1. POV tags related to disputing the "occupation" of the Baltics which have been inserted with no further basis shall subject to removal.
2. Repeated insertion of such tags with no further basis will lead to warning, blocking, and if needed, banning of individuals in question.
3. Individuals removing such tags shall not be subject to 3RR (three revert rule).  —  Pēters J. Vecrumba 20:12, 3 February 2007 (UTC)

Comment by Arbitrators:

The Arbitration Committee does not rule on article content. Kirill Lokshin 18:32, 3 February 2007 (UTC)

• The issue is POV'ing without sources or basis (i.e., "I deem this article to be POV") to indicate article is POV, which is a behavioral issue.  —  Pēters J. Vecrumba 20:00, 3 February 2007 (UTC)

Comment by parties:

The tags are not content dispute in current case. A dispute - esp. such a long one - can only be based on sources. Original research and straw man arguments can't make up a dispute. Thus, the whole 'dispute' was Disruption by 3 users, who break the principles of WP:NPOV, WP:V and WP:OR. Constanz - Talk 07:46, 4 February 2007 (UTC)

What I attempted to show on the evidence page is that tagging has spanned from the constructive to the disruptive. Illja's tagging has been constructive and nobody has any issue with it, while Grafikm's tagging has been totally disruptive, and the other taggers fall somewhere in between. I'll reorder list on the evidence page to reflect this. Martintg 01:38, 9 February 2007 (UTC)

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Proposed temporary injunctions

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Proposed principles

Assume good faith

1) All editors are expected to assume good faith in the absence of evidence to the contrary.

Comment by Arbitrators:

Proposed. Kirill Lokshin 23:29, 8 February 2007 (UTC)

Comment by parties:

Comment by others:

Courtesy

1) Misplaced Pages users are expected to behave reasonably and calmly in their dealings with other users. Insulting and intimidating other users harms the community by creating a hostile environment. Personal attacks are not acceptable.

Comment by Arbitrators:

Proposed. Kirill Lokshin 23:30, 8 February 2007 (UTC)

Comment by parties:

True but I do not see how it is warranted. Why not excessively polite, the discussion was robust and clearly conducted in good faith, at least in the most part. --Irpen 04:39, 9 February 2007 (UTC)

Call for civility is justified. All arguments must be verifiable; baseless and ugly accusations of Holocaust denial must be dropped as well as general anti-Baltic statements: --Constanz - Talk 10:11, 9 February 2007 (UTC)

We are all would be better off to live in an ideal world. The reality is that the level of civility issues in the particular discussion is as far as from being an ArbCom's concern as there can ever be. I mean, it would be nice to have a better level of civility at this article's talk, in Misplaced Pages overall and in life in general, true. However, the heat of the discussion was not even close to what goes on in a multitude of the articles on politically heated topics.

There are two excesses possible. One is to allow the incivility get out of hand and become truly a major problem (like it has been at, say #Admins IRC channel). This hasn't happened in this article. Another extreme is to allow the civility issues to be used as a weapon to resolve the editor's disagreements through pressing for sanctions against the opponent. This is also counterproductive. Robust discussions of fiercely disagreeing editors should be allowed to continue and in such discussions, occasional loss of temper by one or the other side is a possibility. Unless the problem reaches an intolerable degree, there is no need to overemphasize it.

Finally, if ArbCom wishes to make this particular article a showcase for the desired civility, it is noteworthy that representatives of both POV's were guilty of questionable spats. The Holocaust denial was invoked by both sides as well as some moderate amount of rather unpleasant ethnic talk, accusations of vandalism and in pushing the propaganda (Martintg and Constanz frequently did make such accusations and some such accusations can be found below at this very page. Need diffs?) If ArbCom sees this severe enough to warrant the intrusion, so be it. In this case, I request ArbCom to also closely watch much more heated talk pages, such as Talk:New antisemitism, talk:Jogaila, talk:Continuation War and a host of other articles. I doubt ArbCom wants to become a civility police but if it does, it should start from the places where civility problems are more severe. That said, I will support enhanced civility as far as this article concerned as well. --Irpen 04:54, 10 February 2007 (UTC)

Comment by others:

Neutral point of view

1) Neutral point of view as defined on Misplaced Pages contemplates inclusion of all significant perspectives regarding a subject. While majority perspectives may be favored by more detailed coverage, minority perspectives should also receive sufficient coverage. No perspective is to be presented as the "truth"; all perspectives are to be attributed to their advocates.

