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Anyone, whether directly involved or not, may add evidence to this page. Please make a header for your evidence and sign your comments with your name.

When placing evidence here, please be considerate of the Arbitrators and be concise. Long, rambling, or stream-of-consciousness rants are not helpful. Over-long evidence (other than in exceptional cases) is likely to be refactored and trimmed to size by the Clerks.

As such, it is extremely important that you use the prescribed format. Submitted evidence should include a link to the actual page diff, or to a short page section; links to the page itself are not sufficient. Never link to a page history or an editor's contributions, as those will probably have changed by the time people click on your links to view them. Please make sure any page section links are permanent. See simple diff and link guide.

This page is not for general discussion - for that, see talk page.

Be aware that Arbitrators may at times rework this page to try to make it more coherent. If you are a participant in the case or a third party, please don't try to re-factor the page, let the Arbitrators do it. If you object to evidence which is inserted by other participants or third parties please cite the evidence and voice your objections within your own section of the page. It is especially important to not remove evidence presented by others. If something is put in the wrong place, please leave it for the Arbitrators to move.

Arbitrators may analyze evidence and other assertions at /Workshop. /Workshop provides for comment by parties and others as well as Arbitrators. After arriving at proposed principles, findings of fact or remedies, Arbitrators vote at /Proposed decision. Only Arbitrators may edit /Proposed decision.

Evidence presented by martintg

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Casualties in this successful campaign of smear by a core group of editors

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User Came Left Edits Articles
Constanz (talk · contribs) 14 November 2005 23 March 2007 [1] 4020 908
Klamber (talk · contribs) 25 January 2007 21 June 2007 [2] 230 122
Lysy (talk · contribs) 3 January 2004 18 July 2007 [3] 16705 3885
Lebatsnok (talk · contribs) 13 January 2007 27 July 2007 [4] 93 42
Erik Jesse (talk · contribs) 16 April 2007 20 August 2007 [5] 606 252
Balcer (talk · contribs) 25 April 2004 8 September 2007 [6] 12605 5235
3 Löwi (talk · contribs) 21 July 2005 ? 1158 526
Alexia Death (talk · contribs) 1 May 2007 ? 1447 349
Halibutt (talk · contribs) 27 November 2003 ? 27107 9904
Staberinde (talk · contribs) 17 May 2006 ? 1294 300
Suva (talk · contribs) 30 April 2007 ? 822 270
Digwuren (talk · contribs) 1 May 2007 ? 6139 1500
12 users 72226 23293

The smear continues in other forums

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In Wikipedia:Articles_for_deletion/Denial_of_Soviet_occupation, the nominator makes a number of baseless accusations, including offensively claiming I and the Estonian editors hold extreme nationalist views and claiming we were collectively responsible for creating the article under discussion.

Behaviour of experienced editors as model

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Petri Krohn, whose RFC/U Wikipedia:Requests_for_comment/Petri_Krohn was disqualified despite the serious issues contained in it, has provided a model of behaviour that may have been emulated by less experienced editors. Martintg 04:58, 28 August 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Particularly nasty, (and which I am not only offended on behalf of the Estonian editors here, but also the victims of the Holocaust), is his portrayal of Estonian editors as Holocaust denying neo-nazis:

  • Claiming Estonian editor is engaging in Holocaust denial in defence of an anonymous IP reported on the 3RR notice board [9]
  • Claim that dismissing the Holocaust is common among Estonians [11]
  • False claim that the Estonia denies the right for a church to practice religion, with comparison to China. [12]
  • Estonian irredentism [13]
  • And finally this hateful rant, where Estonian editors are accused of having Nazi skeletons in their closets [14], for which he earned a 3 day block.

However, similar odious accusation as the those made above, have recently been made:

  • Claims presenting sources such as [15],[16] is "hate speech" [17]
  • Claims of the existence of "hate groups" and "irredentism" on Wikipedia on Jimbo Wales' talk page [18]
  • Claims that one party to a content dispute "are in fact a hate group" with Nazi sympathies [19]

This attitude is not only incredibly inflammatory, it is also constitutes an incitement to ethnic hatred against Estonians in an environment that is already heated by the Bronze Soldier issue. Martintg 20:51, 10 September 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Disruptive editors

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Thanks to the failure of the community to deal with the behavioural issues in Wikipedia:Requests_for_comment/Petri_Krohn and effectively sheild him by deleting the RFC, some editors now think it's okay to continue to tendatiously edit Estonia related articles:

Ilya1166

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  • Apart from editing Russia related articles, spends time edit warring on Bronze Soldier [20],[21],[22], focusing on Russian accusations of Nazism in Estonia for which he was subsequently blocked for this activity [23], and also edit warring on Estonia, being blocked for this activity [24].

RJ CG

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  • Predominantely edit wars Estonia related articles, initially as 206.186.8.130[26] then as RJ CG since June , particularly Bronze Soldier, to put a "Estonians are Nazis" POV to them. [27]. Here he attempts to encourage fellow editor Mikkalai to act as his meat puppet [28] to promote the view that the Estonian town Lihula harbours Nazi collaborators.
  • Both Irpen and Petri Krohn give encouragement and advice to RJ CG on techniques to mask his edit warring activities and dealing with Korp!Estonia [29].
  • Hard on the heals of his latest 96 hour block of August 31 [31], RJ CG immediately begins disrupting the same articles again [32]

Beatle Fab Four

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Initially User:Beatles_Fab_Four revert warred Bronze Soldier [33] as WP:SPA, changed identity to User:Beatle_Fab_Four, then blocked [34] for edit warring Bronze Soldier, returns from wikibreak few days ago to revert edit of "estonian pro-nazis" [35]

Apparent double standards

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Otto ter Haar's only issue with Digwuren concerns Otto's attempted blanking of sourced content in Jüri Uluots [36]. In the subsequent discussion on the talk page, Otto characterised the opinion of the European Parliament that Soviet rule was "occupation" as, rather incivilly, "Estonian nationalistic" POV without knowing the personal politics of the Estonian editors, so justifying the deletion of the referenced material. [37] Digwuren responded in kind and called Otto's view "quaint". Otto had taken offence at this "incivility", without even realising his initial comment of "Estonian nationalistic view" was equally uncivil.

Otto, burning with anger that Digwuren does not agree with his view of history, enters into an anti-Digwuren alliance with Petri Krohn [38]. After some discussion on the approach [39] he subsequently supports an action not just against Digwuren's alleged incivility, but unjustifiably against a whole group of Estonian editors who were never party to Otto's little edit war on Jüri Uluots [40], with the infamous Wikipedia:Administrators'_noticeboard/IncidentArchive261#Korp.21_Estonia_on_wheels case, thus exposing Otto's personal bias against Estonians generally whom he apparently profiles as "Estonian nationalistic POV pushers".

Ironically turning a blind eye to Petri's own documented cases of incivility, Otto asserts the behaviour described in Krohn's RFC are unfounded and therefore acceptable, despite the extensive evidence to the contrary Wikipedia:Requests_for_comment/Petri_Krohn#Outside_view_by_Otto.

Irpen's claims

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In regard to Irpen's case here, it is part of the same continuum of disputes across a spectum of East European articles, be it Polish, Romania, Latvian or Estonian [41]

In regard to Deskana's evidence

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Just one point in regard to his evidence, concerning Digwuren's statement: "Facts are facts and opinions are opinions. You are not entitled to your own facts, and even less to presenting them in Wikipedia.", which was presented as evidence of incivility. This I believe, is an example of one's cultural background making a difference in interpretation. This statement is apparently derived from a famous quote by the late US Senator Pat Moynihan: "You are entitled to your own opinion. You are not entitled to your own facts", thus it wouldn't be generally considered incivil. Martintg 23:46, 2 September 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Ghirlandajo's successful block shopping of July 16

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This is the sequence of events leading up to Digwuren's one week block.

Up to the moment of the block Digwuren was indeed happily editing Estonia related articles [42], not being a party at all in the discussions above.

