Wikipedia talk:Arbitration/Requests/Case/Eastern European mailing list/Evidence/Archive 1

Unusual case requires unusual procedures

The following discussion is closed and will soon be archived.

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I don't think a normal evidence page will work in this case. The question is not, are there factions that edit war with each other? This is abundantly clear from prior cases and enforcement requests. Rather, Arbcom needs to know is whether private messages resulted in on-wiki disruption. For example, if users Alfa, Bravo and Charlie were planning on taunting Delta to provoke Delta into making a blockable outburst or edit war, did this in fact happen? Or if Echo, Foxtrot and Golf coordinated a revert war against Hotel, did it work? But the mailing list messages will not be shared with the community, so how to present relevant evidence? I suggest dispensing with the normal evidence format. Instead, Arbcom will review the private messages and post a series of questions based on the messages, asking the community to verify whether the actions and plans described in the messages actually resulted in on-wiki edits, blocks, disruptive behavior, and so forth. Thatcher 01:27, 18 September 2009 (UTC)

I guess they can say "Committee, refer to the email sent from User:Example at XX/YY/ZZ at AA:BB:CC, then compare to the swarm of participants of the mailing list who suddenly appeared in the next 12 hours to assist with reverting and protecting" (this is purely hypothetical). But I'll leave it to Committee members to respond more definitively, as my setting up of the case page was simply at what I implied their direction to be. Daniel (talk) 01:32, 18 September 2009 (UTC)

I don't expect the evidence page will see a great deal of use given the private nature of most of the likely evidence; but it's important that it be made available nonetheless given that not all evidence will be private in nature.

In the interest of transparency, as much of this case needs to take place in public as possible. — Coren ^(talk) 01:34, 18 September 2009 (UTC)
(Also note the different /Workshop format). — Coren ^(talk) 01:35, 18 September 2009 (UTC)

• I see what you're doing there but I think that is more appropriate to an evidence page, especially if you are going to allow non-parties to participate (in essence, crowd-sourcing the discovery phase). Thatcher 01:38, 18 September 2009 (UTC)
  • This is mostly uncharted territory — nothing prevents tweaking as things progress if things limp. I believe having a spot for "normal" evidence submission as appropriate remains needed, hence my repurposing the workshop instead. — Coren ^(talk) 01:41, 18 September 2009 (UTC)

On who is the party

The following discussion is closed and will soon be archived: Both users have emailed the Arbitration Committee with regards to this issue, as is the procedure for this case.

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I am still in the woods as for what evidence I can present, but I want to agree with Sandstein (in his evidence comment) - I don't see him is a party here. Too many people are going to get heavily wikistressed over this case, I'd ask ArbCom not to cause any unnecessary wikistress to people like Sandstein who have no involvement in this case (IMHO). A quick glance at the parties also makes me puzzled on the inclusion of Future Perfect at Sunrise, whom I'd also suggest to be removed. --_{Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus| talk} 16:39, 18 September 2009 (UTC)

I already e-mailed the committee to say I don't see myself as involved either. My practical involvement in the affair was essentially restricted to forwarding that link to them. I don't see that makes me "involved" even in the purely formal sense of a "filing party". I could have imagined taking some initiatives in the matter on the community level, as we did back in the CAMERA case, but now that the arbs have taken the matter into their own hands, I have no intention of involving myself with it any further. Fut.Perf. ☼ 16:59, 18 September 2009 (UTC)

A suggestion how to proceed

I am not going to provide evidence against any other users whoever they are, including Russavia. And let's stay exactly on the subject: the email list and what is directly connected to it. No one needs new huge EE case. If there is any serious misconduct on my part in the intercepted email, could someone please direct me all my statements that allegedly violate WP policies (over the email), with a notice what exactly policy has been violated by me. This is needed because some of the messages may indeed be doctored as Piotrus suggested. I think so because some of the accusations by Alex who read the email are outright wrong. After verifying the messages (I do not keep the archive, but I remember my words), I would publicly comment in the Evidence section on the content of the messages, in connection with any events that took place right here. But I will be talking only about myself and about the alleged victim of my "abuse", with supporting diffs if needed. That is without disclosing any sensitive personal information. If someone has a better idea, this could be done differently.Biophys (talk) 21:41, 18 September 2009 (UTC)

We are reviewing the emails and looking for indication of on site policy violations. If we find them, then we will post them on site if possible or we will let you see the information in question by email. You will have a chance to respond to all evidence either on site or by email depending on the nature of the information discussed. FloNight♥♥♥ 22:15, 18 September 2009 (UTC)

Thank you. Yes, we should keep most of the information private, in part to minimize the unnecessary wikidrama. Bad things said in private correspondence should not appear on public if they had no effect on anything here. I am ready to cooperate on that and whatever else is needed to help ArbCom. Most of the information currently at Evidence page is irrelevant to the case, which is not good.Biophys (talk) 22:45, 18 September 2009 (UTC)

My 3 points

A nightmare becoming a reality

I understand very well how the members of this closed trusted email group feel right now. They openly shared ideas and thoughts free of restraints and free of the thought police, and all of a sudden their private correspondence becomes a subject to public scrutiny. I find this development disturbing regardless of how this correspondence affected or allegedly affected Wikipedia.

That should go without saying that the private information should be taken care very discreetly, and I urge everyone who obtained this archive to delete it as soon as this case is closed. Once this case is closed I suggest to punish editors who threaten to use or use this private information to their advantage in the content disputes, I am pretty sure it would violate some policy, and if not then create such a policy.

At this moment I wish that there were strict rules over how to handle cases like that and I wish that there was an attorney to consult who would know the policies and is bound under attorney/client privilege, and who could represent the affected parties in the cases like this. I know I know, wishful thinking.

Teams/cabals etc

I understand that this was possibly a bust of a particular team conspiring to use team work to their advantage in various WP disputes. However you would be naive thinking that busting one team would solve the problem of other existing teams. I would think that the opponents of the said team are now collecting and submitting evidence of the team tagging/ conspiring for this particular team. And they are quite happy that now finally their circumstantial evidence is probably directly supported by the said email archive. Finally a bust! But they forget that this stick has two ends. It is possible to collect circumstantial evidence that the other teams exist as well, it would probably be never be supported by the unfortunate leaks of the off-wiki correspondence, but that does not mean that such off-wiki coordination does not exist in other teams.

That said, I could give my word that I myself never coordinated my efforts in various disputes with anyone off-wiki. But nonetheless it could be perceived or suspected that there is a team of me, Offliner, Russavia, and possibly others which cooperates off-wiki, and a circumstantial evidence is not that hard to find as our views more or less coincided in most of the debates. The perceived threat of our "pro-Russian/pro-Putin team" could in fact be the reason for our opponents to start coordinating their efforts off-wiki. In fact they could be all under impression that there are plenty of teams on Wikipedia conspiring against their common ideals and if they do not coordinate their efforts then all is lost, and Wikipedia is ruined, and these "evil" teams win.

The team tagging is one of the worst problem in Wikipedia in my opinion and I raised this issue several times before. I suspected that Biophys, Martin, Colchicum, Radek, Vecrumba coordinated their efforts against me but I could not prove it. But I am against team tagging in general not just this particular team (which admittedly annoyed me the most as they had various conflicts with me in many articles). I hope that this case will go beyond busting a particular team (if proven) and you would figure out a wider policy dealing with the other teams as well (unfortunately I do not have good suggestions about any such policies at the moment). A first step however would be to finally admit that the team tagging exists.

Suggestions

The busted team (if proven guilty) should not be topic banned. They did make various valuable contributions to the articles on Russia even if some of their contributions caused conflicts with other editors. 1revert/week could be sufficient, and their cooperation off-wiki should be prohibited and they should be warned not to do that again under a threat of further sanctions. The admins in the team (if proven guilty) should be dysoped for some time with the right to be reinstated later provided they will get the required vote of confidence from the community. However no topic bans should issued unless you have a good idea how to deal with other, luckier, undetected teams on the Wikipedia. All the sanctions against various editors which were affected by this team (if proven) should be lifted or significantly alleviated. (Igny (talk) 14:41, 19 September 2009 (UTC))

Igny, thank you for this comment. Yes, I mostly agree with you. I certainly admit many positive and constructive contributions by all the users involved, including Russavia and Offliner (although, I can not tell the same about certain edit warriors in "Ossetian war"). That's why I am so hesitant to provide more evidence even against Offliner who submitted a lot of evidence about me. Other users involved in this case might disagree with me of course.Biophys (talk) 19:43, 19 September 2009 (UTC)

Igny, you saw that I did not want to fuel any wikidrama (and it was not me who initiated this case), but I now have to respond to false accusations by Russavia.Biophys (talk) 13:24, 20 September 2009 (UTC)

Responding to Teams/cabals

You are probably right that not all cabals are known, but it is worth noting that historically when arbcom has found evidence of extensive organized activities offwiki that sought to target others, it has responded with significantly harsher sanctions than if those individuals were merely found to be doing the activities without coordination (see Bogdanov Affair, Durova, CAMERA, R. fiend, Scientology, and West Bank). I think the message that people could take away from it is that Arbcom recognizes it cannot catch everyone and that by applying harsher sanctions in these cases, it deters other groups from acting in a similar manner. Basically it places the burden on the offwiki group to show that its activities are not in violation of policy and do not negatively interfere with the functioning of the wiki. I haven't seen the emails in this case, but I would imagine that the alleged 1500 emails over 6 months about trying to harm a single person are a prima facie violation of WP:WIKIHOUNDING. MBisanz ^talk 15:32, 19 September 2009 (UTC)

I saw only CAMERA case recently. That was an interference of an outside political lobbing group. However even in this case ArboCom ruled "no collective guilt". "The alleged 1500 emails over 6 months about trying to harm a single person". Yes, that would be really something, just like "planting their own checkusers" and other fantastic claims by Alex.Biophys (talk) 17:05, 19 September 2009 (UTC)

Well, it's not just conspiring about edit-warring, the team was planning and engaged in sock-puppetry, sharing accounts to throw off cus, harass and drive opponents to blocks, and so on. And while there is always a possibility that Russavia and the others in question were doing the same thing to a more limited extent, you can't call them guilty just because the team that gives them a hard time have been uncovered. Doesn't make any sense I'm afraid. Their guilt or innocence isn't changed by uncovering this. Deacon of Pndapetzim (Talk) 17:17, 19 September 2009 (UTC)

You say: "engaged in sock-puppetry" and "sharing accounts". Let's assume for a second that you are right. Then it will make no problem for ArbCom and Checkusers (especially knowing their plans from emails) to establish different IP addresses, which would appear for a shared account during the actual editing by the alleged sock puppets. If anyone was actually doing this, he/she well deserve appropriate sanctions.Biophys (talk) 19:18, 19 September 2009 (UTC)

• Didn't ArbCom just pass a motion on speculative musings? This speculation by Alex regarding "The alleged 1500 emails over 6 months about trying to harm a single person" is just that, speculation. Since Alex did pass on this alleged archive to Deacon one day after an Arbitrator requested that it not be passed on, and since both Alex and Deacon have now viewed that archive, this continued speculation over "1500 emails over 6 months about trying to harm a single person" is either: evidence that this alleged archive was doctored before they received it, or they are willfully misrepresenting the content of this alleged archive. Can the ArbCom please enforce their motions. --Martintg (talk) 19:32, 19 September 2009 (UTC)

Marting, I think this is not a speculation, but a very definitive assertion by Alex, because he actually saw the entire archive. Was his assertion true or not should be decided by ArbCom.Biophys (talk) 19:49, 19 September 2009 (UTC)

Since Deacon keeps making (false) accusations that people engaged in sock puppetry I think a proposal for an all around check user is in order - basically everyone on the involved parties list and Deacon (given his statements now and in the past, and his clear breaking of the just passed motion on speculative musings, I fail to understand why he's not on the involved parties list anyway. Besides, I think it's a tradition.). I for one have nothing to hide and I've never used a sock. I would like to propose then that all involved parties + Deacon be taken to CU. Who knows, maybe some very interesting info will come out of that?