Comment by Arbitrators:

From Misplaced Pages:Requests for arbitration/Avala. Kirill Lokshin 23:39, 8 February 2007 (UTC)

Comment by parties:

Neutral point of view policy actually states: representing fairly and without bias all significant views that have been published by a reliable source. Martintg 02:25, 9 February 2007 (UTC)

Consequently, as of now no other perspectives other than the majority POV, which I subscribe to, could be mentioned, since there are no reliable sources for those. True, the article states clearly that the Russian Federation (minority POV in Wiki guidelines) rejects occupation (see intro). --Constanz - Talk 10:15, 9 February 2007 (UTC)

Comment by others:

This is why History of Latvia (1940-1991) is much better title as it allowed representing both views. Alex Bakharev 08:43, 10 February 2007 (UTC)

Both views? Please provide a cite to a published source of this other view that you want represented. Martintg 09:24, 10 February 2007 (UTC)

Exactly! There are many people who deny Holocaust, we need to give weight to their 'arguments' in Holocaust article or ought one to rename the article so as to be more 'neutral'??? Hiding national socialist crimes behind euphemisms is just as unacceptable as hiding crimes of communism with the pretext of 'neutrality' (?) and 'representing both views'. --Constanz - Talk 10:09, 10 February 2007 (UTC)

Someone whined above about HD accusations, Constanz, did not he? Now, seriously, Constanz, could you explain anywhere, since you never did at the article's talk, what's wrong woth History of Latvia (XXXX-YYYY) title? --Irpen 08:37, 11 February 2007 (UTC)

Nationalist point of view

1) Editors with a particular national background are encouraged to edit from a neutral point of view, presenting the point of view they have knowledge of through their experience and culture without aggressively pushing their particular nationalist point of view by emphasizing it or minimizing or excluding other points of view.

Comment by Arbitrators:

Adapted from Misplaced Pages:Requests for arbitration/Avala. Kirill Lokshin 23:42, 8 February 2007 (UTC)

Comment by parties:

I don't think there has been any evidence given yet that the article has been presented with an overly nationalist viewpoint. I believe the primary editor Vecrumba was born and raised in the USA, so culturally he would be very American in his outlook. Besides, the test of the validity of a particular viewpoint is the existence of published sources. Does the act of a Latvian museum holding a Soviet document confirming the fact of occupation taint that document as nationalist viewpoint? Martintg 03:28, 9 February 2007 (UTC)

If there is a Nationalist POV, then most probably from 3 Russian users (Ghirlandajo (has left Eikipedia after another arbitration process), Grafikm fr and Irpen). Only non-Russian who clearly supports them is Petri Krohn. On talk page you see that the present article has been regarded as neutral by numerous people from Poland, Romania, the US (an IP user whom I know) etc.Constanz - Talk 10:24, 9 February 2007 (UTC)

Ethnic talk again Constanz? Please cut it. Besides, you are wrong. Neither Grafik nor myself are Russians. --Irpen 04:56, 10 February 2007 (UTC)

Ethnic talk was started by two users who claim the present article was created and is supported by Baltic nationalists (I even needn't give a diff this time, you know who has been “fighing against Baltic nationalists” here). Constanz - Talk 10:05, 10 February 2007 (UTC)

Diffs? --Irpen 08:37, 11 February 2007 (UTC)

Comment by others:

Verifiability and sourcing

1) Articles should contain only material that has been published by reliable sources. Editors adding new material should cite a reliable source, or it may be challenged or removed by any editor. The obligation to provide a reliable source lies with the editors wishing to include the material, not with those seeking to remove it.

Comment by Arbitrators:

From Misplaced Pages:Verifiability. Kirill Lokshin 23:51, 8 February 2007 (UTC)

Comment by parties:

Verifiability and sourcing applies also the alternate POV implied by the application of a POV tag. Perhaps this statement of principle should read: Editors adding tags should articulate and make an effort to cite a reliable source supporting their implied alternative POV, or it may be challenged or removed by any editor. The obligation to provide a reliable source lies with the editors wishing to tag the article, not with those seeking to remove it. Martintg 02:40, 9 February 2007 (UTC)

The existence of the term in the sources may or may not justify the choice of the article's title and the propriety of the article's scope. As for the name, we have a rather well-written guideline that explains how to make a choice among controversial names and History of country (period) title is neither controversial nor implies either POV. As for the article's scope and composition, a simple common sense tells us that separate events are entitled to their own articles and the broader articles that are intended to cover several events spread over a period of time are articles that call for a history title. --Irpen 06:26, 9 February 2007 (UTC)

I don't think it has been established that the title is controversial, certainly not in the West, where English language Misplaced Pages is used. The point of WP:NPOV and WP:Undue_weight is that Misplaced Pages ought to reflect the majority of views held within its community of use. There may well be an article in Russian language Misplaced Pages titled Liberation of Latvia, if that reflects the majority viewpoint within the Russian language world, then who are we to go in and push a particular western viewpoint. Martintg 17:37, 9 February 2007 (UTC)

I have already proposed separating the Nazi and Soviet occupations in the discussion page. Focusing on the Soviet occupation, which appears to be the problem here (no one has disputed the Nazi occupation): the entire history of Latvia for that period, or, taking a wider view, until restoration of independence in 1991, is a far larger topic than the aspects of that history that deal with the occupation. There can certainly be a "History of..." article, but that is a different and larger topic than "Occupation of....".