  • 19:18, July 16, FayssalF applies a one week block against Digwuren for "tendentious editing and edit warring at Anti-Estonian sentiment"

Looking at the short edit history of Anti-Estonian sentiment, Digwuren only actually reverted Mikkalai once [43] before being blocked. Mikkalai had blanked the article and made it into a redirect to Estonia-Russia relations. Ironically, Irpen considers this redirect as highly POV, requesting an RfD here: Talk:Anti-Estonian_sentiment#RfD. Martintg 04:57, 5 September 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Compare and contrast Digwuren's one week block without warning for his single revert on Anti-Estonian sentiment with Ghirlandajo's 30 minute block[44] for serious page move/revert disruption involving Soviet occupation [45]. Ghirlandajo originally received a 24 hour block, but it was reduced to a 30 minute block after the blocking admin was aggressively brow beaten with the assistance of Irpen here: User_talk:Ghirlandajo/Summer_2007#3RR_2 and here: Wikipedia:Administrators'_noticeboard/Incidents#Ghirlandajo.C2.A0.28talk.C2.A0.C2.B7_contribs.29_moved_Soviet_occupation_article_to_Allied_occupation_of_Europe. --Martintg 00:28, 13 September 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Attempts to vilify Estonian editors as meat puppets in unrelated articles

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Petri Krohn[46], Ghirlandajo [47] and his comrade Paul Pieniezny [48] attempt to paint Estonian editors as bad faith meat puppets in Wikipedia:Articles_for_deletion/Moderated_nuclear_explosion, offensively characterising them as Korp!Estonia. Note that many of the so-called Korp!Estonia haven't even voted. Martintg 20:50, 19 September 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Evidence presented by Deskana

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Rein Lang article a major point of contention

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The article Rein Lang, a biography on the Estonian Minister of Justice, is a major point of contention between Estonian and Russian editors. There was an OTRS complaint from the Department of Justice in Estonia (ticket, OTRS login required), including phone calls to Cary. I cut the controversy section significantly, so as to not disproportionately represent Mr Lang's career [49]. The article has seen edit warring between Estonian editors (such as Digwuren, for example) and Russian editors. The edit warring has been based primarily around the birthday party controversy. There have also been news reports in Estonian newspapers about the article Rein Lang (Wordpress, Postimees). It seems the articles mention the controversy, and state that a complaint was made to a "senior administrator" (meaning me, they seem to have got my role slightly confused) to fix the article. Since then, I have taken an interest in the article, attempting to act as a neutral party with no inherent point of view on the article, to ensure it does not violate BLP and remains NPOV and properly sourced.

RJ_CG has edited Rein Lang disruptively

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RJ_CG (talk · contribs), an editor who states his mother tongue is Russian on his userpage, has edited Rein Lang in a disruptive manner, attempting to push a Russian POV on the article, and using inflammatory edit summaries.

  • [50] - "Let Estonians and Russians talk for themselves"
  • [51] - "Explanation where Russia are coming from"
  • [52] - "I feel for fragile state of your brain, but either explain your reverts or seek professional help. WP isn't shrink office"

It is worth noting that prior to my involvement in this particular part of the dispute, every single one of RJ_CG's edits to Rein Lang were reverted by either Digwuren (talk · contribs) or Alexia Death (talk · contribs), who are both Estonian. Digwuren could also have handled this situation better, stating to RJ_CG that "Facts are facts and opinions are opinions. You are not entitled to your own facts, and even less to presenting them in Wikipedia." while reverting him [53].

I blocked RJ_CG for 96 hours with the summary "edit warring on Rein Lang" [54], and because he violated 3RR. So far, RJ_CG has not contested the block, and has acted in a civil manner towards me, and this I respect. I do not believe he is simply here to cause trouble, otherwise he would certainly have contested the block (Note that I'm not saying that in all cases, contesting a block = causing trouble)

Digwuren is sometimes unnecessarily confrontational and disruptive

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Digwuren (talk · contribs) is sometimes confrontational and disruptive. For example,

  • Digwuren created Template:Big Sock Fishing, which contained a link to Wikipedia:Big Sock Fishing, which redirects to his checkuser case. [55]
  • Digwuren created Wikipedia:Big Sock Fishing, redirecting it to Wikipedia:Requests for checkuser/Case/Digwuren [56]. This was deleted by Picaroon, and then recreated by Digwuren, stating "Reredirected. Deletion broke up link chain from the template to the RFCU case.". This isn't a valid reason, since the template shouldn't exist anyway. Both this and the above serve absolutely no purpose, and are simply confrontational.
  • Diguwren states "Facts are facts and opinions are opinions. You are not entitled to your own facts, and even less to presenting them in Wikipedia." [57]
  • Digwuren responds to the checkuser case on him with hostility [58]. It's understanble that he would be angry about being accused, but civility is policy.
  • Digwuren writes an unnecessarily confrontational message on Rein Lang regarding a Russian editor, User:RJ CG: [59]
  • RJ_CG is blocked for 119 hours, and Digwuren taunts the user on their user talk page, by using a mocking version of the DYK template: [60]

Evidence presented by Digwuren

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Petri Krohn has engaged in extremely disruptive conduct regarding articles concerning Estonian-Russian relations

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  • I should point out that due to time concerns inappropriately invoked by Bishonen, the evidence presented in the RFC/U concentrates heavily on Petri Krohn's disruption in May. Other diffs, including those from earlier months, are available, should any arbitrator find them necessary. Digwuren 02:33, 9 September 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Grafikm fr attempted to mislead the Arbitration Committee with his supposed "evidence"

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I see Alexia Death has already made good progress regarding some of the wild claims by Grafikm fr, and I appreciate it. But some more context needs to be pointed out.

  • For example, Grafikm fr claim regarding a block of me following editing Estonia-Russia relations, with the three provided diffs, is completely unfounded. My best guess is that he's talking about the block by FayssalF, which, as I will demonstrate separately, was unfounded.
    • [61] and [62] constitute reversion of RJ CG's nonfactual, unsourced bigotry. This particular bigotrous claim happens to be one of those that, back in the 1990s, Russian Federation attempted to circulate around; since it's without merit, it's nowadays only found in old sources or Russian media publications.
    • [63] is another reversion of the same hateful bigotry. I regret that I wasn't paying enough attention, leading to this particular revert remaining incomplete.

I have repeatedly made point that such childish expressions of bigotry ought to be considered a form of vandalism. Unfortunately, this point has not yet taken off. However, the proposed principle #1, "on Promotion of Bigotry", clearly covers this disruption by RJ CG. Digwuren 15:38, 17 September 2007 (UTC)[reply]

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Irpen has within recent history displayed a consistent pattern of disruption regarding articles on topics of Soviet history, apparently out of either nationalist or patriotic feelings towards that now-defunct regime. Often, he does not even attempt to mask his goals, instead opting for making baseless claims of violations of WP:NPOV or WP:OR, and attaching tags to that effect to articles not in such violation. Having made such vacuous claims, he tends to avoid expressing any specific concerns, or citing any actual sources to support his (implicit) assertions.

On Soviet historiography

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For background, let me point out that Soviet historiography was initiated by me, as requested in this very arbitration case, in response to my proposed finding of fact On influence of propaganda to reliability. Irpen appears to dislike this finding, but instead of commenting it directly, he's attempted to disrupt the article — which, I would say, constitutes a clear WP:POINT violation.

Irpen first arrived on the article only a day after its creation, and his first deed was to edit war over definition in the article — incidentally, with obvious intent to violate MOS guidelines on lead:

The spree was culminated by attaching nonsense doubt-inducing tags, in this case, {{POV}} and {{Weasel}}, onto the article, in [69]. As we shall see, this is a common modus operandi by Irpen.

On Occupations of Latvia

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In this case, Irpen continued the disruption even after the Arbitration Committee had placed the article under probation.

On Soviet occupations

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(The history of this article is a bit muddy, mainly through a major move-war undertaken by Ghirlandajo, who may have coöperated with Irpen in this matter, as judged by their comments and Irpen's harassment of anybody opposing Ghirlandajo's behaviour.)

Irpen's long-term pattern of uncivility

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Irpen is often strongly opinionated, especially in all areas having to do with Soviet Union's involvement in World War II and the following Soviet aggression, and commonly lets this get in the way of the need to discuss topics in a calm and civil manner.

Playing hurt

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A particularly nasty form of this behaviour appears when Irpen behaves as though he's been offended. Consider, for example, the discussion at Talk:Adam Lazarowicz. Tymek has explained the significance of five sources used for the article, after Irpen asked about them. Note the general extra-polite tone [70] used by Tymek. Paradoxically, Irpen then takes issue with the politeness, possibly wanting to be treated in an uncivil manner. Subsequently, Tymek apologises for possibly ill-thought word choice, to which Irpen's response is "Cut it please". ΔιγυρενΕμπροσ! 17:15, 29 September 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Stalking Digwuren

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When Digwuren answered a question by Giano II, Irpen removed the detailed answer complete with all evidentiary diffs through undo and without comments in only four minutes. Sander Säde pointed out the problem on Irpen's talkpage, but Irpen has completely ignored this. ΔιγυρενΕμπροσ! 07:30, 6 October 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Defaming Digwuren's character

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In [71], Irpen is trying to associate the concept of being Digwuren with the concept of creating nonsensical articles. This is all the more problematic because the defamation is formed in a way that makes it particularly hard to find:

  • it's in Talk:Ghetto ławkowe, which I would not have even read if not for a particular random event that is outside the scope of this page;
  • the username is not wikilinked, making it unfindable through Special:Whatlinkshere/User:Digwuren;
  • the username is (recognisably) misspelt, making it unfindable through searching for the word "Digwuren".

