Case Opened on 05:29, 27 December 2006 (UTC)

Case Closed on 01:10, 1 February 2007 (UTC)

Please do not edit this page directly unless you wish to become a participant in this request. (All participants are subject to Arbitration Committee decisions, and the ArbCom will consider each participant's role in the dispute.) Comments are very welcome on the Talk page, and will be read, in full. Evidence, no matter who can provide it, is very welcome at /Evidence. Evidence is more useful than comments.

Arbitrators will be working on evidence and suggesting proposed decisions at /Workshop and voting on proposed decisions at /Proposed decision.

You may add to the #Log of blocks and bans as needed, but closed cases should not be edited otherwise. Please raise any questions at Wikipedia:Requests for arbitration#Requests for clarification.

Involved parties

Ghirlandajo (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · logs · filter log · block user · block log)
Piotrus (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · logs · filter log · block user · block log)

Requests for comment

Statement by JzG

After a lengthy RfC in which Piotrus has made some steps towards resolution and Ghirla rather fewer, we have this [1] which almost immediately escalated into precisely the same futile calls for the desysopping of Piotrus by Ghirla.

Piotrus feels that Ghirla is inserting Russian POV into articles without adequate sourcing, and is edit warring about it. Piotrus has credible evidence to support this. In fairness, Piotrus is also making good-faith efforts to pursue a resolution on Wikipedia talk:Requests for comment/Piotrus, and I think right now the dispute is mainly being maintained by Ghirla, but historically both parties have exhibited fault.

Ghirla feels that Piotrus is stalking him, forum shopping, throwing his weight around; Ghirla wants Piotrus deysopped. Consensus on the RfC is that this is absurd. Ghirla has some justification for feeling persecuted, evidence is provided in the RfC. There does seem to be an anti-Ghirla cabal of some sort. I don't believe, personally, that Piotrus is really part of that, but he does seem to be causing Ghirla some problems, and it would probably have been better to let someone else report things rather than keep reporting Ghirla himself.

A remedy was suggested where they undertake to leave each other alone on pain of blocking. Ghirla is unwilling to accept this without an enforceable ruling. So here we are. And it's been a titanic waste of time and energy for many long-standing contributors, including the parties themselves, so I sincerely hope we can rapidly endorse the proposal brought in the RfC and get on with building an encyclopaedia. Guy (Help!) 22:37, 22 December 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Addendum: Apparently the parties have now agreed to accept mediation; perhaps we can put this on hold for now? Or maybe it will be helpful to have a ruling on the past, on which to build the future? Guy (Help!) 14:28, 23 December 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Statement by Ghirla

My position is neatly summed up in the ongoing Wikipedia:Requests for comment/Piotrus and I refer all interested parties to this page. My prime aim in starting the RfC was to make Piotrus stop slandering my name on the public noticeboards and user talk pages, since I don't stoop to this sort of agitation these days. I can't see how ArbCom can realistically put an end to this sort of harassing without Piotr's own volition. Punitive measures are the last thing both sides of the dispute want. Since there was deep night here in Russia at the time Guy selected to submit his request, I am probably rather late in accepting Durova's offer of mediation. Nevertheless, this is one of the remedies that may be tried before going to ArbCom, which is quite busy without plunging into the maze of Polish-Russian relations in Wikipedia during the last two years. Additionally, I may be off-line during the next two weeks (Christmas vacations in my country), a situation which would make me vulnerable during the arbitration proceedings to biased statements by Piotrus and (even more) by a circle of his yes-men: Appleseed, Balcer, Darwinek, Beaumont, etc. --Ghirla ^-трёп- 09:45, 23 December 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Judging by Piotr's accusatory statement below, he already set out to veer this case towards revision of content and, rather than commenting on our personal interactions, put the emphasis on my relations with all other contributors, except himself. I suppose he can't concentrate on the Piotrus-Ghirla dispute and prefers to use this board for vilifying myself for the umpteenth time, because he knows that there will be scores of disgruntled ghirlaphobes (even those who don't know Piotrus) venting their grievances for the first time, as happens each time my name pops up on this page. I find the diffs pointing to my interactions with other wikipedians, presented by Piotrus, rather odd and quite irrelevant to the present case. If Piotrus wants the case to develop in this direction, he should initiate another request for comment or ask those users to discuss their grievances on my talk page, rather than producing totally unrelated diffs for the first time here, without giving me an opportunity to respond and without giving the community an opportunity to evaluate these diffs. If such is his intention, I would also produce multiple diffs of his incivility in relations with other contributors. Do we need to expand the scope of this case and to vilify each other's names here? I think the answer is obvious, but apparently some arbitrators think otherwise. So, you know better how to proceed, while I will be found on User:Durova/Mediation. --Ghirla ^-трёп- 16:36, 23 December 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Statement by Piotrus

Well, JzG, who I believe is a neutral party here, said most of what needed to be said. I will however expand a little on a few points, to illustrate my take on this issue.

I don't find Ghirla's content edits to be disruptive enough to warrant any DR. Most of his edits have nothing to do with myself, and he certainly creates a lot of great articles (being, for example, one of the most frequent contributors to WP:DYK). He has indeed a very strong POV (although he never admits it) - one which I'd call 'pro-Russian' (just as I freely admit I have a 'pro-Polish' one), and he tends to occasionaly insert unreferenced highly POVed information into articles (or remove referenced one); however since almost nobody supports his most extreme claims (ex. [2]), and since he is quite observant of WP:3RR, after a short period of the your average 'edit sparring' he usually gives up and the rest of us are able to work in peace; thus despite his occasional attempts to 'POV push', we have been able to feature quite a few articles on even controversial Polish-Russian issues as the Katyn Massacre.

