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Please make a section for your evidence and add evidence only in your own section. Please limit your main evidence to a maximum 1000 words and 100 diffs and keep responses as short as possible; a shorter, concise presentation is more likely to be effective. Please focus on the issues raised in the complaint and on diffs which illustrate behavior which relates to the issues. If you disagree with some evidence you see here, please cite the evidence in your own section and provide counter-evidence, or an explanation of why the evidence is misleading. Do not edit within the evidence section of any other user.

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

Behaviour of experienced editors as model

Petri Krohn, whose RFC/U Misplaced Pages: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)

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
  • Claim that dismissing the Holocaust is common among Estonians
  • False claim that the Estonia denies the right for a church to practice religion, with comparison to China.
  • Estonian irredentism
  • And finally this hateful rant, where Estonian editors are accused of having Nazi skeletons in their closets , 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 , is "hate speech"
  • Claims of the existence of "hate groups" and "irredentism" on Misplaced Pages on Jimbo Wales' talk page
  • Claims that one party to a content dispute "are in fact a hate group" with Nazi sympathies

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)

Disruptive editors

Thanks to the failure of the community to deal with the behavioural issues in Misplaced Pages: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

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

RJ CG

  • Predominantely edit wars Estonia related articles, initially as 206.186.8.130 then as RJ CG since June , particularly Bronze Soldier, to put a "Estonians are Nazis" POV to them. . Here he attempts to encourage fellow editor Mikkalai to act as his meat puppet 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 .
  • Hard on the heals of his latest 96 hour block of August 31 , RJ CG immediately begins disrupting the same articles again

Beatle Fab Four

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

Apparent double standards

Otto ter Haar's only issue with Digwuren concerns Otto's attempted blanking of sourced content in Jüri Uluots . 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. 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 . After some discussion on the approach 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 , with the infamous Misplaced Pages: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 Misplaced Pages:Requests_for_comment/Petri_Krohn#Outside_view_by_Otto.

Irpen's claims

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

In regard to Deskana's evidence

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 Misplaced Pages.", 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)

Digwuren's one week block of July 16

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 , 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 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)

Compare and contrast Digwuren's one week block without warning for his single revert on Anti-Estonian sentiment with Ghirlandajo's 30 minute block for serious page move/revert disruption involving Soviet occupation . 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: Misplaced Pages: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)

In regard to Grafikm's evidence

Virtually all of Grafikm's evidence in regard to "edit warring" is connected with Estonia related articles. It takes two to edit war and note that it is either RJ CG or Petri Krohn involved here. Note too that Digwuren, Alexia Death and other Estonian editors, by virtue of the fact that they are Estonian and reside in Estonia and having language skills in Russian in addition to English and obviously Estonian, allowing them to access sources in all three languages, would have a better idea about Estonia related content than these two editors RJ CG and Petri Krohn, who can only access sources in two languages. There are two sides to every edit conflict, so who is disrupting who here? Is it the Estonian editors disrupting Estonia related articles, or is two editors with documented attitudinal issues RJ CG and Petri Krohn disrupting Estonia related articles.

In regard to his evidence of inflammatory templates, both are being adequately handled by the TFD process. There is no concensus for deletion, let alone that it is in any way divisive or inflammatory in Misplaced Pages:Templates_for_deletion#Template:Notpropaganda. In regard to Misplaced Pages:Templates_for_deletion#Template:POV_Russia, while there is concensus for deletion here, it is because the existing NPOV template is adequate for the job, not that it is inflammatory or POINTy. In regard to Digwuren's action in striking out a part of Irpen's statement, I believe he was simply acting according to WP:BOLD, striking out a part of the allegation which FR_Soliloquy objected to as being a suggestive, and prejudicial comment, lacking WP:AGF, be should be removed from this discussion. --Martintg 20:37, 10 September 2007 (UTC)

Concerns regarding Ghirlandajo's "evidence"

Here Ghirlandajo states: "I was informed recently that Digwuren, Alexia, and Suva took to using #wikipedia for spreading Russophobic propaganda and block shopping" and then goes on to claim "As a result, I stopped editing Estonia-related articles altogether". However a look at his edit history reveals he has never edited Estonia related articles, and he confirms this in his initial statement : "I have no interest in anything related to Estonia". Note that there was no mention of this IRC issue in his initial statement either, so it all seems rather contrived. Martintg 00:15, 17 September 2007 (UTC)

Attempts to vilify Estonian editors as meat puppets in unrelated articles

Petri Krohn, Ghirlandajo and his comrade Paul Pieniezny attempt to paint Estonian editors as bad faith meat puppets in Misplaced Pages: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)

Evidence presented by Deskana

Rein Lang article a major point of contention

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 . 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

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.

