurdistan: Territory, Self-Determination and Nationalism. Cambridge University Press. p. 108.
  • "By relying on unpublished maps and school books, dating from the sixteenth century to the present day, Tejel demonstrates that the Kurdish territorial imagination, comprising myths, mobilizing stories and political ambitions, is relatively plastic and fluctuating. Recently established, "Rojava" (Syrian Kurdistan) is part of a mythology of pan-Kurdish unity which does not constitute a political objective for the Syrian Kurds in itself, but is rather a "cultural abstract". For the author, "like Arab nationalists in Syria, the Kurdish movement has produced a political discourse that combines pan-Kurdist references intertwined with local patriotism and limited territorial claims". Yet the author shows that this imagined community is nevertheless very well documented..." - Syria: Borders, Boundaries, and the State, Matthieu Cimino, p.19.
  • "Until 2012, the Kurdish national movement in Syria had barely flirted with the idea of devolved or autonomous government for Kurdish areas. The prospect was wholly unrealistic and any expression of interest in the idea attracted the harsh attention of the authorities. Despite the shining success of the Kurdistan Region in Iraq and proposals explored for the government of Kurdish areas in Turkey, the concept of Syrian Kurdistan or Western Kurdistan received very little attention. Even the term was rarely used and then mostly only by the PYD and some more radical nationalist groups operating from abroad. The war has changed everything. The vacuum of authority in the north of the country, the vulnerability felt by the Kurdish territorial pockets, and the sharp opportunism of the PYD have created both a physical entity (or entities) controlled by Kurds and the more nebulous but increasingly tangible idea of Western Kurdistan" - Conflict, Democratization, and the Kurds in the Middle East: Turkey, Iran, iraq and Syria p 236.
  • "They promoted the concept of Syrian Kurdistan but with key constraints." - The Syrian War: Between Justice and Political Reality, Cambridge University Press, p 275
  • "The KDPS continued to promote the teaching of the Kurdish language in Latin characters and to cultivate the nationalist doctrine of the Syrian Kurds, using Kurdish myths (Kawa and "Greater Kurdistan")" - Syria's Kurds History, Politics and Society - Jordi Tejel, Published by Routledge . p 92.

Concerning the "Coda" Here: [58] I have removed "Israel" where Israeli-occupied territories are falsely described as being "in Israel". This includes the Israeli-occupied West Bank, Israeli-occupied Jerusalem and Israeli-occupied Golan Heights. My edits are in accordance with Wikipedia policy npov.

Concerning the block I received at commons, its was 7 years ago, and it was lifted immediately after.

Concerning my topic ban I received. 1. It was 12 years ago. 2 Both my "opponents" was a sockpuppeteer and his sockpuppet and they were later both indefed for abusing multiple accounts: [59][60]. Had it not been for this sockpuppeteer and his sockpuppet that he controlled, I would never have been topic banned, because there would not have been any disruption. It was actually similar to this case, the sockpuppet User:Konli17 started the entire disruption at the Syrian Kurdistan article, and here we are now with an arbitration case. The Wikipedia system failed 12 years ago and let the socks win, do not repeat the same mistake now. --Supreme Deliciousness (talk) 14:41, 7 February 2021 (UTC)[reply]

Evidence presented by Semsûrî

edit

Background

edit

I was asked by El_C[61] to summarize the general disruption I've seen in Kurdish-related articles, so here we go. I've seen an immense amount of POV-poshing, disruptive editing that almost always resulted in the editors getting blocked after not being able to argue for their edits and/or personally attacking me. I started cleaning Kurdish-related articles back in March 2019 and experienced daily sockpuppetry, meatpuppetry, hounding, povforks, ANI-abuse and one editor impersonating me to get me banned. Ultimately many, many and many editors were banned indefinitely. Most of this took place from March to June 2019 and slowly ebbed out by the end of the year but the problem does flare up sometimes.

This entry is therefore about the general disruption seen in Kurdish-related topics since 2019. If I had to describe the disruption, it was definitely attempts to question the Kurdishness of the respective articles, but easy to counter since they were blatant POV-pushes.

Summary

edit

Kurmanji and Yazidis (March-June 2019)

edit

This page was one of the articles experiencing a lot of disruption. Prior to my involvement, the article saw an attempt to disassociate this Kurdish dialect/language from Kurds. You can see how the word 'Kurdish' is being removed by this editor[62]. I then removed the blatant POV-push[63] (and general clean up) but was reverted and accused of conducting ethno-pov[64] by the same editor. This user would ultimately get blocked but the article continued to experience disruption and POV-pushing immediately after[65] which continued till June when it got indefinitely protected[66]. On October 25th, protection was lowered[67] but reinstated the next day[68].