And yet again, you label "occupation" as a "controversial" term when there is no controversy, and when neither you nor anyone else has brought forward any evidence which confirms the Baltics joined the USSR freely, willingly, and legally--prerequisites for the Soviet presence to not be (correctly as it is currently) termed an occupation.  —  Pēters J. Vecrumba 03:47, 10 February 2007 (UTC)

A couple of false assertion above. First, no one is proposing the title of Liberation of Latvia as an alternative to this one. Secondly, the proposal to separate different events by covering them in different articles was supported by me very strongly. "Focusing on Soviet occupation" is not a problem per se. It is a problem when it is done in the article, whose scope, according to its title, should include also other events and those events are not covered, seemingly on purpose, as those include the atrocities committed by the military adversaries of the Soviets: the Nazis and their local accomplices. I would be fine with Occupation of Latvia (1940) as one article, Occupation of Latvia (1941-1945) as another article. Further, the article for the 1944 Soviet takeover in the course of the driving out of the Nazis already exists and its name is not Occupation of anything but the Battle of the Baltic (1944). I would be perfectly all right with the existence of the article covering all of these events as well. Such article would also cover whatever else happened in Latvia over this time period and the title of such article would be History of Latvia (Year1-Year2). Moreover, all the Vecrumba's interesting elaborations about the applicability of the "occupation" term to the Soviet control of the Baltics in general, can be moved to the Occupation of Baltic Republics (term) where the applicability of the term would be explained.

However, the article in its current form and shape is non-compliant because only selected events are tendentiously presented and, contrary to your (and mine) suggestion to separate different events between different articles, the article by the scope defined by its title attempts to paste them together. This is a normal disagreement and this is the first time I see this to be sorted by ArbCom. Fine by me. Let it happen. --Irpen 05:15, 10 February 2007 (UTC)

I don't agee that these occupation events are unrelated and tendentiously presented together. I think it is appropriate to include the 1940 Soviet occupation, the 1941 Nazi Occupation and the 1944 Soviet re-occupation in a single article because it correctly characterises the main stream viewpoint of, as Churchill described in 1950, the deadly comb ran back and forth, and back again over Latvia. There, I've just provided one cite to a published source that groups the three occupations together. Can you provide anything other than your very strong opinion to support your claim that it is tendentous editing?

However, I don't think ArbCom will see this as a content dispute no matter how much one may attempt to bring content issues into this workshop page. The issue ArbCom ought address is the failure of one side to provide published sources to support this allegedly unrepresented alternative POV. In other words: verifiability and sourcing Martintg 10:07, 10 February 2007 (UTC)

So, 3 pages on Soviet atrocities and zero on the German ones, nothing on the Holocaust and Latvian participation in it in the article that is supposed to cover the entire period is not tendentious, huh? I am fine with separate articles. I am also fine with the wider article but properly titled and properly elaborated. As for the sources, you refuse to accept that what is challenged is not specific facts, but having them tendentiously picked, presented in out of context scope and under the POV title. Several suggestions were given and all flatly denied. --Irpen 08:42, 11 February 2007 (UTC)

Content forking

1) Creation of several separate articles all treating the same subject should be avoided.

2) Summary style articles, with sub-articles giving greater detail, are not content forking, provided that all the sub-articles, and the summary conform to Neutral Point of Viewand there is no difference in approach between the summary and the spin-off, etc.

Comment by Arbitrators:

Comment by parties:

The present article Occupation of Latvia 1941-1945 is not content forking. The same terms - occupation, incorporation etc. - are used in other articles (History of Latvia, Soviet Occupation of Baltic Republics) as well. But - the present article covers the some things (i.e dispute regarding Russia's official statements, Western government's opinions, international relations 1939, legal questions etc) in detail. For comparison, we do have Soviet occupation of Bessarabia. Vecrumba has proposed creating Soviet occupation of Latvia on the basis of materials from the current article. The use of term occupation is not controversial - it was legally defined as such. See for comparison Grafikm fr's 'arguments' of 17th century occupations: we can't use term occupation when there was no legal basis yet at the time; we must use when there is. Calling the Soviet actions otherwise (some claim here this would be neutral) would be whitewashing of the 20th century history. Constanz - Talk 10:03, 10 February 2007 (UTC)