Granetd, typoes happen. As long as it can be reasonably believed they're just typoes, with no intended malice, they can be forgiven under the principle of Due forgiveness. However, such defamation is clearly a violation of WP:CIV, and as such, prohibited under Wikipedia's policy. ΔιγυρενΕμπροσ! 19:12, 7 October 2007 (UTC)[reply]

{Write your assertion here}

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Place argument and diffs which support your assertion; for example, your first assertion might be "So-and-so engages in edit warring", which should be the title of this section. Here you would show specific edits to specific articles which show So-and-so engaging in edit warring.

Evidence presented by Grafikm

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Note to ArbCom: I require some more time to compile the rest of the evidence, so please don't move this to voting too early.

Digwuren's presence on WP has been extremely disruptive to a whole sector of Wikipedia. Indeed, as the ArbCom is probably aware of, Digwuren already has a lengthy record of blocks made by several admins for various disruptions [72]. Since last block, User:Deskana unblocked Digwuren stating explicitely that "having consulted blocking admin, this user is unblocked to participate in RFC and/or mediation cases ONLY. reblock if user abuses this trust."

Obviously, Digwuren's disruptive attitude did not end with that unblock.

Edit warrying and POV Pushing

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Digwuren's attitude was extremely disruptive on a number of pages, where he engaged in heavy edit warrying. Examples include:

  • Lennart Meri - edit warrying to keep a POV phrase "non-communist style" election. Such a phrase is obviously inflammatory and far better alternatives are possible but he kept reverting it.
    • [78]
    • [79] after another editor tries to NPOV it.

Also note heavy edit warrying by User:Alexia Death in the same article.

There are many more diffs from this page but they're too many to list them all

Basically, what he's trying to do is to bully other editors to make them stay out of "his" articles so he can plague them with POV pushing. These edits are only a sample (albeit a representative one) of his warrying.


Creation of inflammatory templates and disruption on TFD

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User:Suva created a template Template:Notpropaganda, clearly falling under deletion criteria T1 as a divisive and inflammatory. The template was

What followed was (and still is) an attempt by Digwuren and his buddies (Suva and Martintg just to name those two) to bully out people who dared voting "delete" out of the discussion. Now, I know that xFD results are discussion based and not count-based, but still, this kind of attitude is very representative of Digwuren's approach to Wikipedia.

Only a few days later, the same User:Suva created yet another inflammatory template, Template:POV_Russia, which was again brought on TFD. This time, User:Digwuren attempted to modify Irpen's TFD statement, which is against the very basic rules of Wikipedia, and then edit warried to remove part of Irpen's nomination:

The whole thing was reported on WP:ANI by Irpen Wikipedia:Administrators'_noticeboard/IncidentArchive297#TfD_disruption (and counter-reported by Digwuren) (here)

Several admins were trying to explain Digwuren that his attitude was not fitting with WP policies, but to no avail (see comments by El_C, Bishonen and Cowman).

Concerns voiced by User:Ghirlandajo

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I know that technically ArbCom cannot issue rulings based on IRC evidence, but it is no secret that some arbitrators are also operators of the IRC channels and, in this capacity, it is well within their means to put an end to the misuse of the channel for one's personal ends. The nature of the current case perhaps warrants an exception to the rule. I was informed recently that Digwuren, Alexia, and Suva took to using #wikipedia for spreading Russophobic propaganda and block shopping. After checking the appropriate logs, I found a plethora of xenophobic or racist remarks ("you roll a vobla into pravda and drink vodka"), but that does not disturb me as much as their abuse of the magnifying effect of IRC to misrepresent and persecute their opponents.

For instance, when I moved a page several times, Digwuren popped up on IRC asking for an admin to look into the matter and screaming: "has Ghirlandajo broken 3RR?", without bothering to apply to WP:AN3 or discussing the matter on Wikipedia. An ill-considered block was the result. This practice of block shopping is nasty, considering that I am technically unable to monitor IRC all day long. When I log in occasionally, I see people discussing my edits and referring to me as a "little paranoid loon" or "fucking whiner". When I ask those people to explain the background for these comments, my request is deleted and immediately followed by Piotr's award to the offender for his "good deeds". If ArbCom is interested in the details, I will forward the logs on request.

Looking through the logs, I see Alexia, Suva, and Digwuren regularly pasting to #wikipedia links to my edits pertaining to the subject of this case (there are not so many of them) and asking a familiar admin: "can you add a remark to his talkpage that it is a bad idea?", etc. They know that IRC has a magnifying effect and is perfect for block shopping, and they make liberal use of that. As a result, I stopped editing Estonia-related articles altogether: now I know there are people discussing and insulting me behind my back, following my contributions and copying the appropriate diffs to IRC, peppering them with malicious or misleading comments. Since I am denied the opportunity to disprove these allegations of misconduct, Suva's and Digwuren's activities on IRC are more than enough to make me keep away from this case.

Evidence presented by Alexia Death

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NOTE: Ive limited myself to two diffs per issue, so this evidence is not exhaustive

Ghirla's concerns of block shopping are unfounded

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Ghirla's concerns of block shopping are unfounded, evidenced by the statements made by the blocking admin [122][123] and several unrelated admins [124][125].

Ghirla engages in disruptive editing and removes AN/I reports about himself

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Latest bout of disruption started with unilateral and undiscussed moving and re-tasking of Soviet occupation to Allied occupation of Europe that had been deleted by AfD as WP:SYNTH and WP:OR [126] and blocking revert by creating a dab page. This resulted in a move war where multiple people were reacting resulting in a redirect mess and an admin assistance request on #wikipedia and a report on AN/I, witch he subesquently replaced with his own complaint [127]. This lead to subsequent block of Ghirla for 24 hours [128], later shortened by blocking admin due to the fact that move waring was stopped and he did have a large edit count[129]. As the block was for 3RR, this is appropriate, but the disruption generated should have warranted and resulted in a longer block as he clearly refuses to accept that he was at fault[130][131].

Ghirla and Irpen harass and antagonize people contrary to WP:BATTLE

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Immediately after Ghirla's block Irpen posted an accusatory note of injustice [132] at Ghirla's user page and they refused to stop [133] [134] even after several admins and other uninvolved people had endorsed the block [135] [136] [137]. Before and after lifting of the block accusations against admins involved in trying to clean up the redirect mess were posted in various places. He accused Piotrus on AN/I of abusing his admin tools again[138], a libelous statement since he has never been found guilty of admin abuse and continuing this line through the whole thread on ANI here posting baiting claims to lure others to uncivil remarks.

Others like Maxim[139] were subjected to similar treatment.

Vassyana dared to recommend Ghirla to not be this aggressive[140], this was responded with a counterattack [141] and more sweeping accusations [142].

Irpen plainly disregards with an antagonizing edit summary a warning about edit waring on a FA [143].

Additionally Irpen accuses people on Wikipedia for things that were said on #wikipedia in behalf of Ghirla and replacing Ghirla's statement [144] while he was not around. May it be pointed out that public logging is not allowed on the channels so how come this happens?

Context to Grafkim_fr-s evidence on Monument of Lihula

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Source of revert waring and disruption is RJ CG (talk · contribs)

  • An IP editor inserting irrelevant content and does not bother to talk will be reverted. This reverting was followed pointy removal of other material[145]. This IP editor later registered as RJ CG (talk · contribs).
  • On august 7th he tries to insert the same content again: [149] [150] [151] reverting of witch was retaliated by removal of the same background information he revert wared over before [152]. Only after his reverts are out he bothers to try discussion [153] where it is rather obvious that he has no proper explanation why it should belong there.

Responses to Irpen's evidence

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WP:MEAT accusations are groundless

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The contexts to our simultaneous arrival is Bronze Soldier of Tallinn. These events brought out many previously dormant people to see that the coverage of events is neutral. It was a moment of controversy and I decided to register, since being just an IP is not most reputable. Or nationality is the reason we became registered users at that moment. I personally had done a couple of minor edits before may as an IP but did not see the need to register. I believe it was something similar for others.

  • As to not producing much in the first month... Is being a newbie and taking it slow a fault? What happened to not biting newbies? And I still don't produce much, I just don't have time with all these accusations flying around. Should I be kicked off the project for this?
  • As to using Estonian in talk, I personally have avoided it, but if something was to be hidden, they would take it to email, as Petri's babel box claims understanding of Estonian. Nothing displayed publicly is a secret.
  • As to bad faith accusations, in this [154] diff that Irpen presented as grossly unjust Digwurren explains nicely his reasoning justifying the claim. Even to me the nomination seemed fishy because the search presented as evidence of neologism had a an unbalanced quote in it rigging the result and because there was reason to assume that Ghirla had prior knowledge of this term.
  • As to "your ethnic slurs are noted", this [155] was what prompted it. If hinting that some nations(the nation of some editors involved in the debate) exist just because of "sheer luck" isn't ethnic slurs then I don't know what is.
  • As to our first page getting deleted., Please read the whole AFD, there were keep voters with strong arguments, but the title was not the best and well, theres no shame in trying and failing, even more so if it is your first.

