Misplaced Pages

Revision as of 03:00, 6 September 2008

Create your own section to provide evidence in, and do not edit anyone else's section. Keep your evidence to a maximum of 1000 words and 100 diffs. Evidence longer than this will be refactored or removed entirely.

Anyone, whether directly involved or not, may add evidence to this page. Create your own section and do not edit in anybody else's section. Please limit your main evidence to a maximum 1000 words and 100 diffs and keep responses to other evidence as short as possible. A short, concise presentation will be more effective; posting evidence longer than 1000 words will not help you make your point. Over-long evidence that is not exceptionally easy to understand (like tables) will be trimmed to size or, in extreme cases, simply removed by the Clerks without warning - this could result in your important points being lost, so don't let it happen. Stay focused on the issues raised in the initial statements and on diffs which illustrate relevant behavior.

It is extremely important that you use the prescribed format. Submitted evidence should include a link to the actual page diff in question, or to a short page section; links to the page itself are insufficient. Never link to a page history, an editor's contributions, or a log for all actions of an editor (as those will have changed by the time people click on your links), although a link to a log for a specific article or a specific block log can be useful. 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 the talk page. If you think another editor's evidence is a misrepresentation of the facts, cite the evidence and explain how it is incorrect within your own section. Please do not try to re-factor the page or remove evidence presented by others. If something is put in the wrong place, leave it for the Arbitrators or Clerks 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 (and clerks, when clarification on votes is needed) may edit the proposed decision page.

Evidence presented by Deacon of Pndapetzim

Piotrus abused his admin-status battling over Republic of Central Lithuania

On March 12/3 (depending on time-zone), Piotrus was blocked for a violation of the 3 revert rule . Piotrus had been edit-warring on Republic of Central Lithuania, along with User:Halibutt, "against" two or three Lithuanian users. Piotrus added edit-summaries such as "this was all discussed before and this is the preferred version", despite the fact 3 editors were reverting it. He was the only one to breach the technicality of the rule, and was blocked for doing so.

On the #admins irc channel Piotrus used his admin status to misrepresent his "opponents" and by doing so got his block lifted. User:FT2 summarized what took place in the public channel:

Roughly speaking, Piotrus states he has been blocked and that the block was placed by someone criticized for blocks at arbcom and suspected on an RFCU of IP puppetry on the article in question. He states that being blocked for reverting vandals is not good and claims that as an "experienced admin" he should be warned and does not deserve blocking. He describes the incident as possible sock IP(s) making disruptive edits and states the two users are "pov trolls" who have been parties at Arbcom, and that he knows they are sockpuppets and he is mostly sure he knows who of.

FT2 wrote a long summary of the case, from which this is drawn, and saves me regurgitating it:

Visiting IRC to ask for an unblock is fine, as would emailing unblock-l be. But his descriptions of why are grossly inaccurate, his statement that he should have different treatment from the norm when in fact he has breached a more demanding standard as an admin is slightly shocking, and his description of his opponents is questionable, and in fact has now been looked at by two checkusers who feel it is not by any means evident. (It should be noted that I am AGFing a bit here by assuming Piotrus genuinely did have this belief.) He also described a new version as "the preferred version" when in fact it was only his preferred version. In fact a more factual analysis of his claims are that these were not "vandalism" by any definition in WP:VANDAL

This is available at Misplaced Pages:Administrators'_noticeboard/Archive134#Analysis. Piotrus, incidentally, also misused rollback during this edit-war, claiming later that this anonymous editor's preferred version was "vandalism", a claim also made by Piotrus' revert-ally User:Halibutt , a charge both part of and separate from the other charges mentioned here.

