User talk:Paul Siebert

Welcome! Hello, Paul Siebert, and welcome to Wikipedia! Thank you for your contributions. I hope you like the place and decide to stay. Here are some pages that you might find helpful:

• The five pillars of Wikipedia
• Tutorial
• How to edit a page
• How to write a great article
• Manual of Style

I hope you enjoy editing here and being a Wikipedian! Please sign your messages on discussion pages using four tildes (~~~~); this will automatically insert your username and the date. If you need help, check out Wikipedia:Questions, ask me on my talk page, or ask your question on this page and then place {{helpme}} before the question. Again, welcome! Arnoutf (talk) 20:49, 17 July 2008 (UTC)

Wikipedia:Arbitration/Requests/Enforcement

Hello, Paul Siebert,

I'm writing you about your statement at the Arbitration Enforcement board. Statements from editors are supposed to be limited to 500 words (Enforcement requests and statements in response to them may not exceed 500 words and 20 diffs) and yours clocks in at 552 words using this tool which is used in arbitration cases. I'm not going to ask you to cut your statement UNLESS you decided to add additional content in response to other statements. Should you want to add any responses, please trim your original statement to stay roughly around 500 words. Let me know if you have any questions. Liz ^{Read! Talk!} 00:50, 20 September 2019 (UTC)

Thank you Liz ^{Read! Talk!}, will keep that in mind.--Paul Siebert (talk) 00:55, 20 September 2019 (UTC)

Liz ^{Read! Talk!}, following your advise, I added a fresh response and trimmed the old one. It is around 650 words. I hope that is ok.--Paul Siebert (talk) 15:16, 20 September 2019 (UTC)

Re: updated C/R on your sandbox

Hello, Paul Siebert. You have new messages at Bigeez's talk page.
You can remove this notice at any time by removing the {{Talkback}} or {{Tb}} template.

Hi Paul, I hope when you are free, review your User:Paul Siebert/sandbox.

It is with your guidance that we would be most helpful to completing the task, since besides you and Nick-D (talk) there are few and far between who possess the moral compass and are instrumental and measure up to editing my work. Cheers, Eli Bigeez (talk) 23:06, 23 September 2019 (UTC)

Eli, I am somewhat busy with a nasty AE quarrel and real life problems, may I return to that in early October?--Paul Siebert (talk) 23:10, 23 September 2019 (UTC)

Hello Paul, by all means! Leave it be until you are free. Nothing is more important than your own life and family. I'm not sure what "AE" is, but if I can be of any assistance I am at your disposal. Cheers, Eli Bigeez (talk) 00:26, 25 September 2019 (UTC)

@Bigeez: the latter will you learn about AE, the better. It is a nasty thing, but nothing terrible.--Paul Siebert (talk) 02:54, 25 September 2019 (UTC)

Arbitration enforcement topic ban

The following sanction now applies to you:

You are topic-banned from everything related to the Eastern Front (World War II) (i.e. the Germany vs. USSR aspect of WWII) for three months. For the avoidance of doubt, this includes the reasons for the war, atrocities, etc., and also any continuation of your WWII-related conflict with the user My very best wishes in any forum, such as AE.

You have been sanctioned for the reasons provided in response to this arbitration enforcement request.

This sanction is imposed in my capacity as an uninvolved administrator under the authority of the Arbitration Committee's decision at Wikipedia:Requests for arbitration/Eastern Europe#Final decision and, if applicable, the procedure described at Wikipedia:Arbitration Committee/Discretionary sanctions. This sanction has been recorded in the log of sanctions. If the sanction includes a ban, please read the banning policy to ensure you understand what this means. If you do not comply with this sanction, you may be blocked for an extended period, by way of enforcement of this sanction—and you may also be made subject to further sanctions.