  • - "Let Estonians and Russians talk for themselves"
  • - "Explanation where Russia are coming from"
  • - "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 Misplaced Pages." while reverting him .

I blocked RJ_CG for 96 hours with the summary "edit warring on Rein Lang" , 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

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

  • Digwuren created Template:Big Sock Fishing, which contained a link to Misplaced Pages:Big Sock Fishing, which redirects to his checkuser case.
  • Digwuren created Misplaced Pages:Big Sock Fishing, redirecting it to Misplaced Pages:Requests for checkuser/Case/Digwuren . 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 Misplaced Pages."
  • Digwuren responds to the checkuser case on him with hostility . 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:
  • 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:

Evidence presented by Digwuren

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

  • 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)

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

I see Alexia Death has already made good progress regarding some of the wild claims by Grafimm 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.
    • and 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.
    • 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)

Irpen's pattern of disruption of articles related to the history of Soviet Union

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

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 . As we shall see, this is a common modus operandi by Irpen.

On Occupations of Latvia

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

On Soviet occupations

(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.)

On Irpen's supposed evidence

Irpen's "evidence" is nothing but wishful misinterpretation of facts, held together with an unhealthy dose of demagoguery. Let's approach it point by point.

Initial nonsense

Irpen starts with allusion to WP:MEAT. This is nonsense, as Alexia Death already pointed out. As far as I can tell, the major influx of editors from Estonia in late April and early May is an effect of the sorry state of the Bronze Soldier of Tallinn article during the most anxious events Estonia has seen since 1991. I know this is why I created an account, and started a systematic review of Estonia-related topics; I believe I've also seen Alexia Death elsewhere stating that this is why she joined the project. I do not know about Suva, but in his case, it's also likely the trigger.

Explaining results of a common trigger through a conspiracy theory is certainly not the best style of work. If this evidence page was a Misplaced Pages article, this explanation would be fast reverted as an example of shoddy original research.

As far as I can tell, the Estonia-based Wikipedians have never even met. Certainly, I have never met Alexia Death, or Suva, or Ptrt, or Erik Jesse, or 3 Löwi, or Staberinde, or Andres. Estonia may be a small country, but it is not that small. There have been talks of a meetup -- probably in Tallinn, so international guests could easily arrive through Tallinn International Airport -- somewhere in late September or October, but with both Alexia Death and Suva going on wikibreaks, I wouldn't hold my breaths until this actually happens.

The "university firewall issues" are a fiction invented by Petri Krohn and repeated, despite repeated explanation of its fictitiousness, by Ghirlandajo -- and here again, by Irpen. By my understanding, the relevant issue is, instead, that due to Estonia's large home Internet access penetration, Estonian ISPs customarily organise their IP ranges into relatively range whois blocks, and the checkuser procedure appears to assign unduly large weight on whois block equivalence, possibly for neutralising dynamic address pool issues. Unfortunately, Estonian private address space is largely a few huge dynamic address pools, so this neutralisation also neutralises distinction between most Estonian users. Ironically, the only major users of public static address regions -- in addition to the obvious public servers -- are government and education networks (see EENet), including the University of Tartu.

As far as I can tell, none of the five listed have actually edited Misplaced Pages through University of Tartu systems.

More Bronze Soldier

Sander Säde has already well explained the context of the early days of my involvement with Bronze Soldier article, so I won't replicate his work here. I would, however, point out that, unlike the Misplaced Pages rules of verifiability and neutrality, the WP:3RR is counter-intuitive, and not widely advertised when Misplaced Pages is being advertised. It took a while to get a hang on that.

Communication

Yes, I can speak Estonian. I don't see why that is a problem when discussing an issue with somebody who understands it well. Furthermore, in discussions regarding Estonian topics, is it not reasonable to expect that contributors who might want to review the discussion have at least a basic command of Estonian language?