I was going to make some kind of proposal to this effect anyway, but I wanted to wait until Sandstein and Future Perfect are taken off the "involved parties" list (as they obviously should be - and for the life of me, this thing is growing tentacles so fast I can't find the proper place to make a statement to that effect) but Deacon's repeated flaming and speculations force me to bring it up now. I still think that they should be taken off, then it's CU time for editor and administrator alike.radek (talk) 01:18, 20 September 2009 (UTC)

I might as well add that at this point I personally got no problem with providing the committee with any kind of info on my current and past place of residence, my travels, and so on.radek (talk) 01:20, 20 September 2009 (UTC)

Basic useful info - what's the date of earliest e-mails?

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This is a specific (and easy) question directed at the Arbs, and my apologies if it was answered elsewhere as the discussions for this case are already all over the place. What is the approximate (or exact) date of the earliest e-mails to this list? I ask not out of curiosity but rather because it could have a bearing on folks who might want to present evidence. For example, I was involved in a discussion/dispute with some of the parties to this case (including several mailing list members) at the beginning of the year (I had no idea I was stepping into a much wider dispute at that point, and eventually it was resolved satisfactorily). If there was any list discussion of that particular dispute (and it's quite likely there wasn't) I would be willing to outline the on-wiki discussion for the Arbs in an evidence section if that would be helpful. Indeed as has been suggested there will probably be a lot of evidence like this—i.e. editors collecting on-wiki diffs that relate to list activity described very roughly by the Arbs.

Before some editors start gathering evidence in anticipation of correlating it to list activity, it would be useful to simply know the date of the first e-mails from the list in order to avoid possibly unnecessary evidence gathering. --Bigtimepeace | talk | contribs 18:21, 19 September 2009 (UTC)

The emails date from January 2009 until mid September 2009. FloNight♥♥♥ 18:28, 19 September 2009 (UTC)

Great, thanks FloNight. --Bigtimepeace | talk | contribs 18:34, 19 September 2009 (UTC)

First cockroach, then sucker

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Could we please uphold greater semblance of decorum? Durova³¹⁹ 22:08, 19 September 2009 (UTC)

I see nothing objectionable about that. It is presenting an opinion in a direct yet civil manner. The description of someone being "sucked in" to the purported "misinformation" is merely an opinion, and one which is based upon arguments which are expanded later on in the evidence section. It is a comment on your evidence as being misfounded, not you as an individual. I am assuming your disagreement stems more from the fact that it casts aspersions on some statements previously made; if so, I encourage all those who disagree with Badger Drink's assertions to counter them in their own evidence section. Daniel (talk) 14:50, 20 September 2009 (UTC)

Please to not mislead with inappropriate use of quotation marks. If that had been the actual statement there would have been no reason to complain. The actual words were "has already made a sucker out of at least one outside participant above" (linking directly to me). "A sucker" is a juvenile personal attack. Durova³¹⁹ 16:25, 20 September 2009 (UTC)

It is stretching it abit Durova, but i do think Civility needs to be maintained to the fullest possible extent in this case. Maybe have Badger Drink add that it wasnt meant in an offensive way? Omegastar (talk) 18:55, 20 September 2009 (UTC)

In my position as clerk of the case, I have determined there is nothing actionable. Durova is free to pursue the suggestion in the second half of the comment, above, If Durova or anyone else disagrees with this, they are free to contact the Committee. However, this issue at this level is, for all intents and purposes, closed. Daniel (talk) 00:01, 21 September 2009 (UTC)

Do you honestly believe you were called a cockroach? It looked to me like a metaphor about how we seem to find these "cabals" everywhere. Cool Hand Luke 21:54, 20 September 2009 (UTC)

From the tenor of these responses it doesn't appear likely that my best hope for this arbitration will play itself out: to end the slow erosion of civility norms. I really don't think it's wise in the long run when discussions run "hot" to countenance statements that personalize the discourse and cast aspersions. But you're the decision makers. Durova³²⁰ 17:37, 22 September 2009 (UTC)

Notice formatting

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Could a clerk reformat the {{tmbox}} at Wikipedia:Arbitration/Requests/Case/Eastern European mailing list/Notice and the {{Ambox}} at Wikipedia:Arbitration/Requests/Case/Eastern European mailing list/Evidence to use the more appropriate {{mbox}} format? MBisanz ^talk 06:02, 20 September 2009 (UTC)

I prefer it as it is, to be honest. I deliberately want it coloured as it is, and specifically modified the template to make it as such. I see no reason to "migrate". Daniel (talk) 14:48, 20 September 2009 (UTC)

Hmm, ok, just making sure it was deliberate. MBisanz ^talk 22:14, 20 September 2009 (UTC)

Re: Wikipedia:Arbitration/Requests/Case/Eastern_European_mailing_list/Evidence#Evidence_presented_by_MBisanz

Could you tell us who those two people are? If not, can you tell us that there is no doubt they are who they say they were, and not that their accounts have been hacked and false statements made (like in the recent case of Tymek's account)? Btw, as I said earlier, I agree with you that "the archive in general is authentic"; any forgeries would likely involve only a (very?) small number of emails (since despite allegations that 1,500 = ~50%? of the archive is about harassing Russavia, I am pretty sure most emails were "comments from the peanut gallery" on wikipolitics, real life politics and unproblematic content discussions). --_{Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus| talk} 21:40, 20 September 2009 (UTC)

No. Nothing has come to my attention that causes me to believe that they were not the persons who they said they were. MBisanz ^talk 22:12, 20 September 2009 (UTC)

Not exactly what I asked. Could they be not who they claimed to be? Or are you sure, beyond reasonable doubt, they were who they claimed to be (particularly in light of our knowledge that one wiki account, that of Tymek, was indeed compromised later)? Did they gave you some way of verify their identities, or did you run a CU on them? Also, could you tell us the exact date(s) those emails were send to you? I am sure this is not a private info. --_{Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus| talk} 22:16, 20 September 2009 (UTC)

Are you really sure you want to go down this line of questioning? MBisanz ^talk 22:42, 20 September 2009 (UTC)

I suppose a more direct question would be: Who was in control of your IRC and email accounts at 9:24PM June 25, 2009, 12:26PM June 27, 2009, and 2:38PM June 29, 2009? MBisanz ^talk 23:33, 20 September 2009 (UTC)

If you are implying that one of the users who contacted you was me, please say so clearly, I fully authorize you to do so. PS. Timezone? PPS. If you email the the contents of those emails/IRC archive logs (I keep neither) I can try to verify, in my recollection, whether I wrote them or not. --_{Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus| talk} 01:26, 21 September 2009 (UTC)

I hope you will forgive me for being wary of forwarding you the email, but if you are unsure of who controlled your email, irc, and Wikipedia passwords (since all the communications were cross-referenced on the other services) for that extended period of time and there is already an admission of password sharing among list members by Tymek, then I am not sure I should forward you a copy, since I am unsure which person(s) currently have access to your communications. MBisanz ^talk 16:55, 21 September 2009 (UTC)

Well, if somebody else was and is controlling my communications, what can they do to the emails you send me? And presumably they already know them. Or you can send them to my university email, which should be googlable, and I'll compare them to see if any was tampered on their way (I'll access the university email from a uni computer lab, this should be safe). Just to be on the safe side, I authorize you to send them to somebody else I trust, like User:Durova or User:Radeksz for verification. Or how about we set up a Skype call (I can call you from my Skype, which is listed publicly on my wiki user page, or you can call me) - I think the chance that that got compromised / will be intercepted are not high (wow, somebody is being more paranoid then I am, that's refreshing :) PS. No other passwords of any kind where shared on our mailing list (AFAIK). PPS. And I have never given any of my passwords to anybody. --_{Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus| talk} 17:00, 21 September 2009 (UTC)

OK, I understand now. MBisanz claims that emails in the archive refer to an IRC chat you had with him about my imposing 1RR on Radek, so therefore the archive is generally accurate. I don't think this is disputed though, an entirely faked archive of 3000+ messages would be easy to detect as a forgery, not to mention practically impossible to make. The claim of the list members is that the archive may have been salted with messages that are more incriminating than the general conversation. Thatcher 18:57, 21 September 2009 (UTC)

That's about sums it up. The fact that I was discussing the 1RR on Radek at that time was (and is) hardly a secret - I was doing this on wiki, on IRC, and by email with many people. I am also certain that nothing I said was against wiki policies; I am sure that Thatcher will agree that I (and anybody else) had and has the right to discuss such issues. But if this is what MBisanz meant (in a very cryptic way...), it means my original questions are unanswered. --_{Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus| talk} 19:09, 21 September 2009 (UTC)

Clearly one of the "two people" was you; the fact that the emails refer to a private chat is evidence that they are not fake, because the faker would not have known about the chat. But this does not prove that all the emails are authentic, only some of them. Thatcher 19:13, 21 September 2009 (UTC)

Ok, now I get it - for a while there I too thought that MBisanz was saying that Piotrus sent the email to the 9 admins, and I had already began the implementation of the "repeatedly pinch oneself until awake" process. So I guess the other of the "two people" would be me. So sometime in June there was the whole "incident" with Thatcher (and I'd be happy to discuss frankly how I feel about that whole situation, but this isn't really the place). At the time I contacted several administrators both on Wiki and through their email asking for advice on how to appeal Thatcher's decisions and what they thought of it. I made no secret of this, and I believe that even in my emails to Thatcher I explicitly stated that I had contacted other admins to ask for advice. Piotrus also used IRC to also query admins, including MBisanz about the situation.