You may appeal this sanction using the process described here. I recommend that you use the arbitration enforcement appeals template if you wish to submit an appeal to the arbitration enforcement noticeboard. You may also appeal directly to me (on my talk page), before or instead of appealing to the noticeboard. Even if you appeal this sanction, you remain bound by it until you are notified by an uninvolved administrator that the appeal has been successful. You are also free to contact me on my talk page if anything of the above is unclear to you. Sandstein 19:50, 28 September 2019 (UTC)

Paul, you're obviously very knowledgeable about the Second World War. I look forward to having some Eastern-Front-related conversations in the future. On AI and AE, I think the bar for classifying what is an unacceptable personal comment should be set quite high. I can understand why the administrators there might want not to be troubled by certain types of accusations. On the other hand, they should probably make allowance for the fact that those accusations may be honest opinions being made in perfectly good faith.     ←   ZScarpia   19:44, 29 September 2019 (UTC)

Thanks. Frankly speaking, your interference at AE was hardly helpful. From what I understood about NPA, the question that I (and we all) should have focused on was: if there was a ground for the statement I made, so to say "Well, probably, it was an exaggeration to say that Suvorov was ... etc" was not helpful. What you were saying could be a subject of a talk page discussion, not AE page. You raised a good point in an inappropriate place: admins don't need and it seems they don't want to know these nuances. What they needed to know was: some reputable sources support my statement, so I had a right to make it.

By writing that, I am not blaming you in doing any harm, for, as recent events demonstrate, I am the only person who can do any harm to me. When you are getting older, it doesn't mean you are getting wiser.

I will be busy during the next couple of weeks, I'll let you know when I am ready to communicate: you seem to be an interesting person.--Paul Siebert (talk) 20:08, 30 September 2019 (UTC)

Hello Hello Paul Siebert (talk), I thought I'd check in to see if there was any update on the C/R thing, and not to push-in. But I was bewildered and perplexed at the other business. If that was the AE thing you told me about, I could only say humbug. You are the go-to man for WWII, and perhaps with Nick-D, the only ones with the know-how. Our discussions were nothing but helpful and never remonstrative. Your gentleman-like manners and forbearance serve as a reminder and a lesson for all. You do not kowtow to anyone, because you follow through with everything with perfect references. I don't wish to read anything more about it or say more about it. Anyway, please keep up the great work for World War II on your sandbox; some thought the pictures were too colourful? Cheers, Eli Bigeez (talk) 20:43, 30 September 2019 (UTC)

Thanks, Eli.--Paul Siebert (talk) 15:35, 3 October 2019 (UTC)

Paul, you have my sympathy to the extent that, having a similar misunderstanding to the way that AE and AI work regarding personal comments, I could very well be in the same situation. I think it would be better, unless comments are obviously unjustifiable, to ask editors to justify or remove their comments there at the time they are made rather than instantly, or some way down the line, issuing bans.

I realise that you will disagree with me, but I thought that Icewhiz badly misrepresented "Icebreaker", using a very specious argument. The aim of my comment was to neutralise that. If Sandstein's comment is true, statements by non-involved editors made little difference anyway. Unfortunately for Icewhiz, though, his statement, I suspect, probably provided some of the evidence used to ban him.

Before following the request in the previous comment, make sure that anything you write doesn't contravene the bit in the topic ban policy which mentions "user's own user and talk pages (including sandboxes)."

Regards.     ←   ZScarpia   12:17, 3 October 2019 (UTC)

Thank you @ZScarpia:

Again, I don't think you comments had any negative impact, I just wanted to let you know that AE page is probably not a good place for discussions of that kind.

With regard to NPA policy, I am going to return to that in close future, after I resolve a topic ban situation. I already asked a question at the NPA talk page, and the answer is: every statement must be seen in a context. That mean, even a post like "A user X is Nazi" may be not a personal attack if the evidences are provided that the user is a real Nazi.