Annoyed by my actions at the 'Kurmanji'-page, the same editor(s) chose to focus on the already-existing Povfork Kurmanjis which without any reference claimed that Kurmanji-speaking Kurds were in fact an ethnic group.[69] This was just another attempt to disassociate the Kurmanji vernacular from Kurds. They failed linguistically and now attempted ethnically. Nonetheless, they failed and the page was redirected to Kurds.[70]

Perhaps the best example of how ridiculous this vandalism is. This template is only used on one page [71] but has experienced a long-standing ping-pong between removing and adding the word 'Kurdish' after 'Kurmanji'[72].

The state of the article before I got involved[73]. The main issues were pushing for the notion that Ezidkhan was a geographically defined territory but also the attempt to portray the flag of the HPÊ as the flag of Yazidis. I removed the flag[74] and general clean up like removing blogs used as reference. I got called a Kurdish nationalist[75] and the editor was ultimately banned. I subsequently moved the article to List of Yazidi settlements[76] and made it into a page containing villages populated by Yazidis. I moreover cleaned up articles where Ezidkhan was portrayed as an autonomous entity in this fashion[77] and in total these articles included most of the articles included in this category.

Ultimately redirected to Persecution of Yazidis by Muslims, this page was just a 'let's find anything we can on Muslims of Kurdish origin oppressing Yazidis and add it here', despite the fact that scholars clearly stated that the oppression took place due to the religion and not the ethnicity of the perpetrators.

Tribes and dialect of Laki (May-August 2019)

edit

Editor Shadegan had for years and almost succeeded in their pov-push on various articles until I confronted them with references. Never have I experienced an editor so determined to their cause and any interaction was completely futile due to lack of a direct answer. Instead they would turn to personal attacks and start disrupting unrelated Kurdish articles just to annoy me. For example, they would request a name move for Flag of Kurdistan and Iranian Kurdistan which also attracted some of the disruptive editors and IPs from the Kurmanji/Yazidi group[78][79].

The main pov-push from Shadegan was the attempt to question the Kurdishness of Kurdish tribes and dialects. Most of these pages had to be almost fully rewritten, so before and current urls of these articles is probably the best way to showcase the pov-push:

Disruptive editors from the Kurmanji/Yazidi group joined in in another dispute as well[80].

Hounding (October 2020)

edit

Back in October last year, I expanded these articles Kifri, Jalawla, Khanaqin and other similar articles. As I expanded these articles, one editor with various accounts kept rewording my edits (and thereby add OR) to suit their POV. Examples: [81][82][83] --Semsûrî (talk) 16:06, 23 January 2021 (UTC)[reply]

Evidence presented by Brunswicknic

edit

There is heat around Kurds and their issues, even in small things

edit

I have watching Gaziantep, in it there has been small edits to raise Kurdish points, sometimes clumsy, but in good faith. But they seem to be met with short, unhelpful responses. There is frustration, there is strong indication of "deeper issues" at play. The editors concerned though have not overstepped any lines of wiki-behaviour here, just an example of the problems around Kurds and things related to them. Brunswicknic (talk) 03:28, 24 January 2021 (UTC)[reply]

Evidence presented by Valereee

edit

Just for the record, Special:Diff/991171223 is not me objecting to "cherry picking", although cherry picking is always objectionable. But my objection was to SD saying 'cherry picked sources that further pushes the debunked "Syrian kurdistan" fraud'. The cherry picking is bad, but it's the assertion of 'further pushes the debunked SK fraud' that was the problem. ETA: and SD is right, I should have been clearer that there were two specific problems in their statement I was objecting to. —valereee (talk) 22:00, 28 January 2021 (UTC)[reply]

Evidence presented by ProcrastinatingReader

edit

Syrian Kurdistan source restriction

edit

Little opinion on Kurdistan or much of this case, but I dispute SD's timeline of events and presentation in the section about the page restriction.

  • valereee instituted a source restriction at Syrian Kurdistan under the Syrian Civil War community sanctions.[84][85]
  • The restriction says "For any disputed content, only scholarship from the past 20 years can be used as sourcing, with preference for the past 10 years".
  • The restriction does not give "unprecedented veto power to Levivich and other users". Any editor, including SD, may report violations of the restriction. No particular editors were/are targeted by the sourcing restriction.
  • SD appealed this to the administrators' noticeboard, as is their right per the process of appealing community sanctions.[86]
  • The discussion, by my reading, found 7 uninvolved editors in support and 4 opposed to the restriction, though it was not formally closed. Regardless of whether one sees 'a consensus in favour' or 'no consensus' in that discussion, in both cases there is evidently no "clear and substantial consensus" to overturn the restriction (as required per the normal rules to overturn/modify). Thus, the restriction is upheld by the community.
  • SD was informed of this on valereee's talk, multiple times[87]
  • On I ask the arbitrators to please lift this newly implanted source restriction. I believe the only venue for appeal of community-authorised discretionary sanctions is to the community at AN, not ArbCom, and the discussion imposing the sanctions said as much.
  • "Disputed" in DS/GS generally means 'disputed via reversion', not 'disputed by other sources'. This is not an exceptional definition.
  • Such restrictions are not exceptional. Many pages in the community sanctions regime have page restrictions on sourcing. (eg [88][89][90]; non-exhaustive)
  • ArbCom has previously affirmed an admin under DS enacting sourcing restrictions. (Admin enacting DS restriction, Affirmed by ArbCom and expanded across topic area, not just a single page)