Piotrus' Holocaust in Lithuania caused bad faith

I may not have the endless supply of good-faith that is so frequently the appearance of admins new to situations, but this article was created by Piotrus almost immediately after returning from his block. Although a valid article topic, Piotrus knows that Holocaust-perpetration is one of the most sensitive historical topics in Lithuanian society. That it contained much selective material irritating to Lithuanian users and inspiring of bad-faith was as predictable as a Zimbabwean election, the results being evidenced by "tweaks" such as this (for the scores of others, just navigate the adjacent diffs). And not surprisingly, many tweaks contained hot-headed edit-summaries, and so Piotrus got seemingly what he wanted. User:Lokyz lost restraint often enough to give Piotrus enough diffs, which he was gathering in his secret page, to launch what appears in hindsight to be his clearly planned revenge arb-enforcement thread, the one that resulted in Lokyz' block. Three users, User:Irpen, (and two admins) User:Elonka and User:Angusmclellan expressed the view that Piotrus' diff-list was misleading (effectively dishonest, assuming Piotrus read as he was gathering) and that Piotrus was more interested in obtaining sanction against Lokyz than anything more constructive.(see comments at Misplaced Pages:Administrators'_noticeboard/Arbitration_enforcement/Archive19#Lokyz).

In addition to slandering the admin (see above) User:TigerShark (and compare his attempts to exploit, assuming he didn't instigate, the slander-only account User:Koretek for his statement), he also apparently sent TigerShark a nasty email lecturing and threatening him, all because he enforced WP:3RR.

Piotrus uses meatpuppetry for edit-wars

Whenever I've had a disagreement with Piotrus (not as often as perhaps would be convenient in these circumstances), I have noticed that his typical editing behaviour is to revert, scurry to leave messages on the talk pages of users he hopes will be friendly, await a sympathetic comment or two, and use that as an excuse to ignore all the significant issues raised while disingenously invoking policies he must know to be irrelevant and generally being confrontational and disingenuous.(e.g. this and the recent dispute in full (and his contribs in and around his posts there). He appears, in essence, to be a tendentious user with lots of experience as well as the sysop powers he acquired back in the day when standards were ... erm ... different.

Back in the day, Piotrus (primarily, but hardly solely) used - and oversaw - the Polish wikipedian's noticeboard as a recruiting ground for edit-warring tag-teams. This can be verified merely by checking the first half-dozen or so archives of Portal_talk:Poland/Poland-related_Wikipedia_notice_board. See for instance ] where presiding above the board is a template called "Articles needing attention", in fact a list of on-going edit-wars involving Polish and non-Polish users (mostly German and Russian). In fairness, this was mostly updated by User:Molobo, but Piotrus nevertheless frequently used the board to direct hoped-for meatpuppets to assist in his disputes, mainly those with the prolific Russian editor Ghirlandajo. This in its most extreme and blatant forms ended a little more than gradually when User:Elonka turned her attention to it and gradually shamed Piotrus out of it doing it so blatantly (see, for instance, here).

One would naturally expect that, unless Piotrus somehow developed some moral objection to this kind of thing, it would have continued offline. Email is always there, and Piotrus regularly chats to fellow Polish-speaking editors on IM (see the following requests , and recently during the Boleslaw I dispute, . From what I can gather, usually when Piotrus has run out of reverts in an edit war, the fourth reverters are most often Tymek, Molobo and Darwinek. However, just the other day it was User:Alden Jones, who magically appeared after a 3 week + absense just after Piotrus' third successive revert was reversed. Piotrus subsequently came up with a story that Alden was a loving fan who reverts on his own accord through devotion to him, despite Piotrus' alleged protests. However, against this inventive story are the following:

• It is more likely, esp given the timing, that Alden was on IM than that he was following Piotrus' contributions at that so convenient point in time
• Alden confessed on his talk page that he went there on the request of another user, the only candidates being Piotrus or his guardian angel (of the five editors, he and Alden were the only one reverting to his version) presumably at Piotrus' instigation, that someone else asked him ... obviously, ehm, Piotrus' guardian angel]
• Piotrus' condemnation of Alden's revert, despite a long history of reverting for Piotrus and a claim made to Renata that they were good friends, was made in public only after, and on the same day as, Alden had made that confession.