Comment by others:

The text is adapted from WP:POVFORK and WP:SS. The Occupation of Latvia article is a spin-off of History_of_Latvia#Soviet_period as a spin-off it should use the same terminology as the main article Alex Bakharev 08:39, 10 February 2007 (UTC)

The current article was created from an existing article and one that I wrote completely from scratch. It is not a spin-off. "Soviet period" is the equivalent of "History of Latvia (under Soviet rule)" which, again, is a larger topic than the Soviet occupation of Latvia. There is no conflict in terminology. As relates to this article, I invite you, as I have others, to present materials supporting the other side of "both views" (as you indicate elsewhere) that the Soviet Union did not occupy the Baltics. There is no forking of content. —  Pēters J. Vecrumba 17:35, 10 February 2007 (UTC)

Article probation

1) Where user conduct issues seem to revolve around a single articles, and where there are a large number of editors involved, and those editors are not disruptive otherwise, it may make more sense to put the article itself on probation rather than individual editors. Administrators are empowered to block or ban editors from editing the article for misconduct like edit warring, incivility, original research, or other disruption relating to the article on probation.

Comment by Arbitrators:

Adapted from Misplaced Pages:Requests for arbitration/Election. Kirill Lokshin 02:33, 9 February 2007 (UTC)

Comment by parties:

I am not so sure about the efficacy of punishing the article. Both Irpen and Grafikm have been POV disputing articles such as Holodomor and Soviet Invasion of Poland, in fact any article that seems to contradict the Russian nationalist agenda of glorifying the Soviet Union appears to be a target.Martintg 03:05, 9 February 2007 (UTC)

An extremely disgusting false accusation bordering the hate speach. The Holodomor article in its current stable form was mostly written by Irpen who added multitudes of sources that cite the Soviet atrocities and took an effort to fend off the attacks by several, now banned, users who were pushing the revisionist Stalinist agenda. That the same user:Irpen, an ethnic Ukrainian himself, also opposed emotional, unscholarly and unsourced POV pushing by the other side is presented as a proof of a "Russian nationalist agenda" exemplifies habitual ABF by user:Martintg directed against his opponents. --Irpen 04:44, 9 February 2007 (UTC)

While I vigorously disagree with Irpen's viewpoints regarding the occupation of Latvia, I can say at least that he has refrained from the hate-mongering that has appeared of late.  —  Pēters J. Vecrumba 22:10, 10 February 2007 (UTC)

??? --Irpen 09:09, 11 February 2007 (UTC)

Comment by others:

Original research

1) Original research is prohibited. This includes a new synthesis of published material serving to advance a position; an argument is permissible only if a reliable source has published this argument in relation to the specific topic of the article.

Comment by Arbitrators:

A useful reminder to editors working on this sort of thing. Kirill Lokshin 17:47, 10 February 2007 (UTC)

Comment by parties:

Agreed.

Also, I will likely move and annotate the "Basis for occupation" section (which is not WP:OR) to a more appropriate venue (occupation of the Baltic States). It appears here only because of all the evidence-free contentions that the Baltics were not occupied. I (and others) grew tired of repeating the same thing over and over in all the various talk pages where this "controversy" has arisen. In particular, I was requested to prepare it as a response for the Estonia article ; however, owing to a Village Pump request by regarding the Lithuania article , I wound up posting on Talk:Lithuania . Typically, as has been the case in these so-called content disputes, User:DamianOFF did not respond to his own request for input/substantiation of the "opposing videpoint," and, indeed, after diligently scrubbing the word "occupation" from various Baltic-related articles over a two week period from September 12, 2006 to September 25, 2006 (which period marked the start of his Misplaced Pages editing), he did not contribute once more--anywhere--after posting his Village Pump challenge until February 7, 2007. . Far be it for him to acknowledge plain, simple, documented, substantiated facts.

Unfortunately, the abject lack of accurate facts no longer seems to be any impediment to disputing "occupation," as this current crop of persistent, escalating, and off-topic vituperative nastiness demonstrates.  —  Pēters J. Vecrumba 21:40, 10 February 2007 (UTC)

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Proposed findings of fact

Locus of dispute

1) The dispute revolves around the title, scope, and content of the Occupation of Latvia 1940-1945 article. Each of these points has been the subject of extensive and heated debate, which has failed to produce an outcome acceptable to all of the editors involved.