Я тоже могу говорить по-русски, и иногда делал того здесь, в Misplaced Pages. По какой-то причине, Ирпен никогда не жаловал. Mein Deutsch ist wenig rostig, und ich would be afraid to try to talk in that over the embarrassment of making a horrible grammatical mistake. However, I don't see any reason why details of an article about, say, Bavarian rivers, might not be discussed in German. In fact, there are discussions -- some of them on encyclopædic topics -- where translation may hamper effective communication. Just today, when editing the article of Metsatöll, I had to add a number of translation notes because the Anglophone concept of Werewolf differs considerably from the Estonian concept of libahunt (or sutekskäija, which was the specific word used in that article). If I should ever work on an article on Kitzberg's classic literature work Libahunt — the book is in Estonian standard high school programme, by the way —, the nuances of that concept may need severe discussion, and just like it's impossible to properly discuss 狸 mythology without (at least occasionally) talking in 日本語, I would be then be forced to use Estonian.

Templates

Why would Irpen think that "For inclusion in Misplaced Pages, some more propaganda needs be added" is inflammatory? Is it because he intends to add some more propaganda, and is ashamed to do that when his cunning plan has been brought to limelight?

By the way, as an avid follower of Linné's brilliant idea of taxonomy, I believe Misplaced Pages would benefit greatly from having a differentiated system of {{POV}} tags. I have never gotten around to developing one, but I believe that Suva's steps were made in the right direction, even if poorly thought out.

On Petri Krohn

Petri Krohn is well known for his peculiar alternate history ideas and hatred towards Estonia, and he was very active on the Bronze Soldier article back when it was a hot topic. His antics from that era are thoroughly, although not exhaustively, discussed in Misplaced Pages:Requests for comment/Petri_Krohn, so, I won't stop on them for long. However, I being a new user, it took me a whole week to notice the pattern, and several weeks to constructing a waterproof case. (It should be noted that the WP:RFC/U, despite serious issues presented in it, was not really contested, but it was not allowed to come to a natural conclusion by premature deletion on faux procedural grounds raised by Bishonen.) In spirit of WP:AGF, I first attempted to discuss the issues on the talk page; see, for example, Talk:Bronze Soldier of Tallinn/Archive 3#Estonias Independency. Unfortunately, discussion with him eventually proved fruitless.

However, in my following review of Estonia-related Misplaced Pages space, I detected a number of other alternative history articles -- which happened to also have significant presence of Petri Krohn, possibly because he's the only one to have actively spread such fiction on Misplaced Pages --, and, in accordance with Misplaced Pages policies, I participated in cleanup of some of these articles, and nominated the non-encyclopædic ones for deletion through the XfD processes. As Sander Säde has already pointed out, I placed a fiction-based article's AFD into a fiction and arts category because it was fiction-based, and there weren't any better categories. (Creation of new categories so this problem wouldn't arise in the future wouldn't be a bad idea, I guess.) Implications of a concerted effort to persecute Petri Krohn are not only baseless and offensive; they're also grossly uncivil under the principle of Baseless accusations are uncivil, and I hope the Arbitration Committee will recognise this fact.

For an example of Irpen's skill at contextoctomy, let's consider his attempt to present as an admission of stalking. It's none of the sort! The comment Irpen quotes is a part of a courtesy notice to Petri Krohn, letting him know that a WP:RFC/U on his conduct is being planned, and inviting him to point out any mistakes that might have arised. For the purposes of gathering evidence for the WP:RFC/U, a thorough combing through Petri Krohn's contribution list was undertaken in the middle of June (and unfortunately, due to the faux timeline raised by Bishonen, only Petri Krohn's contributions from early May to June were reviewed, although there were also considerable issues in his contributions from earlier months). Calling that "stalking" is a gross misrepresentation of facts. Furthermore, Irpen's claims that Petri Krohn's stalking accusations were based on that courtesy notice are non-factual; to the best of my knowledge, Petri Krohn's first claim of stalking appears in edit summary of . Note the date of May 1; it's the very same day I created a Misplaced Pages account. I would suggest that Petri Krohn had paranoia or delusion of persecution issues in May (and possibly still has), but I suspect Irpen would then claim that my characterisation of the absurd allegations constitutes a personal attack against him.