Claims of my Incivility are poorly founded

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  • Commenting that somebody has a mind block is not uncivil. It is perhaps, now that I look at it, a bit attacky, but I was green then...
  • AS to "Troll ignored", it is a reply to this[156]. IMHO asking the complaining party to be blocked from AN/I is a clear trolling.
  • As to "insult filled reply", this [157] is it. Accusing ones government of racism and telling one that this person is trolling the board where people are supposed to get help is not an acidous insult?
  • I never called Petri insane. Irpen has graciously just posted the diff of a biting reply, but not the diff itself [158] whew I sate that Petris dellusion of Korp!Estonia is anoying. Petri's unfounded belief into existence of Korp!Estonia is a persistent, annoying delusion(i dont know a better word), and I hope this ArbCom cures him from it.
  • As to me misspelling Ghirla, Its a name that I cannot pronounce, and thus cannot remember properly and a speller is not much help with names. Sorry. I misspell Digwurren too sometimes and typos are something of a personal quirk of mine.

Response to Ghirla's accusations

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  • Block shopping: This diff[159], That Ghirla presented as accusation, says it all. Is asking for help against a gross incivility block shopping!? Through all this thread, ALL i wanted was WP:CIVIL enforced fairly and equally and almost, that did happen. But not quite...
  • As to Estophilia and Anti-Estonian sentiment the first was deleted by Neil, as speedy for being a WP:POINT, went through a deletion review, and was undeleted and proven not to be pointy at all, the later is stuck as a controversial redirect that both I and Irpen have protested against.
  • As to name changes... Well, I altered mine first and did it because i wanted to show my appreciation for True Neutral Heroes like Gandalf the Grey... I like LOTR(The books not the movie). So? Suvas and Digwurens signature changes I think were sort of humor, but thats their choice. Its not like signature lets you hide who you are... Signatures on WP seem to be expressions of ones individuality. Harrasing others for them is a bit odd.

Ghrila-Irpen tagteam has a long history

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Irpen-Ghirla tagteam is a veteran of many arbcoms with much evidence persented against them and yet, nothing has been done... Perhaps their constant disruptions allone are not enough to warrant action, but his past of antagonizing users and generating disruption in as a pattern does. So before my wikibreak, id like to reitterate all the cases they have been a party to with evidence presented against them.

  • AndriyK Arbitration(Nov 2005- Jan 2006) evidence: [160]
  • RFC/U on Ghirla closed in March 2006 has evidence of uncivil behaviour after being warned in AndriyK arbitration: [161]
  • RFC/U on Irpen opened in June 2006(and still open for some reason) and its talk shows tagteaming [162], also you can see some of the other evidence presenters already cooperating there.
  • This page from May 2006 has evidence presented on it that Ghirla has previously also removed conserns from AN/I [163]
  • Ghirla's RFC/U on Piotrus is part of the same pattern as nottet in his reply [164].
  • Piotrus-Ghirla Arbitration(Dec 2006-Feb 2007) dismissed, because of Ghirla's sudden inactivity [165]
  • Piotrus Arbitration(Apr 2007-Aug 2007) evidence: [166]

As this list shows, these editors are constantly involved in Arbcom or RFC/U cases, they have the experience on their side and they use it to bite newbies because they know, nothing will touch them. Just because they contribute so much. The know that they can get away with murder and they use it.Cleverly. They circumvent WP:NPA by not attacking the person directly but through for example their nationality(see above for a sample). They attack anyone daring to contradict them(evidence presented above) or try to dicipline someone they agree with(see ProhibitOnions and RJ GC block) and make the environment on Wikipedia near intolerable. So I'm off for a wikibreak. No doubt I will find that the case is closed and again Irpen's, Ghirlas and their comrades activities allowed to continue unhindered proving that Wikipedia is broken beyond repair and WP:CIVIL is just a pipe dream. Yes, I am bitter about all this, because as it seems, you can not get any relief even if you do everything right and the only way to succeed is to be a productive asshole never admitting to a fault, and I just haven't got that in me. So C'Ya.--Alexia Death the Grey 13:40, 23 September 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Evidence presented by Irpen

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WP:MEAT

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Three related accounts Digwuren (talk · contribs), Suva (talk · contribs) and Alexia_Death (talk · contribs) appeared on Wikipedia simultaneously. Their first edits were made as follows:

although Suva claims that they have never seen each other. How credible is this coincidence?

Alexia's account is relatively benign compared to the other two, but the fact of their simultaneous appearance is important to keep in mind when analyzing this case. While clearly distinct personalities, the accounts do fall under WP:MEAT. Two checkuser cases (Wikipedia:Requests for checkuser/Case/Digwuren, Wikipedia:Requests for checkuser/Case/DLX) failed to eliminate ambiguity due to the university firewall issues. From time to time, there would appear one-purpose accounts whose activity is limited to seconding Digwuren's opinions; they normally disappear once their possible connection to Digwuren is exposed.[167]

Their activities started with a flurry of revert warring. Digwuren made six reverts on the very first day of editing alone (12:13, 13:27, 13:30, 13:46, 13:55, 14:57). Neither account produced any new articles during their first month of activity in Wikipedia. Their first new page, Soviet occupation denialism, was deleted by User:Moreschi after an acrimonious AfD as "a classic POV fork" and "a POV synthesized narrative". On talk pages, they always act in concert and tend to second each other, repeating the same phrase as a mantra: e.g., multiple unsubstantiated accusations of a bad-faith deletion request leveled against Ghirla: "he has knowingly made a false nomination for deletion" (Digwuren); "clearly bad-faith AfD nomination" (DLX/Sander Sade); "your ethnic slurs are noted" (Alexia Death).

Here's a sterling example of their editing practices, followed by incessant revert-warring to keep the compromised version of the page, lamenting the years of "Soviet yoke": revert using popups, revert using UNDO, revert with a misleading summary, etc. During their first month of editing, they nominated for deletion three pages by User:Petri Krohn (Republic of Estonia (1990-1991), Estonian SSR (independent), Estland), with the deletion debates grotesquely placed by Digwuren into Category:AfD debates (Fiction and the arts). Even in English Wikipedia, they would communicate in Estonian, to prevent the comments from being read by other wikipedians.

Creation of inflammatory templates for article space

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Inflammatory templates created by Suva

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  • {{Notpropaganda}} prior to being subjected to TfD the template said: "{{PAGENAME}} may be written from [[WP:NPOV|neutral point of view]] and as such may not be compatible with one or several historic propaganda campaigns. If you feel you are biased by any such propaganda campaign, please refrain from editing this article.. The TfD was closed "nonconsensus" despite the strong majority voted "delete". the TfD resulted in template's being moderated by other users.
  • {{POV Russia}}, now deleted through TfD saying "The neutrality of this article towards Russian version of Soviet history is disputed."

Both WP:POINTy templates were added to contentious articles further disrupting the discussions in search of the solution.

Inflammatory templates created by Digwuren

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Template the regulars

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Digwuren's revert warring spree

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Generally, this kind of abuse is so trivial that, in my estimation, about 80% of Digwuren's edits in his first month or two of editing Wikipedia consisted of reverts. See Grafik's post above for additional detail.