Anyway, without going into what admin said what at the time, I want to say that yes, at the time I also did ask for advice on the list and I think Piotrus, among others gave some. I remember that I wrote up a long draft of the proposal, which then I reposted at AE (ignoring some admin advice on that) almost verbatim. I'm guessing that these are the emails and IRCs MBisanz is referring to.

So yes, there is probably some kind of correlation between what MBisanz is saying really happened and stuff that's found in the emails in the supposed "archive" (which I have a copy off, obtained through Future Perfect, but which I have not looked at yet for reasons I'll explain elsewhere). But that doesn't mean anything.

There is a dangerous meme developing that just because something really happened on Wiki, and at the same time there appears to be SOME discussion of it in the "archives" then that must prove that the emails in the "archives" are genuine and unaltered (the "corroboration" argument). But it proves no such thing.

As I've said before, yes there was a mailing list, and yes, Wiki issues and happenings were discussed, - including the appeal and Thatcher - just like they always are on many internet forums. So if the contents of the "archive" are in any way based on genuine conversations - which still means they could be doctored or faked, just that this process was applied to real emails - there's going to be correlation between stuff in the "archives" and in past real Wiki going-ons. But this doesn't mean at all that the material in the "archive" is authentic or unaltered.radek (talk) 02:02, 22 September 2009 (UTC)

IIRC, Thatcher, whom I contacted early on via wikiemail, explicitly told me to contact other admins and seek advice on that issue. Which I did. EOT :) --_{Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus| talk} 02:14, 22 September 2009 (UTC)

I think MBizanz implies that the archive was not all fake, and even if it was altered, this version was based on actual emails leaked. However, there is another argument to consider and that is the amount of effort needed to alter the emails to incriminate the members and yet do it in a consistent way to avoid fake detection. If we are talking about 3000+ emails over 6+ months imagine how much work is needed to "doctor" them and consider how much time it took between the leak and forwarding to WP admins. I am not saying it is not at all possible, just very hard. Now you also should ask yourself why the perpetrator of the hacking and doctoring should go through all the trouble of making the self-consistent and non-contradictory alterations based on some obscure wiki events, when all (s)he could do to damage your reputation beyond repair is to add emails discussing (supporting) real life crimes like terrorism, calls for murders, admittance of professional/academic dishonesty, drug distribution/use or even sexual perversions and forward it to enforcement agencies instead of Wikipedia. I know it would be eventually cleared, but nonetheless in the process it would damage your life much more than, say, banning from Wikipedia altogether. (Igny (talk) 02:45, 22 September 2009 (UTC))

I don't know, these are all hypotheticals - we still don't know the way that this was disseminated, so it's hard to speak to the person's motivation. But since the supposed "archives" date from January I think the person would have plenty of time to make his or her alterations consistent. Hopefully, not - then the lie can be detected. But adding in lies about drugs or whatever would just be so over the top that I don't think nobody'd believe it. But probably shouldn't be giving folks ideas.

BTW, thanks for being a decent person (though I still think most of your edits were wrong ;))radek (talk) 03:37, 22 September 2009 (UTC)

Probably because the agencies in question would discard the email from the hacker/blower as junk, knowing that such info cannot be trusted (and the more paranoid one would do a little investigation, probably not even contacting us, and reach the same decision - and likely employ their considerable resources in tracking down the hacker and ensuring he doesn't waste their time again :>). Btw, I am pretty sure that vast majority of those 3000+ @ is genuine. Heck, I hope they all are, because then this all incident will be cleared soon (other than some private info leaked out, and some people in real danger of getting beat up by Nashi or such). But as I mentioned earlier, it is really easy to do a few small fakes that if taken without any doubt would be problematic. Here's an example for you: there is no denying that some of our members occasionally edited problematic articles and reverted the content :> Let's say that in one instance I gave them advice "Don't edit war". Let's say that this email was changed to "Do edit war". It is very easy to do and takes only a minute or so. Let's say that the person who wants to damage our reputation dedicated just a few hours to that. Maybe they just changed 5-10 emails per person, and maybe they just target 5 most active members of the group (or 5 most active in a specific field of Wikipedia). And what do you get as the end result? An evil cabal, that is what :) --_{Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus| talk} 03:55, 22 September 2009 (UTC)

It is well known that there is a publicly available version of the archive as well as your own recollections of what you said as well as your own personal email archives. If I were accused of a wikicrime and believed the evidence had been forged, I would be dedicating all of my time comparing the two archives to find any discrepancy I could point to in order to show the forgery had occurred and then run screaming to this page saying "I found a period out of place on the email of April 10th!". But that is just me. MBisanz ^talk 04:03, 22 September 2009 (UTC)

If my personal archives were of any use... anyway, I just send some evidence on that to the arbcom. And I don't have time to analyze that (read: ~try to remember if everything in a few hundreds emails written by me looks genuine) any further, I have useful real life and wiki stuff to do. If there are any faked emails, they will be surely spotted by arbcom and they will ask us about them (and I will certainly try to reply promptly to such inquiries). And if there are none, than the only problem is the private information being shared and feelings of some people hurt. --_{Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus| talk} 04:07, 22 September 2009 (UTC)

The "evidence", request

I requested the archive from Daniel and was pointed to Arbcom (email). I emailed and was directed here. Please provide me access to the alleged evidence. As I have stated elsewhere, my recollection of my correspondence had little to do with commenting on the alleged "victims". Had my intent been nefarious I certainly would not use my publicly identifiable Email address. I've been working in data processing since 1974, so I ask my "opposition" to spare me the "caught you with your pants down" as, frankly, I would not be stupid enough to conduct anything nefarious using my public Email account knowing how easily addresses are spoofed and accounts hacked. That this archive allegedly has my public Email address speaks to my innocence, not guilt.
   Not to mention as a child growing up with my mother and her sister writing each other under assumed names during the Soviet era.
   Be this all as it may be, unless I can examine the entire archive and determine whether it matches my recollection of my correspondence, this is nothing more than a (potentially) planned, orchestrated,and executed witch hunt. Curious timing, isn't it? Just after Russavia's ban? And this being trumpeted as an "excuse" to lift Russavia's ban despite their choice of conduct being all their own?
   Equally importantly, personal life circumstances currently severely limit my spare time. I will require an extension to respond, and I do not consider the clock to start until I have had at least a day to start reviewing the "evidence." I would hope to provide an informed--and informative--response. But no response is possible without the evidence which has been circulated.
   Please inform me via my public Email as to instructions for retrieval. VЄСRUМВА  ♪  00:43, 21 September 2009 (UTC)

• Seconded. I also request access to illegal archive for myself as well as for all members of the leaked mailing list. Please deliver to all forum participants your instructions for its retrieval using WP email. The Arbitration Committee took an extraordinary step by making public the names of all members of that list, regardless of whether any of them committed any wrongdoing. Please follow up on your own actions and offer these Wikipedians the benefit of the doubt by sharing with them what you already have. --Poeticbent talk 14:37, 21 September 2009 (UTC)

I'm %100 sure that since the "evidence" was so easily shared by user User:Alex Bakharev[[1]] with other users of his choice, there is A LOT more people now with full access to them than you guys think. I would like to REQUEST A COPY AS WELL. Thank you.--Jacurek (talk) 14:56, 21 September 2009 (UTC)

Being one of the first people who got it, I can say I'd have no problem sharing my copy with any of the list members, if it wasn't for the practical problem that the file is too big for easy e-mail attachment. However, I did provide the original download link to Tymek, Piotrus and Radek early on, so I expect they took the opportunity and downloaded a copy before they had the file taken down from the web – can't you guys share this between each other? Fut.Perf. ☼ 15:01, 21 September 2009 (UTC)

Please note that some of the most active EE warriors have already begun acting on the content of that archive by engaging in unilateral reverts of WP community decisions. So, there's a sense of urgency here. --Poeticbent talk 15:07, 21 September 2009 (UTC)

I expect a copy of the archive from an admin in this case. Again, I can be contacted at my public Email address to make arrangements. Thank you. VЄСRUМВА  ♪  01:45, 22 September 2009 (UTC)

If I've understood correctly, the evidence ArbCom wants now (before the 7 day deadline) is evidence of possible disruptive behaviour by the list members -- which can then be compared with events on the secret list. Later, ArbCom will ask questions (such as "did you send this email on 2009-xx-xx?", "did you arrive to edit war because of the 'call to arms' on 2009-xx-xx?") They will ask the questions on the workshop page, where there is no deadline. If this is correct, then Vecrumba & Co. don't really have to worry about the 7 day deadline. They will have enough time to defend themselves on the workshop page. Offliner (talk) 22:50, 21 September 2009 (UTC)

I'm sorry if I have not been clear. I need the deadline to present evidence. I do not intend to "defend" myself until I have had a chance to present my evidence and characterization of the situation, as editors have seen fit to resurrect editors misrepresenting sources and calling article corrections "lies" as paragons of Wikipedia glory days. VЄСRUМВА  ♪  01:45, 22 September 2009 (UTC)

Hello, I request an admin send me a link to the evidence, as apparently everyone on the planet has access to the evidence which is apparently freely available, per Offliner's updates to his diffs. Perhaps I should just ask Offliner? VЄСRUМВА  ♪  18:06, 24 September 2009 (UTC)

A statement

I do not feel well and probably will not be able to participate in this case. I ask User:Colchicum with whom I never had any email communications to re-edit, revert, modify or remove any my statemets made during last week, as he feels fit.Biophys (talk) 15:24, 21 September 2009 (UTC)

Please mind your health. It is much more important than Wikipedia. We will all understand that (I hope). --_{Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus| talk} 17:02, 21 September 2009 (UTC)

Well, I'm sorry, probably I will not be around. Furthermore, what kind of evidence do you expect from me if I am not supposed to be familiar with the archive and don't really want to be? I don't think additional evidence is needed. For the record, from what has been said, I think that the archive is authentic, but Alex' original assessment was a gross exaggeration and methodologically wrong for reasons similar to those outlined by Kirill. "The list" as a whole cannot act and be held responsible, only individual participants can. The archive is likely to consist largely of mockery, which may be unpleasant to read, but is entirely legitimate and none of our business here. It wasn't supposed to be read by anybody else, after all. Possibly there were some occasional instances of coordinated wiki disruption, but certainly not on everybody's part (e.g. Alexia hasn't edited Wikipedia for some time at all). Just guessing. Additionally, forwarding the archive to an involved party (Deacon) is indeed alarming, just imagine a similar real life incident: you get a link, download a mail archive and forward it to an involved party. Not good. Colchicum (talk) 22:27, 21 September 2009 (UTC)

Thank you. I would never read email that was sent to someone else, and would never directed such mail to anyone else, Arbcom or not. I do not care that much about wikipedia business. But knowing that people like Deacon and Alex get access to some sensitive information in my emails and that every Russian user knows who I am in real life left me no choice but to abandon this project, or to abandon my account and edit only science. It was nice to have you around here. Good bye.Biophys (talk) 01:14, 22 September 2009 (UTC)

You made your choice, when you joined a secret group aimed at stalking and driving out other editors from wikipedia and vigorously worked for this group for many months.DonaldDuck (talk) 02:15, 23 September 2009 (UTC)

Statement, question

I received a link to the web site containing the email list on Thursday and read some of them. Since then, various Wikipedians I trust have explicitly or implicitly stated they see no legal or ethical problems with discussing its contents.