On spelling names

Having observed Alexia Death's contributions for almost five months now, I believe she thinks in Estonian and may have a mild form of dyslexia. In Estonian, the name of Ghirlandajo is, indeed, nearly unprounceable, which would explain misspelling; add dyslexia to the mix and you get inconsistent misspellings. Furthermore, given how Irpen himself then goes on to misspell Sander Säde's name as "Sander Sade", I would say his complaining about misspelling another user's name is hypocritical. (Besides, this misspelling can be considered offensive. Säde in Estonian means spark; sade means rain or snow and is also used in the senses of fallout or, metaphorically, uninvited guest or thoroughly corroded machine.)

I myself have had my nick misspelt in many ways, often, but not always, by Alexia Death, as Diwuren, Diwurgen, Digurwen and otherwise. I don't complain, as I understand that language constraints may interfere. When writing in Russian, I sometimes sign as Дигвурен, which in back-transliteration would obviously transform into 'Digvuren'. My current signature is based on a Japanese adaptation of my nick, and, strictly speaking, back-transliterates as Dei Guren, but nobody has ever seen me complaining about me misspelling my nick. 泥紅蓮凸凹箱 00:12, 24 September 2007 (UTC)

On taunting

I have explained it before to Deskana, but it merits repeating here.

RJ CG is nothing but an annoying troll, too insignificant to deserve any taunting. Consequently, is not directed at him. It is a (non-French) taunt towards Irpen, whom it took more than a month to compile what meager "evidence" he has presented. I didn't even make the observation myself; I was just giving a nifty form to an earlier remark on Irpen's misplaced priorities.

For the record, here's a copy:

By the way. These sockpuppet accusations are proved to be baseless many times. Only you and some other editors use that claim. And about that ArbCom. There is much more evidence against you than Digwuren right now. Hmm, is there any evidence against Digwuren at all? :) Suva 14:16, 7 September 2007 (UTC)
Acute observation! Let's put it this way:
Updated DYK query Did you know...
...that the arbitration case named after Digwuren has more evidence presented against RJ CG than Digwuren, even though RJ CG has not yet been named a party?

At the time, before Grafikm fr's and Irpen's involvement on the evidence page, it was factual, too. (I prefer to make sure that I can use facts for backup even when I bluff.)

Final sarcasm

I can't help but end with a sarcastic remark: if assembling that took more than a whole month, what will happen if, in another month, Irpen's "evidence" saga continues?

{Write your assertion here}

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

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 Misplaced Pages. Indeed, as the ArbCom is probably aware of, Digwuren already has a lengthy record of blocks made by several admins for various disruptions . 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

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.
    • after another editor tries to NPOV it.
  • Jüri Uluots reverting almost the same stuff over and over in an attempt to POV it:
  • Lydia Koidula
    • edit made 26h after those 3 - how curious...
    • and here we go again
  • Rein Lang - edit warrying:
    • removing referenced content
    • and again
    • and again
  • Congress of Estonia
    • removing POV tags without consensus
    • and calling other editor's actions "vandalism" to boot.

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

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 Misplaced Pages.

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 Misplaced Pages, and then edit warried to remove part of Irpen's nomination:

    • -(this time he simply blanks the statement)

The whole thing was reported on WP:ANI by Irpen Misplaced Pages: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

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 Misplaced Pages. 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

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

Ghirla's concerns of block shopping are unfounded

Ghirla's concerns of block shopping are unfounded, evidenced by the statements made by the blocking admin and several unrelated admins .

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

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 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 . This lead to subsequent block of Ghirla for 24 hours , later shortened by blocking admin due to the fact that move waring was stopped and he did have a large edit count. 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.

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

Immediately after Ghirla's block Irpen posted an accusatory note of injustice at Ghirla's user page and they refused to stop even after several admins and other uninvolved people had endorsed the block . 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, 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 were subjected to similar treatment.

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

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

Additionally Irpen accuses people on Misplaced Pages for things that were said on #wikipedia in behalf of Ghirla and replacing Ghirla's statement 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

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. This IP editor later registered as RJ CG (talk · contribs).
  • RJ CG (talk · contribs) was soon edit waring again on the same article, removing sourced content without explanation and again and again .
  • On august 7th he tries to insert the same content again: reverting of witch was retaliated by removal of the same background information he revert wared over before . Only after his reverts are out he bothers to try discussion where it is rather obvious that he has no proper explanation why it should belong there.