Stalking

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Incivility

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Digwuren

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Alexia

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Suva

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Sander Säde

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Erik Jesse

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  • Much evidence is contained in the deleted pages, to which I have no access (example)

To be continued

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These diffs along with others' posted above is only a part of the pattern. Unless arbitrators rush to the proposed decision immediately, I will be adding more ASAP. --Irpen 18:47, 22 September 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Evidence presented by Ghirla

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Preamble

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I vehemently disagree with the assessment of the conflict between a group of Estonian editors and everyone else as an "Estonian-Russian ethnic conflict". This is what the trio wants everyone to believe, and that's what even ArbCom apparently bought into. The initiator of the case, User:Irpen, is an ethnic Ukrainian. Bishonen, accused by Digwuren of being an "associate member of Cartel USSR Forever!", hails from Sweden and has not been known to edit USSR-related topics at all. Other major participants on the supposedly "Russian" side also have very little Russian about them; what they do share is the anti-Fascist sentiment. Let's take a look at their take on the situation:

  • User:Petri Krohn, a Finnish editor, alerted the sysops: "The Bronze Soldier controversy brought along a wave of new users from Estonia. Some of these are single-purpose-accounts, with an aim of waging the Russian-Estonian propaganda war on Wikipedia. <...> For the last two month I have been the largest foreign contributor (I am Finnish) to Estonia related articles. During this time I have created 11 new Estonia related articles (one in DYK) and significantly contributed to one In-the-News article. For my contributions I have been under constant attack by the ringleader and his puppets. Most of my contributions to Estonia related articles have been summarily reverted, usually in under ten minutes."
  • User:RJ CG, a Canadian editor: "I have to point out that not only complaints from number of different users are almost identical, but accounts listed in those complaints are almost identical too. I guess admins have a choice between believing many unconnected users who complain about identical destructive behaviour of same group on very different topics and believing this very group, as nobody came forward to clear them" (one of his first edits in Wikipedia)

The hunt for RJ CG

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The case of RJ CG is highly instructive in illustrating how effectively and ruthlessly the Tartu trio discredits their good-faith opponents and turns them into revert warriors. Unlike his opponents, at first RJ CG did what a wikipedian involved in an edit conflict was supposed to do: provided sources for his edits and attempted to discuss them on talk pages. By way of response, he was summarily reverted as a "vandal" and unvariably treated to a range of hollow threats (Digwuren: "You should refrain from disruptive editing in the future, lest the Mighty Hammer of Wikipedian Justice fall upon you") and revolting anti-vandalism templates (Digwuren: "you will be blocked from editing", Digwuren: "this is your last warning", another "last warning" from Digwuren, one more, a vandalism warning from Sander).

The user, who replied to each rude outburst with addition and discussion of neutral sources for his edits and, as he expressedly states on his talk page, refused to activate e-mail lest he be accused of cabalism, eventually fell a collateral victim of an ANI thread mentioned below and was blocked for violating WP:NPOV, WP:SYNTH, and WP:OR. After he expressed his astonishment that people are blocked for violating these policies, the block reason was changed to WP:3RR (although there appears to have been no violation either).

The editor commented: "Would it have been bannable offence, neither of you guys (Korps! Estonia) with your repeated POV-pushing and false accusations of anyone who have misfortune not to share your POV would survive on wiki past mid-May". Also: "I tried to be nice and quiet with you, just patiently correcting your distorted statements and being very attentive about supporting my every edit with a relevant NPOV source and just ignoring your libelous and overblown accusations. It did not work". He also asked the blocking admin to "be so kind as to point out any sequence of events when I initiated edit wars", but was ignored. These developments may be traced on his talk page.

A month later, User:ProhibitOnions used the precedent of the first (and very questionable) block to issue another 48h block for "edit warring", while absolving a bunch of RJ CG's opponents from any reproach whatsoever. He flatly refused to explain his rationale for singling out this particular editor, and the subject was extensively discussed on WP:AN. The Estonian editors dismissed the thread as an "odious slur", and, within a week, their opponent was blocked again, this time for a week, based on IRC communications. The blocking admin did not even bother to inform the blockee about the block.[175] Frankly, this is amazing. After this sequence of administrative actions RJ CG effectively retired from active editing, leaving Digwuren and Co without their last opponent in content disputes.

Attack pages against Petri Krohn

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  • User:Digwuren/Petri Krohn (now deleted)
    • Opinion by User:Akhilleus: "As an example we might look at the contributions to User:Digwuren/Petri Krohn; if that page does not result in an actual user conduct RfC in short order, I suggest that it be deleted as an attack page, because right now it seems like a forum for a group of editors to complain about Petri Krohn."[176]
  • User:Digwuren/Petri Krohn's Story of Estonians (now deleted)
    • Wikipedia:Miscellany for deletion/User:Digwuren/Petri Krohn's Story of Estonians
      • "It relates a version of events, ascribed to another user, which is then mocked for being wildly inaccurate. It's not a good faith compilation of any sort of evidence, and is quite plainly a personal attack on Petri Krohn" (User:Haemo).
      • "Delete, this is an attack page" (User:Neil).
      • "There's nothing attacky with such a compilation" (Digwuren).
      • "It may also aid Petri Krohn in organising his thoughts, which is certainly a dangerous perspective" (Digwuren).
      • "I wouldn't mind extending the scope further, to include ideas of Roobit and Ghirlandajo, actually. They appear to be reasonably mutually consistent, and skewed in the similar manner" (Digwuren).
      • "You have not displayed enough weird beliefs to warrant a full article about them, so I lack sufficient data" (Digwuren to Ghirla).
      • "Compared to Krohn's own user page subpages this material is politically correct, non-offensive and rather useful" (Suva).

Block shopping

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One of the most annoying tricks practiced by Digwuren and Suva is block shopping on ANI, without bothering to notify their opponent about the discussion. This leads to longish sterile threads, of which there have been a number. Let me highlight the following ANI threads started by the Tartu-based accounts:

  • 19 June, Martintg: "This case seems to be yet another phase in Petri Krohn's ongoing vendetta against a group of editors for no other reason than they happen to be ethnic Estonian". // Participants: Martintg, Digwuren, Colchicum
  • 23 June, Suva: "I am asking administrative advice on that user. He was blocked before for editwarring but obviously this didn't help".
  • 11 July, Suva: "User:Ghirlandajo pushing his political POV in inappropriate places. Latest examplew was when that user continues trolling on AfD page," etc.
Reply by User:FayssalF: "As for the AfD, I really do not see anything alarming. It is a debate and one has to expect some comments that would hurt although within Wikipedia policy".[177]
Grossly misleading retort by Digwuren: "Well, comments on the order of "Estonians are evil Nazis who must be hated" are certainly inappropriate... Ghirlandajo wants the AFD participants to be inflamed, in the hope that this would derail the discussion."
Ghirla provides links to Digwuren's trolling, with the conclusion: "This is my first and last reply to this".
Taunting: "Wait a sec... Please explain" (Suva); Wanna bet no explanation will ever come? (Digwuren); Prove the accusation - or apologize; you expect your editcount to carry you through everything (Sander); may I point out that this user has in the very recent past ended up on this very board already twice, here and here! (Alexia), etc.
Digwuren recommends "administrative action to deal with the continuous WP:CIV violation" on the part of Ghirla.
Fayssal's reaction: Here we can't block someone relying on vague accusations.
  • 16 July, Alexia: "Petri Krohn propagates slander and rumors in most inappropriate places... I hope something is to stop these attempts to drive certain editors away sole based on their nationality...
Ghirla's reply: "It is annoying to spend the better part of a day watching their endless and meaningless diatribes on high-traffic noticeboards."
Jenochman endorses Alexia's complaint with the following advice: "Rather than bring this case here, Alexia, did you try asking nicely for Petri to strike his inappropriate comment? That's the normal first step".
Ghirla suggests to remove the offensive remark
Alexia restores it, resumes block shopping: "So your view is that there are problems, but lets not deal with them?"
Fayssal to Alexia: You'd have been blocked by now as per my message above.
Ghirla appeals to reason: "You have been ill advised to bring every petty dispute to this page hoping that your opponent will be blocked. The view that block shopping is efficient has some currency in the project (see Piotr's message above), but I assure you that no amount of ANI bickering will resolve your dispute with history and fellow wikipedians. You are mistaken in believing that regular abuse of this page (look how the heading is phrased) will result in character assassination of your opponents."
Suva about Ghirla: "I don't understand why some of the biggest trolls here are still throwing fæces around and not spending their time on being blocked?"
Dbachmann supports blocks for Petri and Alexia: "This has got to stop, WP admins don't have time to prance around with every incidence of provincial hatemongering breaking out on AfD".
Fayssal F blocks RJ CG for 48 hours for "tedious editing" and Petri Krohn for 72 h. for "provocative comments". Alexia is not blocked for this.
Ghirla's rant: "FayssalF, thank you for demonstrating that block shopping on WP:ANI is so efficient these days... Given your prompt "reaction", you will see tons of forum shopping on this page from the same accounts. This is both a token of the admins' ineptitude to handle a rather complex editing dispute and a potent signal to the trolls what they are expected to do in order to have their opponent blocked from Wikipedia for a considerable period of time. It was not Petri who started flamefests on this page."
FayssalF blocks Digwuren for a week for "tendentious editing and edit warring"
Blocked Petri Krohn "offers his sincere apologies to Estonian editors who may have been offended by his uncivil comment".
User:Dc76 accuses Fayssal of "admin abuse", demands his admin rights to be suspended for a week and Digwuren unblocked.[178]
User:Tom harrison endorses the block.
User:Piotrus steps up to defend Digwuren: "I am suprised with the block duration of a week. The user may have wanted to rewrite the deleted article into something more civil and neutral, and we should not assume bad faith that he was attempting to be disruptive by recreating afd article."
Erik expresses regret that "Ghirla's vandalism and continuing slander has once again escaped again without any consequences".
User:KillerChihuahua points out to incivility on the part of Martintg: "There surely is a more civil way to state your disagreement with Bishonen's assessment of Digwuren's contributions than calling her conclusion "utter nonsense". Are you trying to insult and start a fight, or just phrasing yourself very poorly?"
Deskana unblocks Digwuren "to participate in RFC and/or mediation cases ONLY". Neither did materialise.
Digwuren seconds these anti-Ghirla rants: "How about a block, indefinite but to be lifted immediately upon display of remorse?"
Bishonen's reaction: "When you're trying to troll, you mean".
Digwuren's new rant, this time against Bishonen: "You shouldn't put your trust into Bishonen here... it's about a cabal -- which she supports... the so-called Cartel USSR Forever! -- whose associate member Bishonen appears to be..."
At this point, someone speedily closed the thread.
Paul Pieniezny's observation: "Now compare that to what happened at that AFD: 3 of the Korp! members seem to have suddenly changed their signature, Alexia Death the Grey being the third member concerned. Digwuren even changed in the middle of the discussion. Unless Digwuren has started work on Chinese Wikipedia, I fail to see any other reason for that change than the fact that they want to avoid being associated with that RfAr, or with disruption elsewhere on Wikipedia".