Comment by Arbitrators:

Proposed. Kirill Lokshin 04:05, 9 February 2007 (UTC)

Comment by parties:

The natural solution in case of the lack of a mutually acceptable outcome is to get a wider audience. This has been already happening. The newly attracted editors happened to not uniformly side with either POV. It would be useful if the finding would have reflected this fact as well. --Irpen 06:42, 9 February 2007 (UTC)

There were four outside responses in total, one supported changing the title to "History of ..." , while three maintained "Occupation of.." was appropriate ,, Martintg 18:08, 9 February 2007 (UTC)

I didn't think this was a content dispute. The locus of the dispute is: how is it possible to maintain a POV dispute when one side fails to cite any published source to support their case. Neutral point of view policy states: representing fairly and without bias all significant views that have been published by a reliable source. It seems disingenous for one party to claim an article does not meet WP:NPOV, yet fail the WP:NPOV test that their alternate viewpoint must be published. Proceeding from that point, if an alternate viewpoint is unpublished, why should we give undue weight to it by acceding to their demands to alter either the content or title to accomodate their unpublished viewpoint? Martintg 16:57, 9 February 2007 (UTC)

Comment by others:

Locus of dispute

1) The dispute revolves around the title, scope, and content of the Occupation of Latvia 1940-1945 article, particularly the propriety of the combination of the scope of the article (a series of different article-worthy events with being combined together), its content (selective coverage with prominent omissions), and its title ("History of..." as the title for an article that covers several events that took place over a significant time frame is supported by one party and opposed by another.) Each of these points has been the subject of extensive and sometimes heated debate, which has failed to produce an outcome acceptable to all of the editors involved.

Comment by Arbitrators:

The parenthetical remarks here are essentially content decisions; it remains outside of our purview to rule that the article's content is "selective coverage with prominent omissions" or that its scope includes "a series of different article-worthy events", regardless of whether it's done via a separate ruling, or merely inserted into a broader finding in this manner. Kirill Lokshin 05:37, 10 February 2007 (UTC)

The parenthetical remarks simply describe what the dispute is about. These are editors' (not ArbCom's) assertions and ArbCom may simply acknowledge that the difference of the opinions on these matters is the locus indeed. Articleworthiness is not disputed by either party. Neither the fact of omissions (as Vecrumba has acknowledged too) at least in the current state of the article. Only the propriety of the combination of particular scope with the particular content with the particular title is what the parties dispute. ArbCom does not need to rule which party is "right" by acknowledging what the locus of the dispute is. --Irpen 06:04, 10 February 2007 (UTC)

Comment by parties:

Proposed. --Irpen 05:33, 10 February 2007 (UTC)

Comment by others:

Locus of dispute

1) The dispute revolves around the propriety of disputing the title, scope, and content of the Occupation of Latvia 1940-1945 on the basis of opinion without reference to verifiable cites to published reliable sources.

Comment by Arbitrators:

On a trivial level, sources (e.g. official Russian resolutions) for the alternative viewpoint were provided. While it's certainly possible to argue that they're unreliable, insufficient, biased, propagandistic, etc., determining that is up to the consensus of the article's editors; it remains outside the purview of ArbCom to make that judgement here. Kirill Lokshin 17:38, 10 February 2007 (UTC)

However this one single reference to the official Russian resolution supporting an alternative viewpoint was in fact provided by Doc15071969, a supporter of the occupation viewpoint . Vecrumba did incorporate that viewpoint into the article, third paragraph in fact. This illustrates the efforts Vecrumba and Doc15071969 made to find balance in the article. It also illustrates the total bankrupcy of the opposing sides claim that the title, scope and content of the article is POV, because they have still failed to back their argument with one single cite to published sources.

Persistantly disputing the title, scope, and content of the Occupation of Latvia 1940-1945 on the basis of opinion without reference to verifiable cites to published reliable sources is a behavioual issue which has wider implications beyond Occupation of Latvia 1940-1945. If an Arbitration ruling implies that a lower standard of WP:OR and WP:V is required when disputing the title, scope and content of an article, then I could well imagine the more extreme participants of the Usenet group alt.revisionism for example, taking note of this new development and begin disputing a whole raft of articles that in their "strong opinion", view as not being neutral. Martintg 04:37, 11 February 2007 (UTC)

Comment by parties:

Proposed. Martintg 11:35, 10 February 2007 (UTC)

Accepted. Constanz - Talk 12:26, 10 February 2007 (UTC)

Disagree. Fitness of the tendentiously picked scope with the tendentious title and selective coverage is what is challenged. Not the sources or their citations. --Irpen 08:48, 11 February 2007 (UTC)

Comment by others:

Dispute tags

1) A number of parties—including Advocatus diaboli, Constanz, Ghirlandajo, Grafikm_fr, Petri Krohn, Lysy, Irpen, and Martintg—have engaged in a revert war over the presence of the {{POV-title}} and {{noncompliant}} tags on the article.