If evidence from that link is acceptable, could the arbs please state how they would like to see it presented? Earlier, Deacon was asked to redact some evidence details, so I'd appreciate clarification.

You-all could demonstrate by presenting a detailed but completely hypothetical example. E.g.: "In an email timestamped Jan 2 2009 7:05 AM, editor Labrador asked members of the mailing list to make changes to the Rimadyl article to ensure its "correctness" and further its chances at DYK. Editor Golden, a member of the mailing list, responded in an email timestamped x that he had made reverts towards this end. The article's history (insert diffs here) does show that changes furthering the preferred version of the article were made by Golden without talk page discussion. Other blind reverts supporting that version were made by IPs 123.456.788 and 123.456.789 over the next two days, and a checkuser could confirm whether these were socks of mailing list members."

Is this format acceptable? If not, pls advise. Labrador could deny authorship, others could argue that the supporting details are strong. Novickas (talk) 02:25, 22 September 2009 (UTC)

I believe the ArbComm is looking for evidence in the form of diffs to on-Wikipedia behavior. They already have access to the email archive; evidence about it would be like selling gold to King Midas. -Jeremy ^{(v^_^v Tear him for his bad verses!)} 04:13, 22 September 2009 (UTC)

Why are you interested in this case? You piqued my curiosity, so I run a search on the leaked/stolen archive; you name appears in two places, neither seems problematic in any way I can fathom. --_{Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus| talk} 04:14, 22 September 2009 (UTC)

And care to tell us how you received this link?radek (talk) 04:18, 22 September 2009 (UTC)

I'm sorry but this proposal flies in the face of everything that has been said earlier. User Novickas, please familiarize yourself with the prerequisites of this case and read the Secrecy of correspondence article to cut down on our time here. Sitting and reading other people's private letters is deplorable enough, so don't offer us your WP "summaries" of them, because they were never meant to be read by a stranger. – Look at article histories and talk pages for inspiration, or otherwise, ask the clerk to make you a party to this case. --Poeticbent talk 04:28, 22 September 2009 (UTC)

Well, actually, nobody has cared about secrecy of correspondence from the very beginning; other than the merry group who still argues that people who point to secrecy of correspondence must have some evil secrets to hide... :> --_{Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus| talk} 05:27, 22 September 2009 (UTC)

nobody has cared about secrecy of correspondence from the very beginning - to be fair, Jehochman did not look in the link he was sent and supposedly at least one other person who received it simply deleted it.radek (talk) 05:29, 22 September 2009 (UTC)

Point taken. Thanks for restoring a little of my faith in human good nature :) --_{Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus| talk} 05:44, 22 September 2009 (UTC)

I've also stated that if I had received the archive link or the archive, I'd've dumped the drek so fast it would make the speed of light seem like the speed limit on I-5. -Jeremy ^{(v^_^v Tear him for his bad verses!)} 06:48, 22 September 2009 (UTC)

Novickas, what we expect will happen here is that Arbcom will post questions like, "On June 16, several messages appear to discuss coordinated editing at Foo; here are diffs showing what appears to be coordinated editing. Will the parties please explain," probably on the workshop page. Arbcom may quote messages for evidence but will leave out any private information like email addresses and such. Conversations that do not directly related to on-wiki edits are largely irrelevant. At this point, if you feel you must participate, please send any thoughts or comments you have about the emails directly to the Arbcom mailing list and don't post them on wiki, even in redacted or hypothetical form. Thatcher 11:03, 22 September 2009 (UTC)

Thanks to those who posted guidance. I will abide by the various injunctions. WRT to reading the emails, it's a difficult ethical question, but after finding that Arbcom members I trust, and Alex B, were reading them, I went ahead and put myself in their category. No, I wasn't directly injured - a couple of times the group was solicited to vote in renaming proposals at Lithuanian articles, but their subsequent votes didn't affect the outcomes. So no need to add myself as a party. If, when Arb presents its findings, some items I see as important are left out, I'll ask about them at the Arb mailing list. Novickas (talk) 16:19, 22 September 2009 (UTC)

Huh?1? Novickas, while it's not quite the same magnitude as with Deacon, you have had numerous disputes with people on the list in the past, unlike ArbCom or even Alex. So how in the world can you say "after finding that Arbcom members I trust, and Alex B, were reading them, I went ahead and put myself in their category." Yeah, I'm gonna go ahead and put myself in the category of people that can be trusted in spending other people's money, illegitimately obtained. What kind of weaselly moral rationalization is this?

I'd have more respect for someone who just comes out and admits "I read the damn thing cuz my curiosity got better of me". The level of hypocrisy surrounding this case and some people's statements sets new records, even for Wikipedia.radek (talk) 19:45, 22 September 2009 (UTC)

Don't you think that you should wait for a community approval such as a RfAdm before you put yourself in that group? Or maybe just waiting for an ok from an ArbCom (or, perhaps, and ok from the people private correspondence you'll be reading)? Sigh. What Radeksz said... the case is interesting in that true character and moral backbone of some people is being reveled here, I've been both positively and negatively shocked on several occasions in the past week... --_{Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus| talk} 19:49, 22 September 2009 (UTC)

Indeed, the contents of this mailing list reveal the true character and the moral backbone of some people here. You should also not forget the fact that you had no problems sharing private correspondence (which contrary to this mailing list with at least a dozen participants was indeed private correspondence) with your fellow mailing list members, see 06/22/2009 16.05. Nice double standard some mailing list participants have here. Pantherskin (talk) 05:41, 23 September 2009 (UTC)

I see you are enjoying reading our private correspondence. Check, another disappointment. --_{Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus| talk} 05:51, 23 September 2009 (UTC)

Enjoyed is probably the wrong word given the moral low this mailing list (mailing list, not private correspondence) revealed. Pantherskin (talk) 06:15, 23 September 2009 (UTC)

If this is the Shell Kinney thing again then please note that Piotrus only quoted a portion of the email (he should've paraphrased it) - way, way, way different than snooping through somebody's private emails - and has already publicly apologized. Which is a helluva lot more than can be said for anybody here. Take your moral equivocations, hypocritical rationalizations and general weaseling somewhere else.radek (talk) 05:51, 23 September 2009 (UTC)

I have apologized to one more person who accepted my apology and wishes to keep it private (although I wonder how long till somebody who doesn't care about privacy as much as dramu changes that...?). Quoting those people was my erroneous judgment. --_{Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus| talk} 05:55, 23 September 2009 (UTC)

Evidence by PasswordUsername

Re: Dc76 arrived on Rjanag's talk page to make unfounded accusations

Here are 5 edits by me on Monument of Lihula 14 June 2007. In over 2 years after that only 70 other edits were performed at that article. I followed them with interest through "My watchlist", b/c that article is not large, and in 2007 I took the time to go through everything there, including links, etc. Because of that I care(d) about changes in that article. In August 2007, when there were problems (=people reverting each other) with that article I was off wiki for a longer period of time. Next instance of problem with this article occured on 4 September 2009.

After I noticed this, I looked further and noticed Martintg reported PasswordUsername to Rjanang for 3RR violation. Rjanang said there was only 1 revert. According to my judgement, there were 2 reverts (the third one was immediately undone), and I told this to Rjanang [2]. As such, it was clearly unactionable, so basically my comment supported Rjanang and undermined Martintg's accusation. PasswordUsername is free to disagree with my characterization of his edits. But I would respectfully ask PasswordUsername to not accuse me now simply of providing then a characterization which he disagrees with. It was Rjanang's call, and I only gave him information what I consider was missing from that discussion. Should Rjanang have asked me to elaborate, I would have answered. I did not comment further to PasswordUsername because I did not want to inflame, since the whole issue was already settled by Rjanang.

PasswordUsername now (on the Evidence page) accuses me that that 1 edit of mine contained (I cite from PasswordUsername):

• "hostile comments, accusing me [him] of doing battleground behavior"
• "These very nasty attacks on my [his] edits made no sense at all"
• "accusing me [him] with extraordinary slander: what was written against me [him] was pure provocation"
• "unfounded attacks"
• "either deliberately belligerent and frivolous or he [I] doesn't normally arrive to peek at Rjanag's talk. (Both may very well be true.)"
• "an episode of gaming the system"
• "outstandingly car[e]less sophistry"

Answering to this will only inflame spirits without anything to be achieved. I want simply to bring to the attention of ArbCom that that 1 edit of mine did not contain such things. Thank you. Dc76\^talk 23:18, 22 September 2009 (UTC)

I stand by everything I said. You arrived at the talk page for no apparent reason, having interacted with me before once, I believe (when you came to attack me at a noticeboard in support of Biophys). Your attacks on me at Rjanag's made no sense – I did not make "ad hominems" against anybody (although your own post against myself could easily be interpreted that way). Please spare me the argument that you could not clarify your charges because you did not want to "inflame" the situation: you inflamed it by arriving on Rjanag's page after he clearly told your friends that he wasn't going to block me for my editing and sought to guilt-trip him into at least a future block by alleging that I was issuing "clear I challenge yous" etc. without any justification. (For those interested in the background as far as why I edited Lihula, look at how the British Broadcasting Corp. depicts the Monument of Lihula [3]. Hell, ladies and gentlement, get the background from the Taipei Times [4] – and compare this with the whitewashing Sander Sade and co. have done on the Lihula article.) And Dc76 is welcome to continue painting me and my edits as unreasonable – but his complaints about my editing will go nowhere with me. Since I have family members who were victims of the very kinds of people that members of the mailing list very much (my perception) appear to be trying to whitewash, I am going to stop responding here for fear of going weak before possible provocations on the theme.