Digwuren admits his WP:POINT issues

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After Estophobia ended up by being deleted, Digwuren immediately started the articles Estophilia and Anti-Estonian sentiment. The community's protests were ignored: "Under *that* criteria, everything done on Wikipedia is for POINT. Heck, Wikipedia itself is POINT, specifically, "Wikipedia is possible"!" After that, he was blocked for tendentious editing, but immediately started a list, Molobo-style, advertising plans of further tendentious edits.

Note on off-wiki activities

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In addition to my concerns about the trio's abuse of IRC above, I may note that the channel was definitely exploited by them for recruiting supporters who, after a brief conversation with them, were known to step into the Estonia-related conflicts on their side. As for incivility, I logged into the channel on two occasions, under different names, to check whether they really engage in block shopping and taunting Bishonen as a "b-witch" (as I had been told they do). I found the logs of the first episode when I browsed the web for "ghirlandajo" and "digwuren"; it appears that they have been posted by someone here. A day or two later, I logged in again, this time as Ghirlandajo, only to discover Suva accusing User:Dmcdevit (who had admonished him to remain civil) of being a sockpuppet of either RJ CG or Irpen. That was pretty surreal, and I don't think that I will ever go to IRC again, after painful experiences of this sort.

Evidence presented by User:Vecrumba

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When you don't present facts, tag articles and discredit editors instead

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Consider the originator of this RfA. This is a clear pattern with Irpen, Ghirlandajo, Grafikm_fr, to lesser degrees Petri Krohn in a campaign to encourage baiting of Baltic and Eastern European editors, then pillory them and tie them up in these endless actions when said editors respond. Digwuren's comment, cited by Irpen as first offense, is fully supported by an examination of pertinent edits. Are all Baltic and Eastern European editors supposed to just roll over and stand for continued abuse? The double standard is abysmal, if you are Petri, you can call people ethnofascists with impunity. If you are Digwuren, you essentially call a spade a spade and are set upon by Irpen and company for "utterly offensive" comments.

This is totally not about Irpen calling attention of untoward behavior by Digwuren to Wikipedia authorities, it is about waging an ongoing campainn of POV pushing and editor discrediting. In this case, to get Digwuren censured leaving RJ_CG to push pro-Russian POV, from deleting entire article sections on Soviet versions of "political correctness" to removing the fact Estonians were concripted into the Waffen SS along with a denigrating edit comment not to repeat the "mantra" again--a "mantra" which is 100% factually and historically correct, not to mention the Waffen SS units were formed long after the Nazi Holocaust had already claimed its victims and had nothing to do with any allegiance to Nazism.

Just a few past samples of actions where lines are similarly drawn:

It has all been said before, will be said again. There was a time I had respect for Irpen as an editor. Unfortunately his campaign against Baltic and Eastern European editors appears to be his major activity now. He even attacked me for using the word "schmutz" admonishing me (in an article talk section created just for that purpose trumpeting "Using offensive language at the ArbCom's probational article") that I would be "banned" if I kept up my offensive behavior. Meanwhile, Irpen shops on arbitrator pages attempting to influence them while claiming not to. Irpen's protestations of "good faith" are nothing more than that. This is all so tiresome, utterly counterproductive, and a total perversion of the mission and goals of Wikipedia. —  Pēters J. Vecrumba 03:15, 23 September 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Evidence presented by Piotrus

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Harassment of editors: an ongoing success story?

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One of the primary motivations for people contributing to Wikipedia is because they want to do something good and be rewarded for it with recognition from their peers. Hence, nonconstructive criticism, and especially personal attacks and flaming can drive editors away. Intentionally or not, certain editors involved in this ArbCom have mastered the art of harassment and driving their opponents away from this project. Such a level of disruption cannot be tolerated: no matter how active one editor is, if he drives others away, eventually the loss of their potential contributors (alternative cost) render his contributions meaningless.

I'd like to demonstrate one particular example from a early/mid September (so certainly after my ArbCom reminded of the need to edit courteously and cooperatively in the future), when Irpen, after issuing a series of accusations against User:Balcer, an active and experienced editor in good standing, succeeded in driving his opponent away from this project. Please consider the tone of his messages, and accusations he levvied against Balcer:

Following this exchange - in which he was accused of "sneaky attacks", "xenophobia", "academic and intellectual dishonesty" - on 7 September Balcer, 1266st most active Wikipedian with 12675 edits, chief contributor to WikiProject:Geography of Poland, a spotless user who has never been blocked or convicted of any misbehavior on Wiki, requested deletion of his userpage and made his last edit to Wikipedia:

Balcer's case is not an isolated example. Similar harassment has resulted in withdrawal of other editors: User:Lysy, another active contributor with many thousands of edits, stopped editing in July (see his goodbye message). User:Halibutt has drastically ceased his involvement in this project since late last year. And Irpen and Ghirla keep attacking other editors; just today Irpen told me that My every attempt to improve (the article) triggers a spree of reverts from you and explained that As long as your POVed versions of history are on the backburner, I try to stay away, because I try to not edit articles you create. But I can't (and won't) tolerate your pushing them to the mainpage through FAC, DYK or trying to give them prominence through GAC.; about a week ago Ghirla and Irpen claimed on ANI that I am abusing admin tools ([179], [180] - bringing up two year old incident despite ArbCom amnesty and failing to apologize when it became evident that nobody supports their interpretation of the event). Faced with such harassment on sometimes daily basis, and for years - on at least weekly basis - I can well understand why various editors are pleading for ArbCom to put an end to such harassment campaigns. Let me join the chorus: how many editors need to leave this project before some kind of civility parole or block demonstrates that WP:AGF, WP:NPA, WP:HARASS and related are enforceable policies?-- Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus | talk  07:14, 24 September 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Update: I think that comments like "Piotrus, it is not news that you use the offensive users as battering rams in POV-pushing or against your Wikipedia opponents." nicely illustrate how Irpen is editing "courteously and cooperatively". I have created over 140 DYKs for this project, but Irpen is making me rethink if I should continue to contribute to a page where I can be slandered in such a fashion. PS. Another interesting diff ([181]) shows how links to ArbCom workshop proposals by Ghirla and Irpen that did not made it to the official proposed decision page are used in discussions in an attempt to add an illusion of ArbCom legitimacy to their claims ("look, it has been raised during an ArbCom case so it has to be true").-- Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus | talk  17:48, 29 September 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Update2: I believe such comments classify as harassment - on the very pages of this ArbCom, with the intent to drive away editors who disagree with certain party: [182], [183].-- Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus | talk  21:00, 4 October 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Evidence presented by Bishonen

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I haven't followed Digwuren's editing and article creation extensively, or really at all, so far, but stumbled on an example of it yesterday when reviewing a current request for adminship. If what happened in this instance is typical of Digwuren's practices, it's worrisome, IMO.