The restriction is well-designed (perhaps not perfect, but we failed to come up with something better in the AN discussion) and quite proper in my view. It appears to have been intended to reduce disruption (and reduce it did), and upheld by the community for these reasons.

Evidence presented by Paradise Chronicle

edit

Editors remove the mention of Kurdistan

edit

diff Removing Northern Kurdistan in the Category Turkish Kurdistan

diff Removing Iraqi Kurdistan in Kurds in Iraq for unsourced

diff Kurdistan is a secular idea. It doesn't exist because it has no reason to exist...,there isn't really such thing as a Kurdish name in this very ArbCom Case on Kurds and Kurdistan

diff Removing Kurdistan from Kurmanji (the article about a Kurdish language)

diff Removing Turkish Kurdistan in the city Nusaybin (in Turkey) and it is noted that it is Kurdish majority city just before the mention of Turkish Kurdistan.

Editors denying a Syrian Kurdistan

edit

diff

Removal the Kurdish name of a locality

edit

Often editors remove just the Kurdish name of the locality

diff removing Kurdish for unsourced, but leaving Arab unsourced at Jarabulus

diff Dilok at Gaziantep for unreliable source

diff again Dilok because they were apparently Wikipedia sources, one was a Kurdish source, the other a Turkish one.

diff this edit history happens sometimes.

diff at Ain Dara

No.3 is tricky, might be a misunderstanding, we could assume good faith for this edit, but they claim diff there isn't really such thing as a Kurdish name.

Lack of civility

edit

Amuda in the Jazira Region is a good example how it works with civility in Kurdish articles in Syrian Kurdistan diff

diff etc. Several removals of the Jazira Region in the pro-Kurdish AANES, and subsequent reverts, diff diff etc. then a diff of an uninvolved editor who states that Amuda actually is Governed in the Jazira region, then again revert for the reason that the category was created by a blocked editor.

at Al Malikyah, too

An editor asks for a move. No-one opposes for 10 days. He moves the page and an edit war begins. Today it is again Al Malikiyah.

at Tell Abyad, too

edit

diff literally I don't care what you think about the WP article in a long discussion on Kurdish names and issues. Then report the editor for edit warring while edit warring the same amount (8 times) and even managing to achieve a block by admin EdJohnston

Lack of Admin interest

edit

Good example is Admin EdJohnston who closed the Move discussion where it was discussed on whether Syrian Kurdistan should be moved to Kurdish occupied Regions in Syrian or Rojava during the ISIL led Siege of Kobane in January 2015.

Later in May 2020 they blocked Konli17 for edit warring for making about the same amount of reverts like the filer of the report following a discussion in which Konli17 hoped for an admin worth his salt, EdJohnston mentioned his super powerful admin radar and their doubts on Konli17's edits and didn't answer anymore in the discussion. After I brought the block up on their talk page they later wished the ones still involved in the dispute good luck and only wanted to be involved again if a proper RfC is set up. I didn't know how to do that and seeing their past of closing the move discussion in 2015 and other interactions I had with them not concerning Kurdistan...

diff Guerillero blocked GPinkerton indef. for filing a report at the ANI insisting on a solution for the Syrian Kurdistan dispute on the 4 December 2020.


diff Swarm accused me of having called someone a sympathizer of a Terrorist organization for calling someone tolerant towards ISIL in a discussion relating to Kurds and Kurdistan

Turkish Government POV - Whitewashing events

edit

Seeming to classify areas liberated from ISIL (Like former ISIL stronghold Tell Abyad) as Kurdish or PYD occupied. (October 2016) diff Being occupied by MILITARY FORCE...

diff The areas in your maps are occupied by military force

diff claiming Operation Euphrates Shield was directed mainly at ISIS

diff suggesting the Kurdish-YPG (who is supported by a global coalition fighting ISIL) and ISIL are just as bad

diff diff Wanting to move Syrian Kurdistan into Kurdish occupied regions in Syria in the midst of the very well known ISIL led Siege of Kobane

Turkish POV during the Siege of Sur

diff classify the attempts the Kurds made to receive autonomy as Kurdish Separatism (unsourced!) and removing Turkish Kurdistan

By misrepresenting sources

edit

diff in List of assassinations of the Kurdish–Turkish conflict, removing Hevrin Khalaf, Hevrin Khalafs murder was sourced by WaPo.