But I certainly encourage everyone to examine my edits there and compare my pattern of editing, the edit summaries I made, and even my attempt at compromising with these nationalists as far as the baseless attacks on me and my editing, pursued by Dc76, the last member of the team to join Rjanag's talk in an ostensible attack against my attempts to bring a reasonable perspective to the article in question. Anti-Nationalist (talk) 19:52, 23 September 2009 (UTC)

Look, can we agree on the following: 1) I might be correct or might be wrong in that comment, depends who reads. It is in the eye of the beholder. I just described there my understanding at the time I wrote it. I am not God to be 100% correct every time. I did not mean "ad hominem" in the sense you read it, so perhaps I should have elaborated more instead of just giving that characterization. 2) I did not attack you, neither there, nor anywhere else. I had different opinions with you. Yes, we still have those. The mere fact that I presented my POV is not an attack on you. The fact that I exist as editor and have different opinions from you on some issues, is just a fact of life. I hope you do not want to eliminate me (from editing) just because I exist. Dc76\^talk 08:51, 24 September 2009 (UTC)

Quoting and referring to emails in evidence

The following discussion is closed and will soon be archived: No discussion which centers on speculation about the hacking-or-whistleblower issue, as the Committee has made clear previously.

---

What exactly is the problem with using short quotes from the emails in the evidence, if they do not contain any privacy material and only discuss on-wiki events? I've been asked to paraphrase the quotes in my evidence, but this results in a problem since now the text doesn't correspond 100% to what was actually said. I think it would be nice if ArbCom could make it clear what exactly they want to see in the evidence section right now and what not. Offliner (talk) 16:36, 23 September 2009 (UTC)

Erm, wasn't the whole damn point that ArbCom would handle stuff inside emails? Where and when did investigating their contents become public effort?--Staberinde (talk) 19:31, 23 September 2009 (UTC)

Exactly. Since when, where, and by whom, were people given the permission to just post private emails all over this case?radek (talk) 03:52, 24 September 2009 (UTC)

I think it's a little silly to keep referring to these as "private emails" when they were on a distribution list that many people saw, one of whom (apparently entirely legally) forwarded the emails to arbcom. It may be disconcerting for those who participated on the list who did not forward the emails, but when you email 17 people at once, what you say isn't particularly "private," and you really don't know what any of those 17 people are likely to do with that email. Now that the emails are apparently in the public domain, there probably isn't much that can be done about it -- if they were truly "hacked" or "stolen" as some people assert, then perhaps there is a legal case to be made to the appropriate authorities. But Occam's razor leads me to the conclusion that a listmember made the emails available. csloat (talk) 20:05, 24 September 2009 (UTC)

There's no proof that it was somebody from the list that forwarded them (illegally![5]) to almost a dozen people. All the members of the list signed a statement that they didn't forward anything to anybody. There are several other reasons to believe that it was a hacking.

BTW, there's no logical foundation to Occam's razor - it's just a rhetorical trick used in arguments, which relies on circular logic. And even if, I don't see how the "it was member of the list" is the simpler one here. I'd think that it was an outsider is more likely.radek (talk) 09:01, 25 September 2009 (UTC)

You do realise that it took some 20 years for Deep Throat to confirm his identity, after many denials? I don't expect the whistleblower amongst you to come forward, and respect their right not to, given the potential for retribution against them (either in real life or on wiki) --Russavia ^Dialogue 09:27, 25 September 2009 (UTC)

Communist genocide AfD and other items

I have not had a lot of interaction with the people on this alleged cabal list but I wonder if their actions during the AfD of Communist genocide were coordinated. I have had interactions with one of the users in the past, User:Biophys, and was amazed how several times when he was losing an argument someone who had never edited the article before dropped in to "help out" in an edit war -- I'm particularly thinking of interactions over this article in the past, but I also wonder about this article as well as the Communist genocide article. Both of the latter two articles went to AfD, and both votes were close, with several of the people named in this arbitration jumping on board at roughly the same time and making arguments almost as a chorus. There were several times I wondered at the coincidences. I now wonder how much of this activity was orchestrated, and whether Biophys in particular or some of his compatriots on this list singled my account out for any particular harassment or other games. I have always felt Biophys was playing games, and have even called him out on his annoying habit of denying that he made edits that he has just made. I don't know whether this super secret email list coordinated such attacks as the burst of activity on the Communist terrorism AfD or the Communist genocide AfD or the sudden appearance of Piotrus on this discussion or Vecrumba's similar appearance on this discussion but I do think that anyone familiar with the evidence and the list archives should take a close look at these things.

Frankly, if even a portion of what is alleged to be in these archives is actually there, it is a substantial problem at least as worrisome as the CAMERA scandal, if not more so. csloat (talk) 01:38, 24 September 2009 (UTC)

Please post this in the evidence section, if you haven't done so already. HistoricWarrior007 (talk) 07:45, 24 September 2009 (UTC)

There are likely other examples of this kind of thing, but that's an interesting one. By my count 9 of the 17 members of the list voted in the AfD, all voting to keep. Of the remaining eight, 3 were completely inactive at the time of the AfD (Digwuren, Alexia Death, and Molobo); 2 were on extended Wiki breaks (Biruitorul and Dc76); and one was on a week-long break that coincided with the start and first few days of the AfD (Ostap R). So 6 of the 17 were not really "available", and of the 11 who were, only two (Tymek and Miacek) did not !vote in the AfD. That's rather striking I think.

Obviously Arbs should look to see if an e-mail went around to the list around August 3rd or 4th mentioning this AfD. If it did, part of what the Arbs will need to decide in terms of principles is whether or not simply saying "check this AfD out" on the list is a cause for concern, or whether there must be a formal "go vote here, and vote keep" e-mail of some kind (probably just "go vote" would have been sufficient). Personally—and admittedly I take what might be an outlier view and think just about any non-public Wiki mailing list of any kind is an absolute bane, no matter how supposedly benign, and would not in a million years join one myself—I think even mentioning an AfD on a list, followed by a rush to !vote, is a massive problem. The language here suggests that as well, but one of the outcomes of this case could be a realization that we need to strengthen our rules/principles about off-wiki canvassing and coordination, and/or that the committee needs to send a strong message on that front in whatever principles end up in the final decision.

For me at least this case is not just about determining whether this one list serv led to disruption or not, it's about setting forth general principles about the (I hope) unacceptability of secret, off-wiki coordination of any kind and the need to keep absolutely as much of our work and discussion as we possibly can on Wikipedia. I know this list must not be the only one out there, but to the extent that these things proliferate and become more acceptable (something the committee and/or community can push back on right now), the potential damage to collaborative editing (which already has more than a few problems!) is enormous. Sorry for the rant, though as a non-involved party I guess this does explain my interest in this case. --Bigtimepeace | talk | contribs 08:09, 24 September 2009 (UTC)

Bigtimepeace, I hope you're not the one to frequent Wikipedia Review or Alternative History Forum ;). But seriously, I would go in the opposite direction. What's wrong with letting people know about an AfD vote? Is any coercion used? Are somebody's "Wiki rights" violated? Wikipedia isn't Fight Club and the first rule of Wikipedia isn't "don't talk about Wikipedia". You appear to be saying that I have to somehow stumble upon a particular article or vote all by my lonesome self in order to be considered eligible for editing or voting. I don't see that anywhere in Wiki policies and I think following this kind of practice just results in some really inefficient practice. What if I say "article X needs sources, can someone find one?" - and then someone does. How is that qualitatively different? For that matter how is this different from somebody checking another user's contribution list? Or why have a watchlist at all if we don't want to spread the information that particular articles, edits, or votes even exist? And w/o a sufficient flow of information you leave articles at the mercy of a single, or few, editors who may not represent overall consensus (I note that Offliner and co. have managed to sneak some AfD's under the radar (nominating them, all them voting quickly, and quickly closing) that I would most certainly voted on had I known).radek (talk) 08:36, 24 September 2009 (UTC)

Bigtimepeace, thank you very much for your analysis. Could you, please, also check how many of the 9 were previous editors of that article, have commented before on that article, or were involved in previous AfDs or re-namings (if any) for that article. Dc76\^talk 09:04, 24 September 2009 (UTC)

(ec with Dc) Thanks for that reply Radeksz, I think it actually gets right to the heart of the problem. WP:CANVASS is the main guideline that applies here, which states that "messages that are written to influence the outcome rather than to improve the quality of a discussion compromise the consensus building process and may be considered disruptive." This is the problem with a list serv of like-minded people. When an e-mail goes out saying "check out this AfD," it's likely that the person writing generally feels letting others know about it will help "improve the quality of the discussion" since a certain view needs to be more strongly represented. However in a contentious AfD, as the one described above was, a gang of people who show up because they were prompted by an e-mail can certainly be seen as "compromising the consensus building process." AfDs are obviously not a !vote, but difficult AfDs usually have good arguments by both sides. If an admin closing a close AfD (and I've done that on a number of occasions) sees that the main "keep" argument is more persuasive to more editors, that will absolutely weigh into the final decision to some extent. Thus in a sense numbers do matter, and an e-mail that brings 8 more people to an AfD to vote the exact same way is, in my view, quite disruptive.

And yes, this is obviously qualitatively different from saying "article X needs sources, can someone find one?" No Wikipedian would complain about finding better sources for an article—there's nothing contentious about putting out a call for that. But obviously keeping the article Communist genocide was contentious, so sending out an e-mail directing people there (if that happened—I have no idea either way) in order to stack !votes for the keep side (if that happened) is a major problem. When it is revealed during an AfD that canvassing has taken place, admins routinely take this into account as they determine consensus. By engaging in "stealth canvassing," you essentially hide information from the closing admin which they would need to close the AfD properly (e.g., there was a lot of vote stacking on the delete side, so the consensus in that direction is not nearly as strong as it might have seemed). To be perfectly frank Radeksz, I find it extremely disheartening that this even needs any explanation.

For what it's worth, I don't participate in Wikipedia Review (and I don't even know what Alternative History Forum is), though I do read it from time to time. There are potential problems with Wikipedians participating at WR, particularly as it relates to bad-mouthing other users in a way they would not here on WP. But it is an open forum (I think basically anyone can join), and much if not most of its content is viewable to non-members. This was not true of your list, obviously. It's the secrecy, combined with the fact that you were admittedly gossiping about other editors, that gets me here, even if there was no formal coordination of AfD participation, revert warring, etc. Wikipolitics are shitty enough as it is, and closed, offsite forums where editors rail against those with whom they disagree only exacerbate that problem. I think they are utterly inimical to the supposedly open, transparent, and collaborative nature of this project, and the fact that there are other ways in which openness, transparency, and collaboration are undermined here doesn't make them okay. The fact that we can't really police off-wiki lists at all doesn't mean we just throw up our hands and say "nothing we can do about it"—we can at least state that editors are strongly encouraged not to participate in those kind of lists, and that if their participation is discovered it will likely affect their standing with the community in a negative fashion. I'm probably too idealistic, but I have some hope that this case will lead other editors who might be on private, group e-mail lists to say "You know what? We shouldn't be doing this." Because they shouldn't.