Digwuren misuses the Good Article process to further his POV

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On September 22, Digwuren created the highly non-neutral article Denial of Soviet occupation as a stub, and immediately listed it as within the scope of Wikiproject:Soviet Union, Wikiproject:Estonia, Wikiproject:Latvia, and Wikiproject:Lithuania. Three hours later, after working to expand the article greatly, he initiated a #wikipedia discussion of it, asking for help to make sure it was in accordance with Wikipedia policies and would not get deleted (as its predecessor had been). One user responded that it was "rather biased", and User:Francis Tyers ("Spectie" on IRC) stated firmly that it was "an idiotic article that needs to be deleted". After a long debate with Francis Tyers, who pointed out the misuse of the word "occupation" in the title, the reliance on political resolutions of the US senate as if they were academic sources, the absence of scholarly sourcing, and the unencyclopedic tone ("whoever has written the article hasn't even attempted to make it NPOV"), Digwuren concluded that Francis Tyers was "trolling" him rather than trying to be helpful, and wasn't worth talking to. Digwuren nominated the article for Good Article status,[184] and a few hours later returned to IRC, where this time he had the luck to make contact with a less critical editor, User:Dihydrogen Monoxide (previously, and still on IRC, known as User:Giggy). Dihydrogen Monoxide was asking for articles to review for Good Article status, a kind of work he had done before. I don't know why he asked on IRC rather than pick one from the GA queue. More urgently, I also don't understand how Dihydrogen Monoxide could say, a mere one minute and a half after Digwuren suggested he review Denial of Soviet occupation, that he would pass the article for GA status "with suggestions". Ten minutes later, he was asking Digwuren to "do one" for him, namely I Don't Remember, a music article that he was one of the main editors of. Digwuren immediately agreed to review I Don't Remember, and although he called himself a slow and inexperienced reviewer, and also pointed out that he needed to sleep first, he actually passed I Don't Remember as a Good Article a mere couple of hours later. (Let me apologize preemptively if I've gotten confused by the three-layer timestamp system I'm working with here. I'm fairly sure I've got the time relations right, though. I've stared at them very hard.)

Now, Good Articles are supposed to be reviewed by "someone other than their editors". It goes without saying that they ought not to be reviewed according to a "you scratch my back and I'll scratch yours" system, either. It's a corruption of the GA system if editors A and B agree to review each other's articles, and it's blatant abuse if they pass low-quality articles rapidly after such agreement. A look at the #wikimedia log, or even, disregarding the log, merely a look at the talkpages of the articles Denial of Soviet occupation and I Don't Remember, plus the usertalk pages of Digwuren and Dihydrogen Monoxide, makes it pretty obvious that such abuse has taken place here. While Dihydrogen Monoxide rather than Digwuren appears as the instigator of the mutual-aid reviewing scheme, Digwuren is only too eager to fall in with such ill-judged buddy reviewing, and in his case it's in favor of railroading through GA status for what consensus points to as a very poor article. (See for example the shocked remark by GA regular LaraLove here.) By "buddy reviewing", I don't mean that the editors were friends—I don't believe they'd had any previous contact—but that they were drawn together by seeing an opportunity for exchanging favors. After the fact, they joined aggressively in defending against criticism and attempts to reverse the status of Denial of Soviet occupation.[185] [186] [187] [188][189][190] Latest event in this chain, a few hours ago today: Digwuren supports Dihydrogen Monoxide's ongoing Request for adminship, which seems to be going to snowball oppose over his behavior in the matter of the GA review. See also these sections on Talk: Denial of Soviet occupation. Bishonen | talk 12:52, 26 September 2007 (UTC).[reply]

A note on quoting #wikipedia logs

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Francis Tyers is quoted above with permission. I have asked Dihydrogen Monoxide for permission to quote a few words by him also, but haven't had a reply yet. I may return and make the above narrative more concrete if he says yes. Since Digwuren seems capable of trolling me indefinitely on #wikipedia and Wikipedia without actual contact or notice from me, I choose not to make any permission request of him. In any case, he has merely prevaricated about a similar request from Irpen.[191] But I'm willing to e-mail the relevant logs privately to any arbitrator who requests it. Bishonen | talk 12:54, 26 September 2007 (UTC).[reply]

To be honest, this would worry me, except for the fact that you present no evidence to confirm your claim. It's so for an unverifiable and because of that, a rather salacious claim. I can't say it's untrue, however with the lack of evidence, and having edited with some of the mentioned editors, I believe your claims are false. My basis for this is as strong as the evidence being presented here. I would suggest this request for arbitration be suppressed until any evidence to confirm (or to the contrary, for that matter) is able to be presented. --lincalinca 04:33, 5 October 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Evidence presented by Liempt

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Who am I and what is my relation?

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Although I am not a directly involved party, I have been privileged to have access to all the relevant information including IRC chat logs to present my opinion as a neutral third party.

Irpen's Claims

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Meatpuppetry is a serious claim, and I see a lack of evidence to support it. Initially, Irpen presents the fact that three Estonian editors appeared on Wikipedia nearly simultaneously; this is hardly an unlikely event. One must imagine how many Wikipedian editors from any given country join every day and what the odds are that on one particular day, three of them join; then imagine how many days there are, the conclusion is self-evident. One must then wonder, if both Suva and Alexia exist solely to second Digwuren's opinions, why Suva joined before Digwuren. This is not a definite refutation, but if they were recruited by Digwuren, how did he have the foresight to get one of his friends to join first?

As for Digwuren's six edits, the first of which was merely a re-addition of a section removed by another person believing that Digwuren performed original research. This re-addition was justified with the accompaniment of sources. His second edit was a factual correction to a different person's edit. His third was also a factual correction; There was no dedication, simply a re-opening. His fourth edit was, once again, a factual correction. Under the previous form, the article claimed the city performed a legal action, which was impossible under Russian Law at the time, as cities weren't legal entities. The fifth was replacing an irrelevant link with a relevant one. The fourth was the removal of a false and unsupported claim of police violence in Estonia. All are fully justifiable, and even though they constitute a violation of WP:3RR, a newcomer would not be aware of this rule and one can assume the reverts were made with the best of intentions (i.e. improving wikipedia) as per WP:AGF.

The fact that none of the accounts made any sort of article for their first month is completely irrelevant. Making a new article does not absolve one of meatpuppetry, nor does not making an article imply meatpuppetry. Their first article, which has been preserved on Digwuren's userspace was in fact deleted for POV issues, but this fact isn't relevant to the accusation of meatpuppetry. Upon reading the article, any person who assumes good faith would realize that Digwuren's intentions were benevolent.

One fact that Irpen fails to realize is that people from similar regions often share similar beliefs. Especially in the case of Estonia's beliefs regarding Russia and its actions towards Estonia. Just because three people from that region believe similar things does not mean they have to know or act in tandem with each other.

In regards to the deletion requests by Digwuren, one must note that two of the articles legitimately were deleted and he was fully justified in nominating them.

Interpreting two people who share a common language talking in it as their doing so to "prevent other users from understanding what is being said" is the exact opposite of assuming good faith, and borders on looking for anything to accuse him of.

All in all, I believe the accusation of meat puppetry to be grossly baseless and nearly constitutes a personal attack, and is at least uncivil.

More to come

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Please note that this evidence is not complete and will be continued at a later time.


Evidence presented by Dojarca

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These are the examples of distructive behavior of the accounts from Baltic states covered by the case.

Inserting additional comments with personal attacks into already closed discussions

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User Διγυρεν, Pēters J. Vecrumba, User:Sander_Säde being disappointed with the decision of a mediator, inserted comments to an already closed mediation case, attempting to continue the descussion. These comments included personal attacks on the mediator [192] and refusal to follow the decision.--Dojarca 01:58, 3 October 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Re-creation of already deleted articles

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An article Estophobia has been created by User:Digwuren. Later it was deleted [193]. Just 6 days after the decision, User:Digwuren re-creates the article under another name as Anti-Estonian sentiment.

Another article Soviet occupation denialism has been deleted in May (see discussion), and has been re-created by User:Digwuren several months later under a new name Denial of Soviet occupation. The admin who closed the prevous discussion commented [194] that he can not speedy delete it because he is in fear of a lynch mob which can be launched against him by the accounts in question.--Dojarca 02:33, 3 October 2007 (UTC)[reply]

When the new article was deleted again [195], less than in an hour User:Vecrumba re-created the deleted article: [196]. This required an action from an admin, and the article was turned into redirect and blocked against re-creation by the deleting administrator.--Dojarca 01:24, 4 October 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Revert-warring over article's tags

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Several accounts were engaged in revert-warring over disputed, NPOV and original research tags in attempt to remove them from a number of havily disputed articles [197] [198] [199] [200] [201] [202] [203] .