Comment by Arbitrators:

Proposed. Kirill Lokshin 04:05, 9 February 2007 (UTC)

Comment by parties:

I disagree with calling the development a revert war. Sterile revert wars are usually not accompanied by good faith discussions at talk. Parties extensively and mostly civilly explained their actions at the talk page and the talk page debate was detailed and comprehensive. The onlookers attracted by two articles RfC were divided in their support of either party. --Irpen 04:32, 9 February 2007 (UTC)

Which is why I didn't call it "sterile"; but a revert war with simultaneous debate on the talk page is still a revert war. Kirill Lokshin 04:40, 9 February 2007 (UTC)

A revert supplied with an extensive and good faith explanation at talk is not much different from an edit. Revert war usually applies to fast and unexplained or frivolously explained reverts. --Irpen 04:46, 9 February 2007 (UTC)

Twelve reverts of the tags in a single day qualifies as both, I think. Kirill Lokshin 04:48, 9 February 2007 (UTC)

It depends. The full context matters a lot. Please get a hold of it. --Irpen 04:55, 9 February 2007 (UTC)

Comment by others:

Poor behavior

1) A number of the parties to the dispute, including Grafikm_fr (), Constanz (, , , , ), Advocatus diaboli (), Martintg (), and Lysy (), have aggravated it by engaging in personal attacks or assuming bad faith of the other editors involved.

Comment by Arbitrators:

Proposed. Kirill Lokshin 04:05, 9 February 2007 (UTC)

Comment by parties:

I click on the very first link in the proposed finding of fact which is supposed to be a personal attack by Grafikm_fr and, sorry, I do not see any in the link. This entry would not be appropriate for a conversation in the manner's school, true, but nothing warranting an ArbCom intervention, especially taking into account the context in which that edit was made. I can check them the other diffs too, but I would rather request that when something is proposed, the proposal is more clearly warranted by diffs. Please check again. --Irpen 04:30, 9 February 2007 (UTC)

I think Kirill means ABF in that case. Blnguyen (bananabucket) 04:32, 9 February 2007 (UTC)

The constant accusations of "trolling" in these diffs are sort of borderline between merely ABF and actual attacks; I don't think it's going to be useful to quibble over the exact boundary between the two here. Kirill Lokshin 04:38, 9 February 2007 (UTC)

True of course, I was just pointing out that you were valid either way. Blnguyen (bananabucket) 04:39, 9 February 2007 (UTC)

Ah, sorry, reflex indenting there; I had meant that as a direct reply to Irpen's comment. Kirill Lokshin 04:43, 9 February 2007 (UTC)

Accusations of "trolling" may or may not be a personal attack depending on the context at which they were made. I humbly request the Arbitrators to not restrict their research to the parties' statements but read the talk page in its entirety just one single time. It will take, perhaps, 20 minutes or so, true enough, but would save more time not to be spend on the discussions and explanations once the jury gets better informed of the full case and its context. --Irpen 04:51, 9 February 2007 (UTC)

I did read the entire thing; and I stand by my assertion that these accusations were borderline personal attacks and only served to aggravate the dispute. Kirill Lokshin 05:10, 9 February 2007 (UTC)

Thanks for spending time on reading the entire thing. This is actually the only thing I ask all the involved arbitrators to do. Now, could be that the discussion could have hypothetically be better. But was it that bad to warrant the ArbCom's intrusion.?Check, eg. talks and archives of such pages like Talk:New antisemitism, Talk:Atheism or even Talk:Jogaila. Those discussions are much worse and parties somehow manage to make slow progress without dramatic ArbCom intervention. The matter at hand consists of the content conflict between several editors who are acting in good faith and mostly reasonably. Outside opinions started to come in and were split as well. One user is too unhappy from not getting what he wants and decides to short-circuit a discussion and further DR steps by going directly to arbitration. I mean, fine, if this is what ArbCom wants to sort out but it is setting a strange precedent. Finally, accusations of trolling, while indeed borderline, are neither produced out of thin air or are exceptional, especially comparing to the debates at the talk pages of other hot-topic articles. Grafikm_fr, an author of several FA's devoted to the history of this very period (WW2), had already the pleasure of dealing with this particular opponent and may have had some basis for his opinion even if it is, as Kirill says, indeed "borderline". --Irpen

I reject this statement by Kirill: “A number of the parties to the dispute, including Grafikm_fr (), Constanz (, , , , ), Advocatus diaboli (), Martintg (), and Lysy (), have aggravated it by engaging in personal attacks or assuming bad faith of the other editors involved.”
This statement is not impartial, since - apart from Grafikm fr - only majority POV promoters are listed here as assuming bad faith and often using personal assaults. But what about numerous ugly Holocaust denial accusations by Petri Krohn () and Grafikm fr () (repeated by Ipren ()), general anti-Baltic comments by Grafikm fr ( ) and Petri Krohn (Baltic governments accused of Nazism ). Why forget these? Constanz - Talk 10:43, 9 February 2007 (UTC)