To Dc76, I'm not going to dig into this any further right now, simply because it's not at all worth doing if there was no list e-mail about the AfD, which would mean the AfD is just not germane to this case. If there was and e-mail and if the Arbs want someone to look into the on-wiki history behind this I would be willing to do so. --Bigtimepeace | talk | contribs 09:22, 24 September 2009 (UTC)

Fair enough. (sorry about ec) Dc76\^talk 11:43, 24 September 2009 (UTC)

The problem with overinterpreting CANVASS is the assumption that people informed are yes man with no brain of their own. I voted in that AfD. But before I voted, I read the article and looked at it talk, read the AfD and did my own research (my Google Book arguments is novel for AfD). Tell me, what did I do wrong? Why should I've stayed out of that AfD? I find the European communist-era history interesting, but there is no AfD deletion sorting project collecting those very specific articles, and I don't care enough about Romania to watchlist AfD sorting for Romania, which nine times out of then has stuff I don't care about. Perhaps we should in fact create an AfD sorting for Eastern European history or such... but even that wouldn't really solve our problem, as our group is about something different than EE history (we care about modern politics, or political theory, as well). That's why I considered AfD sorting in the past and decided it's not really suitable enough for our purposes. I'd appreciate community suggestions as to how combine our interests with a more transparent venue; the bottom line is that we are not informing one another of articles to be secret and hide our involvement, but because email is the easiest way we have thought of that can do that (and nowhere there is a wiki policy "you shall not use email to discuss Wikipedia"). --_{Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus| talk} 16:36, 24 September 2009 (UTC)

I don't think there's any over-interpretation going on here, as having an e-mail list of people who agree on most content issues in a particular area and e-mailing said list about an AfD seems to be a pretty textbook example of votestacking, whether it was intended that way or not. Of course you all have brains of your own, and no doubt you disagree from time to time, but the fact is that the list members are generally on the same side of the debate on EE topics. If you want to avoid accusations of votestacking, you would have to communicate the fact that there is an AfD to people on the other side of the debate as well, but I'm guessing that didn't happen. One way to announce EE AfDs and the like—which may or not be controversial, but which has been done before—would be to set up a noticeboard in someone's user space for such announcements. Anyone could post important discussions to the board and anyone could watchlist it, and thereby the situation is much more transparent but people (on all "sides") are still informed of debates.

But surely you now see the other problem with using an e-mail list to inform like-minded editors of certain discussions. Whether or not you are trying to be "secret," if such efforts are ever revealed, they will likely be perceived as "combining interests" (which isn't really something anyone should be doing anyway, at least in a one-side fashion on a controversial topic) and doing so off-wiki so as to hide that fact. That perception may or may not be unfair, but it's more than understandable I think. Obviously, regardless of how this case turns out, the revelation about the list will likely have a negative effect on list members when they work on EE topics, as trust has been undermined. That's quite unfortunate, but I think you've collectively shot yourselves in the foot here to a certain extent, which is a loss for you but also for the project since clearly most or all of you have a lot to offer to that topic area. Finally, the endless arguments and Arb cases about EE topics have been an utter disaster (and a major drain on community resources), and I think we have to consider the fact that the existence of this list made worse what was already a toxic editing environment. I'm sure you don't see it that way, and undoubtedly editors on the "other side" contributed to toxicity, but to me the correlation between a list serv of like minded editors (maybe there was more than one—I don't know) and a raging, unending dispute suggests that avoiding the former might be a good idea in general. --Bigtimepeace | talk | contribs 18:20, 24 September 2009 (UTC)

Oh, and a philosophically about off-wiki communication. I guess one of the things that stimulates them is that WP discourages people to speak their mind. If I said something in an email and a week later I understand that I was partly wrong, I can re-state my new understanding, and that would be absolutely fine with the recipient of my email. But if I say (hypothetically) something on wiki and later change my mind, that old thing could (and would if I cross somebody) be used against me to portray me as a bad editor, even though I no longer believe it, and perhaps never actually believed it as such. Even if my old comment was "I might be wrong, but I think x makes sense. Please point where I might miss something.", almost nobody (who would want to cite me) would cite me like that; they would say instead "Dc76 thinks x. That's unacceptable!" My conclusion: we need more on-wiki communication about news and events in say EE topic area to stimulate AGF. I suggested elsewhere in this ArbCom case pages to start a wiki-project umbrella noticeboard. Dc76\^talk 09:21, 24 September 2009 (UTC)

That is actually a good argument for having such closed discussions, to let everyone speak up his mind without fear of reprisals. Someone also said these closed discussions were used in a number of occasions to actually mediate and work around some problems in some problematic articles. But these are also the reasons to invite your opponents into the off-wiki forum as well. You would have an outlet for speaking up your mind without any negative impact on your Wikipedia's account (and you could even disassociate your WP account from the forum altogether in case of a leak). (Igny (talk) 14:33, 24 September 2009 (UTC))

Hmmm. You know, I must agree with you. In fact, we were talking on the mail list yesterday and today on what options we have, how to make this work in the future, and it seems that the preferred course of action is to have an on-wiki forum in the form of a Noticeboard (for all on-wiki stuff) and an off-wiki blog for non-wiki related stuff. (Impressions about wiki are a grey area, don't know what to do with this yet.) You have a lot of interesting ideas. After the ArbCom case will be over (right now everyone feels uneasy - I guess you can understand, anyone can read our private email, including personal stuff that has nothing to do with WP - BTW I was really impressed by Jehochman's verticality not to read it), pls leave a message on my talk page if you want to join the blog. I don't know yet when it will be set, and how will membership be (in the mail list we were agreeing to invite new people only if there is unanymous support). The thing is that we are ideologically not that far from each other (most are right of the center, with a couple remarkable exceptions, which are left of the center), but we were united in that we regard Soviet heritage as generally negative, so I don't know if you will like this kind of political talk mixed with social chat. But I can try to lobby for inviting you. P.S. Yes, there was a remarkable (and successful) mediation in Polish-Ukrainian affairs. The truth is, the quality of the Poles and Ukrainians in the list was good, so when you mediate you mediate between intelligent people, which is a totally different "game" than the typical mediation on WP, when some nut or extremist can derail anything (sometimes that nut does not have a clear idea even about arguments pro his side of the story). Dc76\^talk 20:19, 24 September 2009 (UTC)

What I find interesting in the above is the response from list members who participated in the AfD. Piotrus, for example, notes that his participation in the AfD was informed, which is a good thing IMHO (whether he was right or wrong). But this begs the question - did he or did he not receive or distribute an email canvassing for support on this AfD on the email list? And what of his participation in the discussion on the other articles I flagged above? As a member of the list, presumably he had access to this information; if he has evidence of wrongdoing occurring through the list it would be helpful if he was up front about it. I will go ahead and add my comments above to the evidence list now. csloat (talk) 19:02, 24 September 2009 (UTC)

If someone participated in an AfD of an article he/she edited before and knows the issue, it is one thing - that is an informed participation (usually you spot them b/c they leave interesting comments during AfD). A simple vote - counts for nothing. Intelligent closing admins generally discount these votes. These votes (votes, not opinions/arguments) do not help the project. Any action (on and/or off wiki) that leads to such votes ultimately damages WP; but unfortunately not many people and even those not always keep this simple fact in mind. Dc76\^talk 20:19, 24 September 2009 (UTC)

That's exactly the kind of equivocation I was commenting on. "If someone participated..." There's no need for hypotheticals. The question is a simple one -- did he or did he not receive or distribute emails canvassing for support on that AfD? And what of the other articles? If you were on the list, surely you would know. And when someone did answer the question directly, right below, you tell him to "get a life." This isn't helpful. csloat (talk) 06:24, 25 September 2009 (UTC)

Sorry for the belated answer, I got a nasty flu, and did not recover yet (hopefully, in 2-3 days I will).

I said "If someone participated in an AfD", not "if something was discussed off-wiki". I am sure you see these are two different things! If something was discussed but no on-wiki action followed, with all due respect, that is not WP's business to read and right to judge. First, one should analyse people's behavior on WP, then ask them something along these lines: "Over the last year, you have participated in editing and discussing the following 10 articles that ArbCom would like to review now. Was your actions in WP influenced by off-wiki discussion or not? Did you attempt off-wiki to canvass people to come edit or discuss these articles?" ArbCom based on on-wiki evidence, answers, and other information, can then say "There is no clear indication that X broke any WP rule." or "There is indication that X broke the following rules. The following injunction is proposed to remedy this." The thing upon which ArbCom has jurisdiction is on-wiki edits, not off-wiki discussion. There was no plan to hijack WP or influence its workings in any way, as it was in the CAMERA case.

Since you insist to get answers about the list, here are some for you. If you have more, please ask me. I have not read all emails I received through the mail list, there were simply too many of them. If the subject line was of interest to me, and if in those days I had time, then yes, I read. For some periods of time, however, I was very busy in real life, therefore I have a couple hundred Gmail conversations (well over 1,000 emails) that I did not open yet. So, what I can tell you is strictly from the threads I read. There were many discussions about pro/con arguments (contentwise) on different issues. But there was no canvassing. I would have done exactly the same edits on WP over the last year if the list did not exist.

I followed those discussions that were about issues that interested me, and yes from the email discussions I got some new information:

(1) about possible interesting sources I did not know before,

(2) the feeling of other people that some articles are written with pro-Stalinist or pro-Putin bias (before I felt I was alone with such impressions, but from the mail list I learned that many people besides me felt like that)

Also my comments on mail list regarding WP issues were generally post-factum, i.e. I would first do something on WP and then only comment in the mail list about it, for example I'd say in the mail list: "I commented on article X. I agree with this and this, but sorry I disagree with you about this and you about that."

I am very interested in the subject "Communist genocide", but unfortunately I was too busy in real life to participate in editing its articles on WP or in its AfD. Nobody tried to even remotely suggest me to participate in this article.

P.S. Yes, I am very disturbed that people read through other people's private emails. Only ArbCom can under certain conditions read some emails. I believe people should get real lives, and not read private emails. Posting references on-wiki is highly immoral if not even illegal (per WP:OUTING), because it encourages people to get a copy of the mail list and read it.

Specifically to Offliner's question: I was not active in August at all. I was on a wiki-break. Dc76\^talk 17:04, 27 September 2009 (UTC)

As far as I can tell, the Communist genocide AfD was first discussed on the secret list in the email "20090805-0640-[WPM] AfD.eml". See my evidence section: [6]. Offliner (talk) 19:44, 24 September 2009 (UTC)

With all due respect, get a life, stop reading our private stuff. ArbCom will ask your help when needed. Gather on-wiki diffs. Just look at the contribs of everyone and compare where there is overlap. Dc76\^talk 20:19, 24 September 2009 (UTC)

Speaking specifically of AfD's I think there's an issue here which hasn't been brought up and which I think counters most of Bigtimepeace's concerns. And that is that information about AfDs in particular should be spread around. This is because often some users will try to float AfDs on the radar - nominate it quickly, get a few of their friends to vote delete then close it quickly and delete an article they don't like. This is obviously done with extensive discussion and hence without broader Wiki consensus. These kinds of sneaky tactics are a far bigger problem than letting other editors know that an AfD is going on.