Responses to Irpen's evidence

WP:MEAT accusations are groundless

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 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 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

  • 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. IMHO asking the complaining party to be blocked from AN/I is a clear trolling.
  • As to "insult filled reply", this 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 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

  • Block shopping: This diff, 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

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:
  • RFC/U on Ghirla closed in March 2006 has evidence of uncivil behaviour after being warned in AndriyK arbitration:
  • RFC/U on Irpen opened in June 2006(and still open for some reason) and its talk shows tagteaming , 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
  • Ghirla's RFC/U on Piotrus is part of the same pattern as nottet in his reply .
  • Piotrus-Ghirla Arbitration(Dec 2006-Feb 2007) dismissed, because of Ghirla's sudden inactivity
  • Piotrus Arbitration(Apr 2007-Aug 2007) evidence:

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 Misplaced Pages 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 Misplaced Pages 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)

Evidence presented by Irpen

WP:MEAT

Three related accounts Digwuren (talk · contribs), Suva (talk · contribs) and Alexia_Death (talk · contribs) appeared on Misplaced Pages 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 (Misplaced Pages:Requests for checkuser/Case/Digwuren, Misplaced Pages: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.

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 Misplaced Pages. 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 Misplaced Pages, they would communicate in Estonian, to prevent the comments from being read by other wikipedians.

Creation of inflammatory templates for article space

Inflammatory templates created by Suva

  • {{Notpropaganda}} prior to being subjected to TfD the template said: "{{PAGENAME}} may be written from ] 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

  • {{Insufficient propaganda}} "This article or section is written from a neutral point of view and does not have enough propaganda. For inclusion in Misplaced Pages, some more propaganda needs to be added."
  • {{Thoughtcrime}} "This article or section is written from a neutral point of view considered thoughtcrime. To fit in Misplaced Pages, it must be rewritten in accordance with guidelines of Minitrue."
  • {{I dislike this}} stating: "I, Misplaced Pages user {{{1}}}, do not like this article or section. Just thought you might want to know". Usage example.

Template the regulars

Digwuren's revert warring spree

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 Misplaced Pages consisted of reverts. See Grafik's post above for additional detail.

Stalking

  • Suva declares (concerning Petri Krohn): "I do have to admit, that I have, do and will "stalk" some editors whose edits are on the suspicious side to monitor the factual correctness and NPOV... I think many if not most wikipedians use other users contribution logs from time to time."
  • Digwuren to Petri Krohn: "As of now, I and other volunteers (sic!) have sifted through edits you have made since the beginning of May; that (hopefully) leaves only four more months to go." No wonder that Petri felt himself stalked by Digwuren.
  • Bishonen to Digwuren (concerning Ghirla): "Make sure you avoid user space harassment", probably referring to his edit warring with Ghirla on the latter's talk page (e.g., five "warnings" inserted to Ghirla's talk within several hours: , , , , ).
  • In flagrant violation of our rules, Digwuren publicized personal information concerning RJ CG's IP address. Later, User:FayssalF urged Digwuren to stop harrassing RJ CG on his talk page, lest he be blocked.

Incivility

Digwuren

Alexia

Suva

Sander Säde

Erik Jesse

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

To be continued

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)

Evidence presented by Ghirla

Preamble

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 Misplaced Pages. <...> 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 Misplaced Pages)

The hunt for RJ CG

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. 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

  • 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."
  • User:Digwuren/Petri Krohn's Story of Estonians (now deleted)
    • Misplaced Pages: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

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 Misplaced Pages policy".
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 Misplaced Pages 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.
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 Misplaced Pages, 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 Misplaced Pages".

Digwuren admits his WP:POINT issues

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 Misplaced Pages is for POINT. Heck, Misplaced Pages itself is POINT, specifically, "Misplaced Pages 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

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

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

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 Misplaced Pages 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 Misplaced Pages. —  Pēters J. Vecrumba 03:15, 23 September 2007 (UTC)

Evidence presented by Piotrus

Harassment of editors: an ongoing success story?

One of the primary motivations for people contributing to Misplaced Pages 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 Misplaced Pages:

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 (, - 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)

Evidence presented by Bishonen

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

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 Misplaced Pages 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, 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. 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).

A note on quoting #wikipedia logs

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 Misplaced Pages without actual contact or notice from me, I choose to not to make any permission request of him. In any case, he has merely prevaricated about a similar request from Irpen. 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).

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