Denying academic sources

edit

diff We have a ton of evidence presented throughout the article and the Talk page that this is a term used/invented by Kurds after someone just brought in ca 15 (WP:Overkill) sources, (most of them academic) for a Syrian Kurdistan.

diff only! removing academic sources for a Syrian Kurdistan.

Edit-war a controversial book review by a PhD student back into the lead

edit

diff

Closing statement

edit

I'd like to add that I am interested in general improvement of the civility in, the quality and the NPOV within the edits performed in Kurdish related articles.

Evidence presented by GPinkerton but added to my section.

edit

Thepharoah17 whitewashes Turkish invasion of Syrian Kurdistan

edit
  • [91] (Kurdistan Workers' Party)
  • [92] (Rojava–Kurdistan Region relations)
  • [93] (Operation Euphrates Shield)
  • [94], [95] (Operation Olive Branch)
  • [96] (2019 Turkish offensive into north-eastern Syria)

Thepharoah17 whitewashes Turkish invasions of Turkish Kurdistan, eradicates mentions of the place, and removes Kurdish place names

edit

Thepharoah17 soapboxes their anti-Kurdish POV

edit
  • [107], [108] (Turkish Land Forces: explicit denialist POV "There is no Turkish Kurdistan")
  • [109] (Turkish Kurdistan: "there’s no country called Kurdistan")

Thepharoah17 whitewashes ethnic cleansing

edit
  • [110] (2019 Turkish offensive into north-eastern Syria)
  • [111] (Afrin District)

Thepharoah17 eradicates mentions of Syrian Kurdistan and removes or displaces Kurdish place names

edit
  • [112] (Canton (administrative division))
  • [113] (Al-Hawl)
  • [114] (Al-Hawl refugee camp)
  • [115] (Al-Hasakah District)
  • [116] (Ain Dara, Aleppo Governorate)
  • [117] (Siege of Kobanî)
  • [118] (Human rights in the AANES)
  • [119] (Rojava conflict)
  • [120] (Afrin District)
  • [121], [122] (Qamishli)
  • [123] (Afrin Canton)
  • [124], (Tell Abyad District)
  • [125] (Batifa)
  • [126] (International Freedom Battalion)
  • [127] (Rmelan)

Evidence presented by El_C

edit

Assertion!

edit

Please note, for example, today's action involving Special:Contributions/ShewanKara. With disruption beginning over 2 months ago. Indeffed by me today (a few minutes ago). Had there been better tools (like a DS/alert), for both editors and admins, much disruption and distress could have been avoided. This is par for the course. My hope, then, is that the Committee approves of ACDS measures to address this chronic, poorly-attended (from an enforcement perspective) problems that have been afflicting this topic area for so long. El_C 13:56, 3 February 2021 (UTC)[reply]

Evidence presented by AIKعمرو بن كلثوم

edit

Personal attacks on other users by Paradise Chronicle (PC)

edit
  • Repeatedly makes baseless accusations claiming other editors of showing "tolerance towards ISIS":

The complaining editors SD, Amr Ibn and ThePharoah17 have all shown a very surprising tolerance to the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL) which appears not to be on the radar of the Admins.

PC Attacking Admins

edit
  • Here they attack admins and clearly express their own pro-Kurdish POV agenda.

    If a request on a efficient and resilient pro-Kurdish editor is filed, admins were likely to T-Ban or block the editor. But I didn't find yet an admin who is willing to even address the issue of anyone calling the areas liberated from the Islamic State of the Levant or Jihadists (the best known UN classified Terror Organization in the world with countless front-page appearances in reliable sources, and a terrible women's rights record) Kurdish occupied, even if those are made in pages within the scope of the Wikipedia:General sanctions/Syrian Civil War and Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant.

BLP violations by PC

edit

Eva Savelsberg is not a good source, but others are. ... She attends Forums organized by the SETA and listen how she talks about freedom of press in the AANES

Harun Yahya refutes Darwinsim and is accused of anti-semitism according to his Wikipedia article. Maybe not the best source for a controversial phrase on Wikipedia

Paradise Chronicle ignored DNR result and edit-warred during process

edit

User Paradise Chronicle ignored DRN case they opened and suggestion by volunteer user Nightenbelle, and decided to remove the SOURCED Washington Post material and Washington Institute material and continued to edit-war. They even removed the material during the DRN

Whitewashing and self-declared POV

edit

User PC whitewashes certain militant groups such as the PYD here, despite having a consensus regarding that wording achieved with the help of user El C here.

  • Removal of sourced content to whitewash here and here.
  • Excerpt from their user page about an ArbCom candidate:

... when I asked for the opinion about the ISIS issue of a candidate during the ArbCom elections ... The pro-Kurdish AANES, has democratic, gender-egalitarian, women empowering, multicultural policies and the SDF, which includes the YPG, are the armed forces of the AANES.