On Communist Genocide in particular, I just don't see how anyone could say that was not a legitimate vote. There was a ton of discussion, back and forth, lots of editors who are not involved in this case, people changing their minds under the weight of arguments - it wasn't always pretty but that's what consensus building and discussion looks like.radek (talk) 01:35, 25 September 2009 (UTC)

It has already been shown how it was not a legitimate vote on the evidence page -- without the tampering by list members, the AfD vote would have been clearly "delete." csloat (talk) 06:24, 25 September 2009 (UTC)

Collaboration with the Axis Powers during World War II: 15-17 August 2009

Quite simply PasswordUsername is saying things here which he knows to be false.

• He calls my restoration of sourced material he removed an instance of "edit waring".[7] (a single edit!)
• He claims that the discussion at talk was "quickly concluded" in his favor, which, as a quick glance at the talk page shows is just not true at all (this false assertion appears to be based on a single comment by involved user Anonimu)

What's simply going on here is that PU is revert warring (3 reverts in one day) against consensus, without actually discussing the issue.

I'm just pointing out this one particular instance but this kind of falsification basically characterizes all of PU's evidence. He's making stuff up and hoping that no one will actually click the diffs to find out for themselves and take his word at it. Unfortunately, countering such false claims is quite time intensive.radek (talk) 09:05, 24 September 2009 (UTC)

Calling someone an outright liar is a personal attack. Please rephrase your comment. It's possible that he has a different POV, is mistaken, or perhaps he has the correct information and it is you who are misinformed. There are multiple possibilities here. Of course, I would like to see you address PU's claim about the Human rights in the United States dispute. Are you saying he is making that up as well? Viriditas (talk) 09:16, 24 September 2009 (UTC)

I did not call him an "outright liar", I said that in this case he is lying. And in other cases he's falsifying. Basically, there really is no way to say that without being critical and any attempts at weaseling it fail to convey the nature of the actual situation.radek (talk) 09:47, 24 September 2009 (UTC)

Discuss the edits, not the editor. What part of that is not clear? Viriditas (talk) 10:00, 24 September 2009 (UTC)

Radek, although this sounds very much like Orwell's 1984 :), indeed perhaps you should rephrase "is lying" into "is untrue" or "is distorting the key sense". You could also change "PU is revert warring against consensus" into more moderate "PU is revert un-peaceful for non-consensus", but that is way too funny. :) Now seriously, even if he might be lying, just say he is distorting the sense. Dc76\^talk 09:32, 24 September 2009 (UTC)

Radeksz, if you really, really want to call me a liar, go ahead: I give you my permission here. But what you wrote is false as hell. Let's see: Collaboration with the Axis Powers included material on Soviet-German WWII agreements (the Molotov-Ribbentrop Pact, peacetime trade, etc.) irrelevant to the subject of World War II collaborationism, and your team (you, Jacurek, Vecrumba) participated in a long series of reverts to keep this material, while I made a pretty good case at talk (see Talk:Collaboration with the Axis Powers during World War II#Important_information_removed). The discussion was clearly concluded in my favor very quickly: the only arguments against me – incidentally, failing to address the point – were by members of your team, and not only Anonimu but also Jaan Pärn (Erikupoeg), a very good Estonian editor, agreed with me [8]. Your team, as anybody can see, not only failed to rebut what was said by any of us, but failed to present any substantial argument which – again – leads me to state that the discussion was quickly concluded in my favor, although you did charge me with having "important information removed." If merited as regards my description of this instance of editing or any other, you can always go ahead and call me a liar, then – but I think that you should think very hard and long about this, and make sure that your reading comprehension is up to snuff, before you ever even think of attempting doing so. Adieu, Anti-Nationalist (talk) 14:06, 24 September 2009 (UTC)

I think anyone can check the discussion page for themselves - the argument was not concluded in your favor. This is actually quite typical behavior here - make a statement, and proceed on it as soon as one other editor agrees as if that was "consensus" even if other editors disagree.

And your characterization of my single edit which restored sourced material you removed as "edit warring" is clearly false.radek (talk) 02:14, 25 September 2009 (UTC)

Let's have a stop to saying the emails are illegal/hacked/whatever, shall we?

There's been absolutely no proof provided of this whatosever. Saying that they are illegal/hacked is blatantly provocative as it implies that anyone who reads them or knows about them is a criminal. It also smacks of an attempt to surpress evidence. Jtrainor (talk) 03:40, 25 September 2009 (UTC)

An Arbitrator has also stated that there is no evidence whatsoever of theft/hack/whatever, so why people keep bringing this up is beyond me. -Jeremy ^{(v^_^v Tear him for his bad verses!)} 04:27, 25 September 2009 (UTC)

Dead horse. --_{Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus| talk} 04:44, 25 September 2009 (UTC)

How did the horse die? shaving accident? csloat (talk) 06:26, 25 September 2009 (UTC)

Hey, look guys. The cabal needs to use every possible argument for their defense, so please give them full freedom, they have every legal right to it. But I've read the technical headers of the mailing list messages and found nothing unusual. Doctoring of e-mail text is one thing, and faking the e-mail headers is quite another. Please, have a look at that page of Digwuren's website http://wikipedometer.net/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/folks and here is mailing list archive page http://wikipedometer.net/cgi-bin/mailman/private/folks/ they all are shown in the headers. And these pages cannot be googled. Guess how I have found them. The message headers are authentic. Of course Digwuren as admin may have deleted everything already from his website. But indication of the pages in the e-mail headers is pretty convincing. Vlad fedorov (talk) 08:59, 25 September 2009 (UTC)

My opinion is that if there was a disclosure by whisteblowers, privacy is not an issue. Vlad fedorov (talk) 09:04, 25 September 2009 (UTC)

Vlad I don't think your comments here are helpful at all since you should not even be looking at the mailing list e-mails, much less discussing them here. And Jtrainor's first point is absolutely right but applies both to discussions saying they e-mails were "hacked" and that they were "leaked by a whistleblower." As I pointed out somewhere else, arbitrator Coren already noted that "both claims of hacking or pronouncement that a whistleblower is culpable — without supporting evidence — should not take place." So everyone needs to hold to that, and perhaps the case clerk needs to start enforcing it if need be. --Bigtimepeace | talk | contribs 16:34, 25 September 2009 (UTC)

Why I can't read these emails if I am discussed in them? Anyway, my point was this - any statement should come with evidence, just like you said. Pure statements of hacking cannot be accepted.Vlad fedorov (talk) 19:09, 25 September 2009 (UTC)

I have presented evidence as to why I think it was a whistleblower to the Committee, but have done so via email, in order to protect the identity of the whistleblower from repercussions from the group members. But yes, it would be nice if people would stop saying one thing or the other, and get to presenting evidence and the like. --Russavia ^Dialogue 16:41, 25 September 2009 (UTC)

Query to clerks and arbitrators

Resolved

I have been asked, at User talk:Sandstein#Please provide a copy of the email sent to you from Vecrumba, to make public an e-mail I received. I have no objection to doing so, but given the special circumstances of this case I would appreciate advice from a clerk or arbitrator as to whether, under the special rules governing this arbitration case, I may make the e-mail public if the sender does not give his consent (as I've asked him to).  Sandstein  14:34, 26 September 2009 (UTC)

Please note, that at the very least if released, it should be sent to Arbcom via email. If Sandstein would like to enter it into evidence on the evidence pages that is his choice of course, if he is allowed to. --Russavia ^Dialogue 14:42, 26 September 2009 (UTC)

Vecrumba has responded on Sandstein's talk page, and is accusing me of bad faith towards Sandstein. I have made it very clear to Sandstein that I am not assuming any bad faith in regards to himself, and have told him myself that I have no problem with him. I would hope that Sandstein would acknowledge this if he recognises this as such. --Russavia ^Dialogue 14:55, 26 September 2009 (UTC)

The matter is resolved insofar as the sender of the e-mail has given his consent to make the e-mail public, which I have done on my talk page. If anybody wants to enter it into evidence, that's their business.  Sandstein  15:03, 26 September 2009 (UTC)

The matter is indeed resolved as far as Sandstein is concerned. Thank you Sandstein. Can you please also remove the disclaimer from your userpage as well. It is the existence of that disclaimer and the lack of email in your reply which raised eyebrows with several editors. That is the extent of it. Cheers, --Russavia ^Dialogue 15:12, 26 September 2009 (UTC)

Yes, the disclaimer may be confusing. I'm rethinking that.  Sandstein  15:20, 26 September 2009 (UTC)

I respectfully request that all on-Wiki requests and discussions related to this case not be deleted and not be archived until this case is settled. That includes any pages which constitute the case and article and user talk pages, as I may require access to all such materials to respond to accusations. Thank you. I apologize in advance that PL limits my Wiki-time this weekend, this being over the last of my morning coffee. VЄСRUМВА  ♪  15:22, 26 September 2009 (UTC)

P.S. As this was

1. a request by Russavia to Sandstein, who imposed the initial topic ban upon him,
2. and after I had extensively responded to Offliner
3. AND indicated Sandstein was free to forward my Email to Offliner should there be additional concerns or if I had misrepresented my communication in any way (and repeated after additional hounding),

I stand by my assessment of Russavia's, per his characerization, good faith and wholly non-accusatory fishing expedition. Carpentry and chores and nursing home visit await. VЄСRUМВА  ♪  16:56, 26 September 2009 (UTC)

Another query to clerk or arbitrators

I have noticed that Offliner has presented evidence at Wikipedia:Arbitration/Requests/Case/Eastern_European_mailing_list/Evidence#Piotrus_has_abused_his_admin_status and I have begun to present evidence on the same issue at Wikipedia:Arbitration/Requests/Case/Eastern_European_mailing_list/Evidence#As_yet_unnamed_section. Given that Offliner's section is somewhat more complete, and is only missing a single piece of information from my evidence, would there be any objection from the Committee if such a section was merged into say Offliner's section? I should make it known that both myself and Offliner are independent editors, and are gathering evidence for our own sections independently, but where there is substantial overlap like this, it may make for better readability if such sections were able to merged into a single section with all pertinent information present in one spot. Is that ok? --Russavia ^Dialogue 14:47, 26 September 2009 (UTC)

That's generally a bad idea because it complicates attribution greatly. You might simply elide your the part of your evidence that you feel is redundant and link to Offliner's section at a particular revion? — Coren ^(talk) 22:15, 26 September 2009 (UTC)

@Piotrus, No more sanctimony

I've had just about enough of your sanctimony. You say Discussing content off-wiki is allowed. I've barely scratched the surface of this email archive, just given it a couple hours perusal this evening. I have found explicit coordination of edits for purposes of avoiding revert limits. I've found explicit discussion of how to create sock puppets to revert, and how to create sockpuppets to infiltrate the pro-Russian side. I've found an explicit comment by you on how to interfere with a report at WP:AE and make sure nothing productive happens. I've found two private messages cross-posted to the list without the permission of the original sender. One user reports Offliner for Arbitration Enforcement. Igny shows up to point out that Offliner has been the target of systematic harassment, and another list member asks if he should ask Igny to withdraw the "baseless accusations"—this on a mailing list that mentions Offliner in 84 messages by title alone! I mean, the very brazenness of this is stunning. After Jehochman warned you not to comment as an admin on Arb enforcement matters involving EE and Digwuren case issues, there was a 62 48-message long thread about how to get him punished! Biophys notes on your talk page that you are entitled to issue sanctions to me or to any other editor (like Offliner) with whom he "is not engaged in a current, direct, personal conflict on the topic". What a wonderful world you live in where you can coordinate reverting against Offliner on June 6 (20090606-0618) and yet be "uninvolved" for purposes of placing sanctions because, while your conflict is undoubtedly current and personal, it is not direct since you are hiding in on a mailing list!