Besides, this is only the most recent instance of his use, Piotrus revert-warring over Trakai Voivodeship in early June:

• 1r, 22:41, June 6, 2008
• 2r, 23:06, June 6, 2008
• 3r, 21:08, June 7, 2008
• 4r, 21:23, June 7, 2008
• 21:27, June 7, 2008 self-revert

and ...

• Alden Jones reverts to Piotrus, "as Piotrus", 21:41, June 7, 2008

Same thing, this time late July, on Holocaust in Nazi-occupied Poland:

• 1r 20:03, July 30, 2008
• 2r 20:07, July 30, 2008
• 3r 20:13, July 30, 2008

then, the hero worshipper comes to the rescue

• Alden Jones, reverting to Piotrus, 21:33, July 30, 2008

For another instance, in July, see Revision history of Truce of Vilna. You can check Alden Jones' contribs for more; it will also be seen that he does nothing more than help Piotrus, usually at convenient points most easily explained by being requested on IM. Anyways ... I got a word-count limit here, and so I'll end it and leave (for now) other stuff for others. I'd welcome arb requests to supply more evidence or to elaborate on specific points. But to conclude, Piotrus, while his abuse of his \admin powers is limited these days, abuses his admin status, chronically violates the spirit of WP:BATTLE, and has demonstrated such a lack of good-conduct and personal integrity that his fitness to retain such status must be questioned by all reasonable wikipedians.

Evidence presented by Piotrus

Replies to meatpuppetry allegation

Meatpuppetry: In addition to my reply in opening statement addressing Alden, who is somewhat of a basketspecial case (see here), I would also like to add that I am not stupid :) Long after the argument "Piotrus uses GG for evil purposes" was first raised I've continued to ask new Polish editors, on en Misplaced Pages, if they use Gadu-Gadu. I've done so publicly instead of emailing them because I've nothing to hide. I will not be cowed into hiding my good faithed actions (if I truly meant to run a cabal, I'd do it much more discreetly). As I wrote, I talk about Misplaced Pages and other issues with various editors (not only Poles), some of whom I now count among friends. Sometimes we talk about recent articles and events on Misplaced Pages just as most active editors do. Never, however, we do so with the intent of "let's start an edit war on some article, bait editor X into 3RR and make the life of a particular group of miserable", as was suggested.

Sometimes I look at edits by my friends, edit or comment on their new articles (for recent examples, see my edits at Polish Radio Lwów, an article I found after looking at Tymek recent contribs, or see this DYK notification, a result of a DYK nomination I made after I saw a promising new article created by Halibutt, which I found by looking at his recent contribs). I've also created and monitor the Portal:Poland/New article announcements and presumably I am not alone. I am sure some of them do the same thing: look at what their friends edit and help out (and vast majority of such edits are not reverts, Alden being the unfortunate exception). That Alden found something to revert (on three occasions - consider that all that fuss is really about three reverts...) is not surprising, since (being in the Top 50 most active Wikipedians), simple numbers explain that I am relatively often involved in some controversial disputes. So three times he looked at my contribs and he found instances where I was recently reverted and joined in... you hardly need a conspiracy to explain that (and how often did he log in and not seen something to revert?). In any case, he is not a very efficient meatpuppet (A, he "helped" me only three times, and B, a good meatpuppet would not be so evident - again, if I wanted to have a meatpuppet, I'd have enlisted somebody, ekhm, less naive :). I doubt there is any cabal: as I've explained here, the kid probably misunderstood some good faith explanation why he should not "help" me that way... There is no bad intent anywhere, rather - there's a normal activity and cooperation, found between any members of a reasonably active WikiProject (and Polish noticeboards doubles as WikiProjectPoland). That WikiProject is no cabal, we were not shamed into changing our name, we did it because it was a logical move and we wanted more editors to join us, not only Polish nationals. Once most noticeboards had a name suggesting they are only for a given nationalities, this has changed and I was one of the people who suggested this early on. Not all noticeboards have done so, but I've no intent to believe that (for example) Misplaced Pages:Australian Wikipedians' notice board is an Australian cabal :) This was also discussed long time ago at in this mediation.