Use of unreliable sources to push POV

edit

User Paradise Chronicle has used obscure websites as sources to push controversial POV edits. Examples here and here to claim the existence of a Kurdish name instead of the centuries-old name Aintab (Antep).

Removal of sourced materials from the Washington Post

edit

Here Paradise Chronicle removed sourced content from the Washington Post and insertion of Citation needed" template instead. Their edit summary said "remove nonsense". They have done this several times at the same page.

Just happened: PC removed sourced material for which they were blocked before

edit

On 8 Feb., PC just removed the EXACT same material for which they were blocked before by El C.

GPinkerton has a very long block history

edit

GPinkerton was blocked five times since last June.

GPinkerton intimated me regarding my evidence here

edit

GPinkerton edit-wars often across a wide range of articles

edit
  1. March 2020, edit-warred on Bulgaria during World War II: [129], [130], [131].
    • They were warned by the other party here (among other warnings).
  2. May 2020, edit-warred on Basilica: [132], [133], [134].
    • Warned by the other party here.
  3. May 2020, edit-warred on Catholicity: [135], [136], [137] (manually).
    • They were warned by the other party here.
  4. June 2020, they were blocked for 48h for edit-warring on Vashti: [138], [139], [140] (manual), [141].
    • See the relevant report at WP:AN3 here.
    • They appeal of the block was declined.
  5. July 2020, they edit warred on Hagia Sophia: [142], [143].
    • They were warned by the other party here and later by an admin here.
    • It was raised at WP:AN3 and closed as content dispute. The closing admin thought it qualifies for a block, if not confounded by other parties involved.
  6. July 2020, edit warred on Mehmed the Conqueror: [144], [145].
    • They were informally warned by a third party here.
  7. September 2020, edit warred on Constantine the Great and Christianity over which English spelling variety should be used: [146], [147].
    • They were informally warned by an admin here.
  8. November 2020, blocked again, this time for 24h, for edit-warring on Murder of Samuel Paty: [148], [149], [150], [151].
    • The blocking admin sought consensus for the block in light of an appeal by GPinkerton. Consensus was granted unanimously.
  9. November 2020, edit warred again on Murder of Samuel Paty: [152] and [153] (manual).

GPinkerton violated tban on Kurds and post-1453 CE Middle-East wordsmithed by El C (conditional to lift indefinite ban)

edit
  1. Arguing with another editor about Kurdish history
  2. Canvassing user Levivich while they were t-banned

Here is a series of warnings GPinkerton received from Valereee during their tban:

  1. On 19 Dec.: [154]

    Ugh, GP, I think this probably violates your tban...why don't you strike your post, and Levivich and I will discuss somewhere else, where you're welcome to read but probably shouldn't comment, at least until you ask probably either Guerillero or EI C for advice. And shit...does this make me involved at SK? ...

  2. On 30 Dec.: [155]

    GP, I think you need to stop. Special:Diff/997046884: is too much. Stop now, we're going to need to discuss further.

  3. On 31 Dec.: [156]

    I'm telling you that your exemption from your topic ban is rescinded until further notice.

  4. On 31 Dec. [157]

    I've told GP to stop with the additions at that page. Really disappointed.

  5. On 31 Dec.: [158]

    Did you or did you not write ....?

  6. On 31 Dec.: [159]

    … What I care about it whether the language is confrontational. Why would you even consider posting this there after we urged you to be neutral?

GPinkerton mispresents sources and decides to drop one cell from census table

edit
  • In this edit, GPinkerton omits 25,000 nomad Arabs from [French mandate of Syria census table (P.12) the statistics numbers to skew the relative ethnic composition percentages in favor of Kurds.
  • On this board, they falsely claimed I have done OR by including the number of nomads with the Arab population:

    using OR to decide that not one of the 25,000 "nomads" listed in the totals is a Kurd.

    . Rebuttal: That number is clearly presented at the bottom of the column for Arabs in that source.

GPinkerton Repeatedly and falsely insisting that Kurds represent a majority in Hasakah Province

edit

Even when using the numbers they provided (in addition to the 25,000 they dropped), Kurds are 35% of al-Hasakah Province (using the sum numbers at the bottom of the table: 53,315 Kurds out of 152,150). Still GPinkerton has tendentiously and falsely kept arguing that Kurds represent the majority:

  1. [160]
  2. [161]

    “non-Kurds” is not a demographic. Kurds are the majority

  3. [162]
  4. [163]
  5. [164]

This has prompted Valereee to intervene and debunk GPinkerton's claim here

>50% is a majority. If there are three or more groups, one can instead have a plurality. 50% Kurds, if they're the largest single group, would form a plurality and are not correctly called a majority.