Those aren't mentioned here primarily because they're either comments in the arbitration statements themselves—I don't think it's really appropriate to base a ruling on the proceeding itself—or not "personal" attacks, per se. While I agree that disparaging entire countries is generally unhelpful, it doesn't seem quite the same thing as disparaging particular editors. (I had actually intended, originally, to include a more general "Negative comments along national lines" finding that would cover the sort of thing you mention, as well as similar comments by a number of other parties; that's why I added in the "Nationalistic point of view" principle, above. On further reflection, though, I'm not convinced that such a finding would be either necessary or particularly helpful to actually resolving the issue here.) Kirill Lokshin 16:34, 9 February 2007 (UTC)

Comment by others:

Inadequate citation

1) Both sides of the debate have generally failed to cite the sources for their assertions.

Comment by Arbitrators:

Proposed. Kirill Lokshin 04:05, 9 February 2007 (UTC)

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Constanz has cited atleast three verifiable reliable sources to published material that back his assertion that Latvia was occupied. Martintg 05:23, 9 February 2007 (UTC)

Which may or may not justify the usage of the term in the article's text but the locus of the dispute is whether they justify the usage of the strong term in the title of the article devoted to the entire history of the country in the specific period, for which the natural title would be ]. Further, no other article than under the History of the period title should be devoted to several different things in the history separated by time and completely different by scope. --Irpen 05:36, 9 February 2007 (UTC)

This is not a content dispute, but whether one side is pushing an alternate POV based upon original research. I've shown one side has posted at least three cites. The other side nil. To say both sides have generally failed to cite sources is not a finding in fact I would make.Martintg 05:57, 9 February 2007 (UTC)

Without getting into a discussion of these particular sources, I think it's quite valid to make the general point here despite the fact that three sources were provided by an editor for a particular point; the vast bulk of that 160K discussion nevertheless consists of uncited assertions. Kirill Lokshin 07:07, 9 February 2007 (UTC)

It is noteworthy, however, that the vast bulk of the discussion is devoted not to asserting and disproving specific facts but to the propriety of the title for the scope of the article as well as the propriety for any article other than devoted to the history in general to have a scope that includes three events separated both in time and by the players who took part in them. Remember WP:TE. --Irpen 07:38, 9 February 2007 (UTC)

To equate the side which has constructively contributed to the article with the 3 man side which WITHOUT EXCEPTIONS used WP:OR is unacceptable. (See the references of the article). The occupation fact is well referenced, by using other encyclopedias (see arbitration or article talk) and neutral sources (by legal experts). Constanz - Talk 10:51, 9 February 2007 (UTC)

A quick count on the talk page reveals atleast 19 separate cites to published sources that directly support occupation, whereas in 160k of discussion, the opposing side fails to cite any references to support their claim that occupation did not occur. Zero. I can go through the talk page and list them all if you like. Three, let alone 19, is infinitely more than zero, regardless of the volume of the talk page. So it cannot be said that both sides did not cite sources. Martintg 16:37, 9 February 2007 (UTC)

That would be helpful, particularly if you could also list what sections the citations occurred in. I may very well have missed noting some links here; but it was my impression, based on reading through the discussion, that the bulk of it isn't sourced. Kirill Lokshin 16:49, 9 February 2007 (UTC)

Cites supporting "occupation" argument in talk page. Four cites here . One cite here . Another cite here . Here ,,,. Two given here . Three given here . Four here , one here ,,. Martintg 11:14, 10 February 2007 (UTC)

Meh, fair enough; this probably isn't an accurate enough finding to be useful here. Kirill Lokshin 17:40, 10 February 2007 (UTC)

The notion that the term occupation is not sufficiently cited is astounding. It is rather that people here have disputed even Congressional committee findings using the word, encyclopedia articles using the word, and Latvian museums even though the documents they have in their collections are of Soviet origin. The best is, characterizing it all as anti-Russian Cold War propaganda on the basis of WP:OR that the use of the word occupation "coincided" with the beginning of the Cold War--i.e., the Cold War led to it being called the Soviet occupation (!), not that acts such as the Soviet occupation led to the Cold War. This qualifies as a "content dispute"?  —  Pēters J. Vecrumba 18:32, 10 February 2007 (UTC)

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State of the article

1) Despite the extensive debate, the article remains largely devoid of citations to reliable sources.