Finally: since IMs logs are private and often don't exist, the accusation that one uses IMs "for evil purposes" can never be proven (as Biophys pointed out below); on the other hand, I believe we have ample evidence here of "bad faith" and "slander" accusing Polish editors of "evil cabalism" (and me of being the arch puppeteer). This continuing slander can be easily proven and should be penalized (it is damaging to our community, as, surprisingly enough, some people don't like to be accused of being part of a cabal; I know at least one Polish editor who told me "in future I want to be an admin, and if I hang around Polish noticeboard, the usual crowd will veto my RfA because of that". A smiliar attitude can be seen in this statement by Poeticbent. To put an end to this, I would like ArbCom to consider stating whether there is a Polish cabal, whether accusations of such constitute personal attacks, and whether such accusations going on for years and several ArbCom merit some form of civility parole.--_{Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus| talk} 21:09, 2 September 2008 (UTC)

Evidence against tag teams will be presented shortly.

{Write your assertion here}

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

Evidence presented by Moreschi

{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.

{Write your assertion here}

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

Evidence presented by Sciurinæ

Molobo and Koretek

Only a day after Deacon of Pndapetzim initiated the request for arbitration, a brand-new account by the name of Koretek (talk · tag · contribs · deleted contribs · logs · filter log · block user · block log · CA · CheckUser(log) · investigate · cuwiki) was created, which claimed to be a "not established user" and only tried to dismiss Deacon's request for arbitration on spurious evidence as an "attack by polonophobic". One of the shallow points was the emphasis on the fact that Deacon had himself renamed and was formerly known as Calgacus. I had seen something like that before - Molobo (talk · tag · contribs · deleted contribs · logs · filter log · block user · block log · CA · CheckUser(log) · investigate · cuwiki) asked Deacon in March this year whether that was him and Deacon responded unambiguously affirmatively. After that, however, Molobo still wanted to point out to Piotrus and others that Deacon was no other than Calgacus: in a content dispute with Deacon as part of his comment against Deacon's point of view.

Molobo has reason to defend Piotrus, who in turns takes pains to defend Molobo against indef-blocks ( ). In addition, Molobo didn't appear to like Deacon particularly ( ). And moreover, Molobo had a history of attacking people as just being against Poles ( ). All of Koretek's supposed evidence consists of shameful (mis)interpretations that go along the lines of assuming that if you argue against one or a few Polish users or one historian, you must be doing this only because you hate Poles in general. You'll also find the same fallacy in this comment. Molobo and Koretek also have the same opinions - about a Polish name for the monarch: , about the correctness of criticism against the historian: , about the "polonophobic" element in Misplaced Pages () and the "antipolish" sentiment in general ( ), about a "Polish cabal": ("a very negative prejudice", "contrary to AGF", "attacking Polish editors as whole" ).

Molobo was also involved on all the relevant talk pages where the links point to and/or in the relevant disputes. In fact, he already immediately reported Deacon for the vulgar slip. The last accusation is no less ridiculous, the accusation of renaming himself in a cloak-and-dagger style to survive an Rfa. In reality, Deacon had himself renamed (linking his old talk page to the new user) many months after the unpleasant events at Talk:Jogaila. Again many more months later, two users nominated him at Rfa. He immediately mentioned that his former username was Calgacus and even that he had had unpleasant experiences at Talk:Jogaila (he mentioned the Jogaila affair even twice, like it was important) - and became an admin. The way Koretek portrayed it was a complete reversal of the truth, and Piotrus was only all too happy to buy into this, incorporating this shameless diff as the first in his essay.