GPinkerton constantly warned by Admins and does not change behavior

edit

GPinkerton has been involved in conflicts almost every month in 2020

edit
  1. User_talk:GPinkerton (March, April, May, June, July, Nov., Dec.)
  2. User_talk:GPinkerton#ANI-notice (August)
  3. User_talk:GPinkerton#ANI_2 (September)

And they have been on WP:AN3 a lot too:

  1. AN3 Archive 408
  2. AN3 Archive 411
  3. AN3 Archive 413
  4. Opened retaliatory or unfounded reports 1, which also clearly shows how bad they get along with people.

They have been on WP:ANI too:

  1. [[165]]
  2. ANI Archive 1047
  3. ANI Archive 1044
  4. 1

GPinkerton attacks ArbCom commenting parties

edit
  1. [166]

    in light of the contributions of others, the statements of Cullen328 and The Bushranger look faintly ridiculous.

GPinkerton declares anti-Arab, anti-Muslim, anti-Turkish POV agenda and conspiracy theories

edit

Samples of WP:POV, WP:BATTLEGROUND and WP:RGW mentality (there is a ton more):

  1. [167]

    The claim of the all-importance of the Treaty of Sevres is a lie ignorant of history and wilfully oblivious to the sources editors may peruse below. This user's insistence on claiming that a number of academic books that talk about Kurdistan, but no "Syrian kurdistan" is exactly the kind of false narrative they have been bludgeoning people with for months (years?). Any look at any of the works will show that the editor's POV is divorced from the real world, and is apparently vocally, partisan as regards the al-Assad regime and its opponents.

  2. [168]

    You appear to be labouring under the false impression the wall of text you have posted above supports your claim that the majority of them (if not all) immigrated from Turkey, a claim which is rejected by reliable sources which all state was a lie invented by the racist Syrian government…

  3. [169]

    Nonsense. None of these claims are relevant here, and neither is this wall of text. No-one is going to let you openly push Arab nationalism, you can stop trying to claim neutral facts are Kurdish nationalist conspiracy. No-one believes this frantic pearl-clutching by the the Arab nationalists themselves

  4. [170]

    but as point of fact that article (which is Turkish state propaganda not fit for quotations of fact in any case, especially in an article dealing with their continued genocidal conduct in Syria)

Examples of GPinkerton's personal attacks against me

edit
  1. 11 November 2020

    Any look at any of the works will show that the editor's POV is divorced from the real world, and is apparently vocally, partisan as regards the al-Assad regime and its opponents.

  2. 11 November 2020

    Rank hypocrisy. I've expanded with quotes since you're too unwilling to lift a finger to pull the wool from your own eyes and read a book.

  3. 11 November 2020

    Can you read? Or do you only spew? Scroll up. Read

  4. 11 November 2020

    The idea the idea it didn't exist before 2011 is as laughable as the editor's understanding of epistemology.

  5. 21 November 2020

    This is the kind of incompetent comment that this editor has already repeatedly made. ... Make if that what you will. The perverse insistence that everyone pick up the fringe attitude of Damascus and Ankara towards (perhaps also Saddam?) against the continued existence of Kurdish people on the grounds that (like both Syria and Turkey) they did not have a state in the 1920s. This denialism flies in the face of what reliable sources have called the region for a half century or more. Indeed the source quoted above details in depth the long history of the term "Syrian Kurdistan", in stark contradiction of the shrill and either disingenuous or ignorant claims by this editor that it had never been used before 2011, and was cooked up by the west to embarrass the Dear Leader.

  6. 21 November 2020

    The claim that they were all imported there by the French is just a silly lie and not borne out by even the most cursory look at the sources advanced in favour of this POV.

GPinkerton's Canvassing

edit
  1. Canvassing user Levivich while they were topic banned
  2. At 19:02 12 May 2020, they were warned of canvassing.
    • While admitting the canvassing they did, it turned out they didn't know what that is: thought the policy of not rephrasing RfC content while notifying of them is a bizzare stricture.

GPinkerton's Ad hominem and harassment behavior against other users

edit
  1. In The Holocaust in Bulgaria, they said: Can you read?
  2. On 12 May 2020, they were warned of harassment and WP:OUTING for disclosing another user's real name.
  3. In Talk:Hagia Sophia, they said: a clear mark of someone who doesn't have a clue what they're talking about.
  4. During a discussion at Talk:Murder of Samuel Paty, they said: Is English your first language?
  5. On their own talk page, they addressed other editors who disagreed with them as a lobby and then as vandals who are involved in groupthink and an anti-blasphemy ringleader who is weaseling [scattered, among other insults, throughout their prolonged comment]
  6. GPinkerton deleted others remarks here related to their uncivility, in opposition to WP:DELTALK.