In my opinion, a declared zero tolerance to Nazism implies two things: (i) false claims that a user is Nazi supporter are considered a serious personal attack, and (ii) all reported cases of real or perceived Nazi support must be carefully analyzed. Actually, many admins seem to be more focused at "i", but they tend to see "ii" as a content dispute. That means a declared goal of zero tolerance to Nazism became a policy of zero tolerance to whistblowers. In reality, "i" is senseless without "ii", and a correct implementation of the declared zero tolerance policy towards Nazism implies two things. First, no sanctions can be imposed on those who accuse others in being a Nazi supporter until evidences have been analyzed. If no evidences have been provided, or the evidences are obviously laughable, the user who throw such accusations must be blocked. If evidences confirm that a user is Nazi supporter, the result should be to ban the accused user. However, a third situation may be possible: the evidences look serious, but they are not sufficient to inequvocally conclude a user is Nazi supporter. In that case, no actions should be taken against both parties. In my opinion, a declared goal of zero tolerance to Nazism cannot be achieved if good faith whistleblowers are punished.

With regard to me, all of that has no relation to my case, for I didn't accused anybody of whitewashing Nazism. My statement was much softer, but all of that is my and Sandstein's busyness (so far).--Paul Siebert (talk) 15:35, 3 October 2019 (UTC)

Notice of Neutral point of view noticeboard discussion

There is currently a discussion at Wikipedia:Neutral point of view/Noticeboard regarding an issue with which you may have been involved. Thank you. See Wikipedia:Neutral point of view/Noticeboard#Gas van and also Wikipedia:Reliable sources/Noticeboard#An eyewitness account. Just to keep you informed.--Assayer (talk) 15:53, 4 October 2019 (UTC)

Thank you @Assayer: Your are doing a great job, and my interference is not required so far (I am the party of the dispute, so I would prefer other users to voice their opinion at that noticeboard).

Just few comments. In the collection of testimonies assembled by Lipkov I found one interesting comment:

"А показания самого Берга, что бы он сам о себе ни говорил, отнюдь не являются доказательствами. Может быть, из него их выбивали точно так же, как он выбивал их в свое время из других. "

Google translates it as:

"And the testimony of Berg himself, no matter what he says about himself, is by no means evidence. Maybe they knocked them out of him in the same way as he knocked them out of others at one time."

In general, all these testimonies are very interesting, and they should be discussed in some article related to Great Purge.

It is also important to note that Lipkov is not a historian. His speciality is cinema. In addition, he neither comments nor analyzes the testimonies, so his book is a just collection of primary sources assembled by a non-professional historian.

I have an impression that some user is going to game a system and eliminate you from a consensus building process. I am going to resolve this problem in a reasonably close future, but, for a while, I recommend you to be cautious in your statements.--Paul Siebert (talk) 23:09, 4 October 2019 (UTC)

A barnstar for you!

	The Original Barnstar
	No pasaran! GPRamirez5 (talk) 04:13, 19 October 2019 (UTC)

Nosotros pasaremos.--Paul Siebert (talk) 04:33, 19 October 2019 (UTC)

Editor of the Week

		Editor of the Week
		Your ongoing efforts to improve the encyclopedia have not gone unnoticed: You have been selected as Editor of the Week in recognition of your consistency over the years. Thank you for the great contributions! (courtesy of the Wikipedia Editor Retention Project)

User:Goldsztajn submitted the following nomination for Editor of the Week:

I first interacted with Paul Siebert editor about 10 years ago (and awarded a barnstar for his/her work at that time) and I believe s/he has, with extraordinary consistency, not only promoted the values of genuine collaboration and knowledge sharing, but remained steadfast in abiding by the principles of Wikipedia. Moreover, s/he has engaged with some of the most sensitive subjects related to Eastern Europe and has consistently shown an evenness of temper and commitment to scholarly, collaborative outcomes. Her/his editing work is first class, but even more noteworthy in my view is the effort s/he makes to diligently engage productively with editors in conflict and seek mechanisms to resolve that conflict. In more than 13 years on Wikipedia I cannot think of an editor I have interacted with more deserving of this award.

You can copy the following text to your user page to display a user box proclaiming your selection as Editor of the Week:

{{User:UBX/EoTWBox}}

Thanks again for your efforts! ―Buster7 ☎ 13:21, 20 October 2019 (UTC)