I once noticed Molobo had been using a mass of sockpuppets in the last few months of his one-year block. The problem was that, then, he hadn't been editing with the main account since November 2006 () and as the IP was new and from the neighbouring city, old IP evidence was no use, going without IP evidence would possibly just be attacked by blank denial (eg), but I was probably foolish to simply leave the matter at that because by the time he had finally betrayed that his new IP was in line with the sock chain, a few months had already passed and therefore nothing could be done about that. A few days later Molobo brushed it under the carpet ( ) - and gone it was. Please consider using CU on Koretek in connection with Molobo. Sciurinæ (talk) 23:29, 31 August 2008 (UTC)

{Write your assertion here}

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

Evidence presented by User:greg park avenue

Support User:Piotrus against the above mentioned adversary(ies). The evidence lies clear on the hand if I may use a German idiom, right here. I don't bother with our Lithuanian friends - they were pals or allies of us polacks since centuries - we always get along and will find common ground, mind just Boody and his obvious supporters/sockpuppets who seem to try to impersonate negative stereotype of some particular minorities - a role they don't fit in. That must end once and for all, at least here on Misplaced Pages. I am for one state Israel/Palestine, see my user page, not very popular idea yet - there is no common ground there - both sides try to undermine each other using all possible ways available including inciting hate against each other. The ones most active in English Misplaced Pages edit warriors use this tool to antagonize Polish, Ukrainians, Lithuanians, Germans, Jews etc against each other. They the provocateurs in my experience descend from the former priviledged special forces class known in Poland as SB (2 million), in USSR as KGB (??? zillion), stripped from the prominence after the fall of the Soviet Union and holding the grudge for that, still they have access to significant funds in form of fat social security checks and unlimited time to spend behind their own PC bitching about almost anything and anybody while their younger fellow citizens must struggle to survive, forget about owning a PC. Polish fora say Onet.pl are full of them. Hundreds of bullshit comments delivered every minute even in the middle of the night. Didn't look at that chickenshit lately, don't have to, next time I access English Misplaced Pages, I'm afraid it'll be the same or very close to that until someone does something about it. My best advice is to follow Piotrus comment - strictly enforce WP:CIVIL or give up this project. greg park avenue (talk) 03:42, 1 September 2008 (UTC)

More evidence regarding User Boodlesthecat disruptive and uncivil activity - this section was added after the user in question sent hate mail to Piotrus which included words you are such a dick see User_talk:Ryan_Postlethwaite/archive18#How_WP:CIV_works. These diffs are just samples of his comments posted on Talk of Fear: Anti-Semitism in Poland after Auschwitz following his obsessive reverts: , , . Most of my posts were called anti-semitic rants and ALL MY EDITS of this article which were many see were reverted by this user or his mirror accounts User:Malik Shabazz or User:Malcolm Schosha etc. see . Not even one of my edits survived. For Malik's disruptive activity see - this barnstar was granted after the hate mail mentioned above was sent to Piotrus while Boody was temporarily banned (48 hrs only). greg park avenue (talk) 22:25, 1 September 2008 (UTC)

Can an admin please refactor greg park avenue's anti-semitic rant above?

Or explain to me just WTH "Boody and his obvious supporters/sockpuppets who seem to play Jew but they don't sound like that. My impression is they try to impersonate the negative stereotype of Jewish people. That must end once and for all, at least here on Misplaced Pages" is supposed to mean? The ranter above is, btw, the same greg park avenue whom Piotrus protected and threatened to block me for removing one of his previous Jew-baiting rants. Boodlesthecat 23:44, 1 September 2008 (UTC)

{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.

{Write your assertion here}

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

Evidence presented by User:Biophys

Tag-team accusations are difficult to prove

I do believe that tag-teams exist, but this is difficult to prove, as reflected in that discussion. For example, Deacon of Pndapetzim and Irpen are making similar reverts in the same article . Deacon of Pndapetzim never edited this article before and he did not justify his edit at the article talk page. But does it prove the tag-teaming? Alden Jones and Piotrus also made similar changes in articles. Does it prove the tag-teaming? The both Irpen and Deacon of Pndapetzim filed cases against Piotrus. Does it prove anything? No. This only proves that Deacon of Pndapetzim wanted to help Irpen and that Alden Jones wanted to help Piotrus. Nothing more. Or perhaps this simply proves nothing.