Evidence presented by GPinkerton

edit

Supreme Deliciousness misrepresents sources

edit

Supreme Deliciousness eradicates mentions of (Iraqi) Kurdistan

edit

[183], [184] (Kurdistan TV)

Supreme Deliciousness eradicates mentions of (Syrian) Kurdistan

edit
  • [185] (Upper Mesopotamia)

Supreme Deliciousness seeks to remove the names "Syrian Kurdistan" and "Rojava" altogether

edit

Supreme Deliciousness adds an irrelevant and massive context-free quote from an absurdly unreliable source to POV-push for Syrian nationalism

edit

and argues against its removal:

and for its supposedly reliability (... that is was a secret political document prepared for political purposes?) using nothing but OR and wishful thinking

and uses it to contest the reliability of sources 70 years newer and infinitely more academic and reliable, violating both SYNTH and OR as well as common sense

and to "disprove" the whole notion of Syrian Kurdistan:

Supreme Deliciousness seeks to avoid arbitration

edit

[202]

Supreme Deliciousness is obsessed with misinterpreting a table in PhD thesis to continue their long-term POV push on demography

edit

Supreme Deliciousness desperately wants the world to believe the Ba'athist lie that Syrian Kurdistan has never been historically Kurdish (this was the subject of an ethnic cleansing effort in the 1960s) and to prove this racist dogma Supreme Deliciousness repeatedly cites a PhD thesis [203] and wrongly claims that the estimated 25,000 "nomads" mentioned in Table 3 are "Arabs". There is literally no suggestion of this in the source, and its only purpose is to prove the Ba'athist (and later Assadist) national socialist propaganda that, along with the ethnic cleansing programme of the "Arab Belt" policy, attempts to delegitimize Syrian Kurds and to prove the long-discredited claim that most or all of the population of Syrian Kurdistan is non-Kurd. here [204], [205] [206] [207] hilarious oxymoronic "largest minority"

Supreme Deliciousness supports عمرو بن كلثوم POV-pushing

edit

Supreme Deliciousness makes basic errors of logic in support of his POV-push

edit

[209] Part of Western Kurdistan being in modern Turkey cannot preclude another part of Western Kurdistan being in modern Syria. (See the fallacy of denying the antecedent, where

    • "if Diyarbakir is in modern Turkey" then "West Kurdistan is partly in modern Turkey"
    • "if Diyarbakir is not in Syria" then "West Kurdistan is wholly not in Syria".
      • Logical fallacies of this kind commonly arise in discussions with Supreme Deliciousness, and of course are always invalid and factually meaningless. It is by now too charitable to assume they arise from a language barrier.

Supreme Deliciousness changes his mind about sources to support his POV-push

edit
  • Here Supreme Deliciousness relies on a source [210], twisting a logical fallacy into an argument
  • But earlier Supreme Deliciousness didn't like this source and removed together with much else on the grounds [211] "this kind of false terminology can not be used in an encyclopedia"
edit

عمرو بن كلثوم eradicates mentions of (Syrian) Kurdistan/Kurds and removes Kurdish place names, flags, etc.

edit

عمرو بن كلثوم creates POV RMs

edit
  1. Starts Talk:Rojava conflict#Requested move 18 December 2020

عمرو بن كلثوم uses contentious think-tank sources

edit
  • [223] (on demography of Manbij District)
  • [224] (on demography of Qamishli)
  • [225] (on demography in Syrian Kurdistan)

عمرو بن كلثوم misrepresents contentious sources (think-tanks, PhD theses)

edit
  • [226] (unsourced editorializing on demography of Al Bab)
  • [227] (minimizing Kurdish population statistics)

عمرو بن كلثوم conflates reliable, in-depth academic sources with Kurdish nationalism

edit

عمرو بن كلثوم seeks to remove the names "Syrian Kurdistan" and "Rojava" altogether

edit

عمرو بن كلثوم canvasses

edit
  • [242] (User_talk:HistoryofIran)
  • [243] (User_talk:El_C)
  • [244] (User talk:Thepharoah17)
  • [245] (User talk:Shadow4dark)

عمرو بن كلثوم denies, and misrepresents sources in an attempt to deny, ethnic cleansing in Syrian Kurdistan

edit

عمرو بن كلثوم denies Syrian Kurdistan is the common name for Syrian Kurdistan in spite of the evidence

edit

عمرو بن كلثوم changes his opinion on sources when he thinks it suits him

edit

Concerning Prof. Martin van Bruinessen:

  1. [254] GPinkerton adds a 1978 source (among many) explaining the meaning of "Syrian Kurdistan" to a discussion in which this editor is claiming there are no sources that use this term, or none before the 1980s. (In this discussion at NPOVN.)
  2. [255] User:عمرو بن كلثوم then reintroduces this source rather reverentially as "Martin Dr Martin [sic] van Bruinessen (Fellow of the Kurdish Institute in Paris)" while indulging in argumentum ex silentio about the book's preface (On the Syrian Kurdistan talkpage.)
  3. [256] User:عمرو بن كلثوم is taken aback at GPinkerton's refutation of his claim that the phrase "Syrian Kurdistan" does not appear in the book (it does and is explained), and suddenly changes his mind on "Martin Dr Martin" the erstwhile worthy academic in respectable Paris, whose PhD-thesis-turned book was published by the University of Utrecht Press, but who in Act 2 now appears a radically changed character, a mean scholar [he's actually a professor] whose book is now merely personal opinion and tainted by association with the Center for Kurdish Studies (sounds very neutral) [emphasis original] which, in the space of less than twenty-four hours, has now become unspeakably biased and unusable for reasons that remain unexplained. The statement concerning Kurdistan divided between four modern states in the professor's book is now neutralized as now NOT an established fact. (The question of the reliability of arguments drawn ex silentio from the book's preface is not addressed ...)

Ironic twist:

edit
  • the PhD candidate (one of them) upon which the whole edifice of the arguments of عمرو بن كلثوم rests, and which both he and Supreme Deliciousness have both repeatedly misquoted and argued about at length ... has as academic supervisor none other than the "(sounds very neutral)" ... "Martin Dr Martin", the self-same Professor whose work عمرو بن كلثوم pooh-poohed before.

Further developments

edit
  • later, عمرو بن كلثوم changed his mind on whether my pointing this out constituted a personal attack, and having added it as "evidence" to this page, saw fit to retract it, doubtless in the fear their POV-push was revealed when the mask (or blinkers?) slipped: [257].

عمرو بن كلثوم is obsessed with misinterpreting a table in PhD thesis to continue their long-term POV push on demography

edit

عمرو بن كلثوم desperately wants the world to believe the Ba'athist lie that Syrian Kurdistan has never been historically Kurdish (this was the subject of an ethnic cleansing effort in the 1960s) and to prove this racist dogma عمرو بن كلثوم repeatedly cites a PhD thesis [258] and wrongly claims that the estimated 25,000 "nomads" mentioned in Table 3 are "Arabs". There is literally no suggestion of this in the source, and its only purpose is to prove the Ba'athist (and later Assadist) national socialist propaganda that, along with the ethnic cleansing programme of the "Arab Belt" policy, attempts to delegitimize Syrian Kurds and to prove the long-discredited claim that most or all of the population of Syrian Kurdistan is non-Kurd. here on this page [259]

  • The fact that the user takes this POV-push very personally is evident from this edit: [260] in which the intention is clear

    this should conclude our discussion about the origins of Kurds in northeastern Syria (i.e. the majority of them (if not all) immigrated from Turkey). When you claim these areas are "part of Kurdistan", what does that make of the native population (majority) living on their lands before Kurds arrived? Trespassers? Does that sound fair to you?

    and this one

Evidence by Shadow4Dark

edit

GPinkerton anti-Turkish, anti-Muslim rhetoric

edit
  1. On 17 November: GPinkerton clearly describes everyone opposed to the controversial Muhammad cartoons as extremist. [261]

    The people who oppose the free press are are meaningless minority and to describe them as such would be undue pandering to the extremists, who, naturally, are the only ones to oppose the images. Indeed, opposition to the images is ipso facto extreme.

  2. On 19 November: [262]

    @Vice regent: Are you joking? This supposed event, which labels the victims of Turkey's ongoing genocide in the region occupied by its armed forces and its allies "terrorists", presents as fact claims that happened in places presently occupied by forces loyal to Erdogan, one of the major proponents of the anti-free speech lobby. How can you suggest this has nothing to do with the civil war? In which reality would that be the case? Here on earth, claims of the opinion of the masses of an occupied territory cannot be reliably attributed to the sate media of an authoritarian Islamist occupier. It's really funny to read read your claims here, given your strenuous allegation about non-reliable sources in other discussions ... I wonder why that might be. The source cannot be used, and the events as described almost certainly never took place, given the usual reliability of wartime statements from official Turkish sources and their clear conflict of interest in reporting the latest genocide in their long history of genocide in the region.

  1. On 19 November: [Talk:Murder of Samuel Paty: Difference between revisions - Wikipedia]

    Did you read the part of the source that says Meanwhile, small anti-French protests were held in Libya, Gaza and northern Syria, where Turkish-backed militias exert control.? Or did you somehow read it and decide the occupation of the area in which these "protests" are said to have taken place by the armies of Erdogan's Islamists is somehow nothing to do with the Turkish government? That's really quite a failure of logic, and contorting the interpretation of the Turkish propaganda coverage of an event non-corroborated by other sources (viz, the so called "attack" on the so-called "protest" by the so-called "terrorists") is well beyond, well, belief.

Retrieved from "https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Wikipedia:Arbitration/Requests/Case/Kurds_and_Kurdistan/Evidence&oldid=1008474924"