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Proposed. Kirill Lokshin 04:05, 9 February 2007 (UTC)

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Rejected. See talk for numerous sources which prove that Latvia was occupied. Kirill Lokshin is unfortunatley equating the side which has presented evidence and referenced the article with the side, which used original research and straw man arguments.
I can't understand what Kirill means by “devoid of (...) reliable sources”. The encyclopedias and legal books are not enough? Constanz - Talk 10:57, 9 February 2007 (UTC)

The important part of this was "devoid of citations to reliable sources" (emphasis mine); while the article does list a number of sources, most of the text is not cited to them in any obvious manner. Perhaps the wording wasn't clear here? Kirill Lokshin 16:24, 9 February 2007 (UTC)

Whatever the current deficiencies in citing, not a single one of the arguments presented in the article has been overturned (an alternative opinion given). --Constanz - Talk 12:24, 10 February 2007 (UTC)

That's the very question being debated, is it not? In any case, this is merely noting the deficiency in citing; the finding makes no comment on whether the material is accurate. Kirill Lokshin 17:41, 10 February 2007 (UTC)

As I've indicated repeatedly, it is only for lack of time I have not gone back to insert inline references to materials already listed--and frankly, this whole morass here is the primary reason why I have not been so motivated as article history has shown that no reference substantiating the word "occupation" is beyond being labeled "POV" and with no further basis of proof. = behavior issue, not content dispute.  —  Pēters J. Vecrumba 18:39, 10 February 2007 (UTC)

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Proposed remedies

Note: All remedies that refer to a period of time, for example to a ban of X months or a revert parole of Y months, are to run concurrently unless otherwise stated.

Parties admonished

1) The parties named above are admonished to avoid engaging in personal attacks and assumptions of bad faith.

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Proposed. Kirill Lokshin 04:13, 9 February 2007 (UTC)

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Needs to be more specific. Not all parties engaged in PA's and even those that where were relatively mild (a couple of vandalism accusations is all I can think of) to be of the ArbCom's consern. --Irpen 04:23, 9 February 2007 (UTC)

I disputed something in section named above by Kirill. He forgot the accusations of Holocaust denial and anti-Baltic comments e.g current governments said to be implanting Nuremberg-style laws and (unreferenced, probably self-invented) accusations of rising Nazi trends in the region (by Grafikm fr and Petri Krhn; see above).Constanz - Talk 11:01, 9 February 2007 (UTC)

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Parties reminded

1) All parties to the dispute are reminded of the need to cite reliable sources.

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Proposed. Kirill Lokshin 04:13, 9 February 2007 (UTC)

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Article probation

1) The article at the locus of this dispute is placed on probation. Any editor may be banned from it, or from other reasonably related pages, by an uninvolved administrator for disruptive edits, including, but not limited to, edit warring, inciviilty, and original research. The Arbitration Committee reserves the right to appoint one or more mentors at any time, and will review the situation in one year.

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Adapted from Misplaced Pages:Requests for arbitration/Election. Kirill Lokshin 04:13, 9 February 2007 (UTC)

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Would not hurt but seems unnecessary. Both sides were clearly acting in good faith and their failure to agree at this point can be addressed by more users reading the discussions and adding their input. Article's RfC attracted the onlookers. I will propose a title change and that would attract more eyeballs. If, however, ArbCom is willing to take the article under close watch, it will not hurt anything, of course, but I do not see why it is warranted. --Irpen 04:37, 9 February 2007 (UTC)

Kirill's idea is worth of trying. I'm afraid I can't fully agree with Irpen's statement that “oth sides were clearly acting in good faith”. I'm afraid the accusations of Holocaust denial and attempts to reduce the dispute to alleged Nazi nature of the Baltic nations is far from good faith. Constanz - Talk 11:06, 9 February 2007 (UTC)

User:Irpen, even if in good faith, engages in WP:OR in stating that since Latvia was a republic in the Soviet Union it could therefore no longer have been "occupied", that is, illegal annexation terminated illegal occupation .

With regards to RfCs, there was a similar one on Lithuania some time back and absolutely no one responded to produce any substantiated evidence the Baltics were not occupied, not even the person who was the cause for the origination of the request.

Generally I have found Wikipolicing inadequate, as policies like the 3-revert-rule punish the innocent (those putting back the original) with those causing the chain of reverts in the first place.

The only "policing" that will produce any results is that the term "occupation" not be subject to POV tagging on people's personal whim, specifically, that anyone POV tagging the article without specific and substantial evidence that is not WP:OR be banned from editing the article. Is Kirill Lokshin indicating the Arbitration Committee is willing to take that stand?  —  Pēters J. Vecrumba 19:13, 10 February 2007 (UTC)

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