What I - and I believe many other editors - find very disrupting is incivility in Ghirla's comments and in edit summaries. Whenever somebody disagrees with him (and given his strong POV, it happens quite often), Ghirla assumes bad faith (ex. [3], [4], [5]) and in most cases, instead of discussing the content, launches a string of ad hominens (ex. revert warrior, troll, stalker, tagtroll, revisionist troll champion, anti-Ghirlandajo crusader, tendentious editor, Ghirlaphobe) occasionally peppered with obscenities (ex.[6], [7]), almost always bordering (and in my opinion, often crossing) the WP:NPA policy. When asked to be more respectful of WP:CIV and associated policies, he ignores such requests (usually removing warnings from his talk page, ex. [8] (and even from other users talk pages - although he doesn't shy from giving or restoring warnings to others himself), and continues the above behaviour, often accusing other side of attacking (i.e. criticizing) him (ex. [9], [10]) and adding threats (ex. of desysoping, [11]). This tends to create a vicious circle; the recent WP:PAIN incident described by JzG ([12]) is a perfect example of such a situation. Such a pattern has been continuing for years.

I believe that the only solution to this problem (other then all who disagree with Ghirlandajo leaving this project, like a valuable contributor recently did) is an ArbCom enforced civility parole (like this one) on Ghirla. As a sign of good faith, I will repeat my declaration from the RfC that I would be willing to enter under the same restrictions as well (I strongly believe that WP:CIV should be enforced at least as strongly as WP:3RR, and I am not demanding that others should behave more civil then I am). On the ending note, please note that Ghirlandajo has already been warned 'to avoid incivility or personal attacks' by ArbCom in the past; I believe Ghirla has failed to adhere to this past warning and it should now be enforced. --_{Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus | talk} 12:25, 23 December 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Addendum 1 by Piotr: the number of users who have endorsed my statements in both RfCs as well as express similiar view in this RfArb is proof enough that this is not a conflict limited only to the two us.--_{Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus | talk} 16:39, 23 December 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Addendum 2 by Piotr: Recent comments by Ghirla seem to indicate we may be able to resolve this without ArbCom ([13], [14] and at User:Durova/Mediation). I therefore agree with JzG that it may be a good idea to put this RfArb on hold and see if we can solve this without burdening the ArbCom (which has enough to do as it is). However, until a possible solution is reached at one of the above discussions (or both), I'd like to request that this RfArbCom is not discarded and is instead kept on this page on hold, preferably 'accepted' (so it can be revived quickly if needed) but before the 'evidence phase' (so we don't have to work on yet another page while pursuing other avenues of DR that have just become workable again but are not guaranteed to stay that way). Besides, I am not sure if a mediation can 'enforce' a civility parole/1RRs and similar solutions, even if they are agreed to by the parties of mediation, and thus ArbCom reconfirmation may be useful; also, the mediation is (so far) limited only to the two of us, ArbCom may save us time by ruling that the solutions we find are applicable to the concerns raised by other parties who commented here (or not, and impose additional conditions).--_{Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus | talk} 01:17, 24 December 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Preliminary decisions

Arbitrators' opinions on hearing this matter (6/0/1/0)

Recuse. Dmcdevit·t 23:03, 22 December 2006 (UTC)[reply]
Accept. With so many interlocking allegations, I find it easy to believe the RfC is in a stalled state. Arbitration here should look at editor behaviour and alleged stalking, wheel-warring, team editing, whatever; should stay away from content issues to the extent that is possible. Charles Matthews 23:20, 22 December 2006 (UTC)[reply]
Accept. - SimonP 16:42, 23 December 2006 (UTC)[reply]
Accept Fred Bauder 14:56, 25 December 2006 (UTC)[reply]
Accept. Matthew Brown (Morven) (T:C) 21:55, 25 December 2006 (UTC)[reply]
Accept. James F. (talk) 13:48, 26 December 2006 (UTC)[reply]
Accept. Jayjg ^(talk) 22:30, 26 December 2006 (UTC)[reply]
Voting. Paul August ☎ 20:54, 3 January 2007 (UTC)[reply]
Unrecusing myself to make a motion. Flcelloguy (A note?) 21:40, 27 January 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Temporary injunction (none)

Final decision

All numbering based on /Proposed decision (vote counts and comments are there as well)

Case dismissed

1) Because Ghirlandajo, a main party to this case, has not edited since December 27, 2006, and because of an ongoing informal mediation attempt that occured prior to Ghirlandajo's absence, this case is temporarily dismissed. If and when Ghirlandajo returns, it would be best for him to resume productive mainspace editing, which it is hoped can take place without a recurrence of the disputes that led to this case. As appropriate, the mediation between Ghirlandajo and Piotrus can be resumed to seek resolution of any live disputes that might remain between them.

Under the circumstances, this arbitration case is dismissed, without prejudice to a request by any party to reopen it in the future if necessary.

Motion passed 5-0 at 01:09, 1 February 2007 (UTC)

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