Some of these articles were undergoing meditation or deletion process at the time the tags were removed. --Dojarca 03:41, 3 October 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Accusations in racism and ethnical hatred by Sander Säde

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User Sander Säde baselessly accused other editors of racism and ethnical hatred against Estonians in cotext disputes to justify his point of view: [204], [205] --Dojarca 09:57, 9 October 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Accusations in Stalinism

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User Pudeo accused those who voted for deletion of templete Template:Soviet occupations "Stalin glorifiers" [206]--Dojarca 01:22, 16 October 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Evidence presented by Colchicum

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The checkuser case is bogus and is abused for the purpose of harassment

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Note that DLX (talk · contribs) (who in July applied for username change and is now known under his real name Sander Säde (talk · contribs), but has always kept his real name on his userpage) and Digwuren (talk · contribs) have never been proven sockpuppets in any of the checkuser cases (Wikipedia:Requests for checkuser/Case/Digwuren, Wikipedia:Requests for checkuser/Case/DLX, read to the end, with the talk pages). Alexia Death (talk · contribs) was eventually blocked by Alex Bakharev (talk · contribs) for alleged abusive sockpuppetry (for some reason for a week rather than permanently), but almost immediately unblocked by the checkuser clerk following reassessment of evidence. However, during this conflict, even after May 29, when the rest of the charges were lifted by another checkuser clerk, David Gerard (talk · contribs), the sockpuppetry accusations were evoked way too often by the familiar group of editors (29.05 by Petri Krohn (talk · contribs) on User talk:Paul Pieniezny [207], 1.06 by Ghirlandajo (talk · contribs) on WP:AN/I [208], 18.06 by Petri Krohn on User talk:Neil [209], 19.06 by Petri Krohn on AN/I [210], 19.06 by Ghirlandajo on a talk [211], 6.07 by Paul Pieniezny (talk · contribs) (also known as Pan Gerwazy) on AN/I [212], 26.09 in an AfD nomination by Dojarca (talk · contribs) along with other uncivil remarks [213][214][215], 4.10 in an AfD nomination by Dojarca along with other uncivil remarks [216], 4.10 in a TfD nomination by Dojarca along with other uncivil remarks [217] (note that in the last three cases Dojarca managed to incorporate personal attacks against Digwuren and others into XfD nominations), and, last but not least, here. It seems to me that the checkuser procedure should only be used to make sure whether certain accounts are sockpuppets or not, and not for the purpose of long-term harassment. As is evident from the diffs, references to the checkuser case are routinely used to harass the users that have never been announced sockpuppets in this case (Digwuren, Sander Säde) and even some users who have never been nominated for checkuser and don't reside in Estonia (Martintg (talk · contribs), Colchicum (talk · contribs)). This is over the top. Colchicum 22:51, 4 October 2007 (UTC) - 11:30, 5 October 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Comment Here is the final version of th AFD nomination:[218]. It was corrected after an advice from Irpen. I also want to note that all the accounts connect to Internet from the same place, through the same provider. I makes technically impossible to determine whether they are sockpuppets of one person or a number of different interconnected persons.--Dojarca 05:42, 5 October 2007 (UTC)[reply]
Discussion threads are not allowed here. This is to be transferred to the talk by a clerk. Dojarca, you are not a checkuser clerk, so you don't know how the accounts connect to the internet. Neither do I. It is, however, very telling that you fail to acknowledge that there is a possibility that they (or even we?) are neither sockpuppets nor interconnected. Colchicum 10:54, 5 October 2007 (UTC)[reply]
Comment (I did not know it is allowed to comment here. Apparently it is). As shown in checkuser discussions, "all accounts" do not connect to internet from same place or using same provider. Why are you spreading flat out lies again, Dojarca? And we've shown quite a lot of times how checuser clerks can check that we are different persons. Not to mention that Alexia, Digwuren and I have our own websites, registered to our real-life names (I do not know if other Estonian editors have websites or not). We can easily prove our identity by uploading a file with required content to our respective website. These baseless referrals to checkuser accounts must end, how long do we have to listen how bad-faith users attempt to show us as probable sockpuppets. FYI, Dojarca, if you would have bothered even to look at article history, you would know that my involvement was inserting one source when it was asked for. Suva, Alexia and others who are accused by you have not done even a single edit to the article. Guess you didn't really care, as long as subjects that you hate can be nominated for deletion. Now would you kindly revisit your AfD nomination so it would at least cursively reflect truth and not your private fantasies? And please stop stalking Digwuren. -- Sander Säde 07:33, 5 October 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Suspected bad faith assumptions, incivility and personal attacks by Ghirlandajo

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As I am involved, the selection is biased to some extent, but there are undisputable episodes; please examine: [219], [220], [221], [222], [223], [224], [225], [226], [227], [228], [229], [230], [231], [232], [233], [234], [235], [236], [237], [238], [239], [240], [241], [242], [243], [244], [245], [246], [247], [248], [249], [250], [251], [252], [253], [254], [255], [256], [257], [258], [259], [260], [261], [262], [263], [264], [265], [266]. Colchicum 01:26, 9 October 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Evidence presented by Sander Säde

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I did not want to present any evidence, but am now reluctantly forced to do so.

Conduct of Ghirlandajo

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Firstly I'd like to point out, that Ghirlandajo is the only party in current case with an active ArbCom ruling, namely he is warned to avoid incivility and personal attacks. Coincidentally, he is the only party who has shown no remorse or regret of his actions whatsoever and is currently trying to turn this serious ArbCom case into travesty.

Ghirlandajo's favorite tactic is to make provocative edits - slurs, borderline personal attacks and so forth - presumably in hope that his opponents will react in a way that allows Ghirla to go block shopping in AN/I. He does nor believe that any Wikipedia rules apply to him - and I am sad to say that in my opinion, of all editors involved in this case, he is the only one without any hope of redemption.


Racism/ethnic slurs
Lies
Personal attacks
Inserting false/unsourced information and fraudulent edits
Edit summaries

Dojarca's behavior

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User Dojarca (talk · contribs) has been disruptive, conducted a large-scale edit warring and ethnic slurs.

Lies and disruption in AfD

Dojarca submitted two articles and one template for deletion - all within one month, all created by Digwuren: 1, 2 and 3 (note that I am not commenting in any way on the content of articles or template). In all three deletion submissions he fails to give any reason for deletion, other then that they are created by "a user with the long history of disruption". In all three he brings checkuser cases as a proof that they are created by "a number of closely associated accounts, based in Estonia", who "created a mob" (all are direct quotes), despite that one checkuser case was rejected by checkuser administrator and the other is irrelevant. He tried to associate totally uninvolved editors with creation of the articles and template - such as in case of Czechoslovakia, my involvement was inserting one inline source - already present on the page - when it was asked for, Suva and Alexia have no edits at all. In case of template there is no involvement by any other Estonian editors except Digwuren. In case of "Denial of Soviet occupation" AfD, article was created by Digwuren as a total rewrite, even as noted by closing administrator - and yet Dojarca portrayed it as recreation of deleted material. He has been repeatedly asked stop personal and etchnic attacks, by several different users ([274], [275], [276], [277], [278]). He has admitted that deletions are based on off-en.wiki discussions with Irpen ([279]). Despite being asked to fix his nominations, Dojarca has refused to do so.

His fourth nomination of an article created by Digwuren ([280]) includes ethnicity of Digwuren as the first reason for deletion.

Tag warring, incivility and disruption

Dojarca removed three times the speedy delete tag from Occupation of Baltic republics by Nazi Germany, an article he had created himself as a copy-paste from Occupation of Baltic states, despite consensus against creating it (Talk:Occupation_of_Baltic_states/Archive_1#Nazi_occupation): [281], [282], [283]. Dojarca was repeatedly warned not to remove speedy delete tag from article that he had created himself and use {{hangon}} as stated by Wikipedia rules.

Dojarca inserted repeatedly {{NPOV}} tag to Occupation of Baltic states despite that it was removed by several different editors, as Dojarca failed to give any valid reasons for the tag (for a long time, he gave no reasons whatsoever). Diffs: [284], [285], [286], [287], [288] (with edit summary "rvv").

He removed section from article Occupation of Baltic states, stating "Newspaper is not a reliable source" about Wall Street Journal, perhaps one of most prestigious "newspapers" in the world, which is well-covered by WP:RS.

After the template {{Soviet occupation}} (that he had nominated for deletion) was kept, he instantly moved it without any explanations ([289]). When the template was restored, he moved it again ([290]). And when an administrator restored the template ([291]), he once again moved it ([292])

Dojarca has repeatedly stated that Poland and Baltic States fabricate history:

Despite being asked repeatedly to give examples and sources, so far he has failed to do so.

In Wikipedia:Requests_for_arbitration/Digwuren/Evidence#Inserting_additional_comments_with_personal_attacks_into_already_closed_discussions he accuses me of attacking mediator Jacroe after the case was closed, however, decision of the mediator was to close the case as unsolved. As far as I know, there is no rule to continue "the descussion" in closed mediation cases, unlike in AfD's. And since he accuses me of personal attacks on the mediator, I will bring here my only comment there: "Guys, please stop attacking Jacroe. It is not his fault that he landed in the middle of a difficult case."

Evidence presented by {your user name}

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before using the last evidence template, please make a copy for the next person

{Write your assertion here}

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Place argument and diffs which support your assertion; for example, your first assertion might be "So-and-so engages in edit warring", which should be the title of this section. Here you would show specific edits to specific articles which show So-and-so engaging in edit warring.

{Write your assertion here}

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Place argument and diffs which support the second assertion; for example, your second assertion might be "So-and-so makes personal attacks", which should be the title of this section. Here you would show specific edits where So-and-so made personal attacks.


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