No more sanctimony, no more hypocrisy. If there is justice in the heart of Arbcom, your days are numbered.Thatcher 06:32, 27 September 2009 (UTC)

• Hmmm, where've you been before? Their on-wiki modus operandi was known for years, well before the archive "discovery". Why would you think this Arbcom is any different from the past ones? NVO (talk) 06:45, 27 September 2009 (UTC)
  • Would someone please remove the administrator icon and categories from Piotrus' page? He seems to think his desysopping is only temporary and the community is just dying to give him his tools back. Viriditas (talk) 06:58, 27 September 2009 (UTC)
    • I think that it might be worthwhile to remember Wikipedia:Don't feed the divas. Even though I am as disgusted as Thatcher in his assessment, and even more so seeing as Piotrus actively participated in the long-term harrassment of myself and other editors, and I am afraid that that will not be dealt with simply by revoking admin tools. It doesn't take a mensa member to work that out. --Russavia ^Dialogue 07:41, 27 September 2009 (UTC)

"No more sanctimony"... "your days are numbered"... lovely... I guess NPA/CIV/AGF don't apply here? At least we kept our criticism of others to private exchanges... Anyway, enjoy reading our private emails - I am sure you can think of many justifications why this is the right thing to do. Myself, I have a lot of better things to do than to play the "throw-the-mudball" game here, like work on my 23rd FA or finish the "300 DYK plan". Flame on, but don't expect to bait me too much - I am taking those pages off my watchlist. The Committee is of course welcome to ask me questions, as they promised earlier, and I'll honor my pledge to response to them to the best of my abilities. EOT, for me.--_{Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus| talk} 07:21, 27 September 2009 (UTC)

You're still here? Try to explain [20090615-17:27] Exactly how much evidence will be required to ask you to stop? That entire thread is damning enough. And that's only one thread. Do you really believe you are going to get your admin tools back? Viriditas (talk) 07:43, 27 September 2009 (UTC)

Isn't that nice? I didn't see that one yet Viriditas. Piotrus suggesting to the group that they contact the ASIO to give them a tip that I am a Russian security services mole, read: spy. In other words, they didn't just discuss stalking and harrassing myself in real life, and messing with my business, but also discussed ways to get me in trouble within the security community. This entire thing is making me sick. I think Piotrus should finish up doing what he is doing, because for him to encourage stalking and harrassment of myself in real life, is worthy of a lengthy ban. There is no explanation or excuse for this Piotrus. --Russavia ^Dialogue 07:49, 27 September 2009 (UTC)

AGF:This guideline does not require that editors continue to assume good faith in the presence of contrary evidence. M.K. (talk) 11:56, 27 September 2009 (UTC)

• Piotrus, you are the one who responded to my evidence by saying Discussing content off-wiki is allowed. As a result, I decided to highlight on this talk page, the content of some emails that I only referred to by time stamp on the evidence page, that have absolutely nothing to do with content. Let's be perfectly clear: "Smith is edit warring at Foo, can someone suggest a better source I can use" = good; "Smith is edit warring and I need help to avoid going over 3RR" = bad, and by the way has nothing to do with content. "Unfortunately, Jehochman is right that I am too involved in EE matters (such as this mailing list which he knows nothing about) to make comments in my role as admin" = good; "I am completely uninvolved with Offliner and have the right to impose sanctions on him even though I frequently discuss his editing privately and coordinate reverting against him by others" = bad; "How dare Jehochman even suggest such a thing, maybe this is the start of his downfall" = very bad indeed. And I still want to know why you suggested that Radek send his complaint about me to Kirill.
• Piotrus, ever heard the expression It's an ill bird that fouls its own nest? I think you are going to have a very hard time finding people to be impressed with your 23 featured articles or 300 DYKs after the conclusion of this case. We'll hang a plaque in your honor in the Woody Allen Memorial Museum of Tarnished Accomplishment in between Elliot Spitzer and Stephen Glass. Thatcher 14:04, 27 September 2009 (UTC)
  • Oh my! I feel flattered to have received so much attention. Sixty-two messages! Jehochman ^Talk 14:30, 27 September 2009 (UTC)

I'm not surprised that Thatcher would dismiss 23 FAs and 300 DYKs with an insulting suggestion for a "plaque" seeing how Thatcher has ... let's see ... only 10% of his Wikipedia edits in actual Wikipedia articles [9], and as far as I can tell has created only 10 articles (not counting redirects [10]). It seems that Thatcher doesn't do much of the "write an encyclopedia" part of the, uh, "writing an encyclopedia". Rather he just struts around Wikipedia policy pages and people's talk pages (70% of the edits) giving forth pronouncements, usurping other administrator's work and making rulings without bothering to actually check out the evidence presented by both sides. And this is part of the underlying problem here - it has been ever since Thatcher tried to "make a name" for him/herself with the attempt to machine gun down every editor active in Eastern European topics. What you've got here is a bureaucratic administrator who appears to be allergic to any actual content creation, deeply offended that one (or more) of the article-writing drones had a nerve to question his/her ruling. And when the appeal started to look like it might work, Thatcher, you did throw a tantrum for apparently no reason - well, I guess a successful appeal wouldn't be much helpful in name-making for a Wiki career. And left with a bruised ego, the effects of which we are seeing now.

You know, it's way way way harder to write even a single Featured Article, then to ban even ten people (without bothering to actually do the work that should come required with the administrator's privileges). So @Thatcher, no more hypocrisy.radek (talk) 18:11, 27 September 2009 (UTC)

And BTW, I have no idea why Piotrus suggested I email my appeal to Kirill. He suggested I email a lot of people; Newyorkbrad, MBisanz, Durova, ... yourself. And in the end I didn't write Kirill (IIRC) (basically because I had no idea who he was at the time) - just like I ignored a lot of other advice I got during the appeal. And YOU KNOW I emailed all these other people because I told you so explicitly in my emails to you, so I don't know why you are singling Kirill out. This seems to be some intra-admin spat that I know nothing about.radek (talk) 18:30, 27 September 2009 (UTC)

[20090603-0813] is a nice read. It shows your "initiation" into the mailing list cabal. Your first assignment given to you by Piotr [20090603-0726] was to deliberately bait Deacon of Pndapetzim, and you cheerfully admit to completing the task. Viriditas (talk) 19:04, 27 September 2009 (UTC)

Gee, great job of bringing up something completely irrelevant and changing the topic. And this has exactly what to do with the Thatcher case? (no one gave me any tasks and there's was no initiation so quit lying) But speaking of baiting, let's see, Biophys tries to apologize to you and you try to bait him. But hey, what do you expect from a person who puts a

1RRThis user prefers discussing changes on the talk page rather than engaging in an edit war.

infobox on their user page and then regularly goes around reverting people 3+ times per day. Like I said, cut the hypocrisy.radek (talk) 19:11, 27 September 2009 (UTC)

This topic is about Piotrus, not Thatcher, and [20090603-0726] shows Piotrus initiating you (Radeksz) as a new member into the EE mailing list cabal and assigning you to harass Deacon of Pndapetzim. [20090603-0813] shows your admitted completion of the task. Viriditas (talk) 19:13, 27 September 2009 (UTC)

The topic is Thatcher's case and my appeal. Go start a different topic if you want to start flame wars. Piotrus didn't assign me to do crap, there was no initiation, if I did something wrong then I am the one responsible for it. Please quit making shit up. Radeksz. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Radeksz (talk • contribs) [11]

No, the thread topic is clearly, "@Piotrus, No more sanctimony", and these are the facts: Piotrus was impressed with your skills and thought you could take advantage of the tactics used by the list to go after other editors (file reports against them, etc.). In May, he proposed recruiting you to the mailing list in an open letter. [20090515-01304] A few days later, Digwuren confirmed you had been added to the mailing list [20090517-1235] and you confirmed this with your first message. [20090517-1547] In June, Piotrus sent out a mail detailing how to deal with Deacon, and you were given the task of baiting Deacon into an outburst of bad faith and uncivility that would be used against him as evidence. [20090603-0726] Less than an hour later, you responded that you had followed Piotrus' instructions and that you had completed the task of baiting Deacon. [20090603-0813] Viriditas (talk) 20:11, 27 September 2009 (UTC)

Radek, you misunderstand me. I have nothing but admiration for featured articles and the hard working editors who write them. But Woody Allen is no longer known first and foremost for the genius of Annie Hall, but for marrying his adopted daughter, and Elliot Spitzer will be remembered first as the governor and prosecutor who was caught hiring prostitutes and forced to resign, and his career as the terror of Wall Street will forever be a distant second. The featured content of the mailing list group of editors will not immunize it from the consequences of its' bad actions. Thatcher 21:18, 27 September 2009 (UTC)

Another, perhaps somewhat apt remembrance, is that Robert Mugabe is no longer known for fighting for the independence of his country, and eventually leading his country to independence; a country which would become a shining star in Africa, but is now known for his corruption and nepotism, harrassment of the opposition, kicking people off their land and bulldozing peoples houses, and basically turning a successful country into a basket case where inflation is out of control, people are starving and the economy in absolute ruins. It is time for Mugabe to stepdown, but he refuses to recognise it. I do see some similarities there with Piotrus. Just an observation is all. --Russavia ^Dialogue 22:06, 27 September 2009 (UTC)

WP:DUCK comes to mind with regards to what Thatcher has said. I'll leave it at that. Jtrainor (talk) 00:54, 28 September 2009 (UTC)