Irpen follows edits by Piotrus, which is not helpful

Piotrus and Irpen were often painted as two equally “nationalistic” users. This is not so. All cases I know about followed the following scenario: (1) Piotrus makes a significant contribution or creates a new article; (2) Irpen comes to re-edit the article and to challenge Piotrus with various issues that are partly legitimate, but in fact lead to a huge disruption of productive work by Piotrus and others. Some of Irpen's comments and minor corrections are usually good, but the disruption cased by a prolonged discussion and edit warring usually outweights the benefits if any. I can provide only a few examples, since my interaction with the both users was very limited.

Example 1. Defense of Brest Fortress. This defense was an icon of the Soviet war history, something everyone in the Soviet Union was proud of. But it was “Polish nationalist” Piotrus who created and greatly expanded this article about Russian heroes starting from the old version of Brest fortress. Now, it is the turn of Irpen. After making several minor changes in the article, he began an exhausting discussion with Piotrus. One of main contention points is the fate of main celebrity, Russian hero Piotr Gavrilov who was later imprisoned to Gulag.

In the beginning of this discussion Irpen admits that Gavrilov was sent to Gulag. However later Irpen changes his position in favor of an old Soviet propaganda version (that Gavriolov was never imprisoned) . Unfortunately, Piotrus does not know Russian and can only use Western sources. He asks me for translation. After being confronted with Russian sources about the imprisonment of Gavrilov , Irpen still disputed the sources and achieved the elimination of Gavrilov’s imprisonment from the “Fortress” article.

Note that User:Deacon of Pndapetzim (who brought this case) was also engaged in this discussion making “funny” comments like that. I have no idea what “porno” he is talking about. Finally, it was “Polish nationalist” Piotrus who created another article about Russian hero Piotr Gavrilov.

Example 2. Przyszowice massacre. This article is about an important but a local event. Therefore, it was described mostly in the Polish press. The sources obviously satisfy WP:Verifiability. An extremely long, exhaustive, and completely unfounded discussion has been initiated by a banned user Vlad fedorov and by Irpen . Even asking for 3rd opinions did not help much. An extensive edit warring between Vlad fedorov and several other users followed. Such a waste of time!

Irpen promotes Soviet version of history

Some believe that Irpen and Piotrus are enormously productive editors. Yes, I have seen a number of good or fair articles created or contributed to by Piotrus. However I did not see much created by Irpen. Yes, Irpen has ~11,000 of main space edits, just like me and many others. The remainder (two thirds) of his edits can be found at numerous talk pages. His “main” article is Holodomor (~350 main space edits). This article is about the Ukrainian famine, and I think it is terrible. First of all, this article has no narrative, "factual" section. It does not explain at all what had happen, but discusses such contentious questions as “who was guilty?” or “was it genocide or not?” Second, this article is based on a lot of Russian and Ukrainian sources by authors no one knows about. Why? I have tried to bring a book specifically about these events written by the best Western scholar on the subject, Robert Conquest (he wrote ~20 books on Russian history). But the source was sidelined by Irpen and his team on the totally false pretense of the source being outdated (please look at edit summaries in the diffs): . I spent some time at the article talk page, but finally gave up and decided never edit this article again. I am not as persistent as Piotrus.

Now let me cite an essay about typical behavior of “nationalistic editors”:

1. "The absolute rejection of all scholarship not coming from authors of the same nationality that our nationalist is whitewashing." and
2. "Removing references to peer-reviewed books by reputable academics in favor of random blogcrap off the internet"..

Although the latter can be said about the removal of a book by Robert Conquest, I do not think Irpen is a “nationalistic” user. No, there is nothing “nationalistic” in promoting the Soviet version of history. Biophys (talk) 20:38, 1 September 2008 (UTC)

Evidence presented by {your user name}

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

{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.

{Write your assertion here}

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