Wikipedia talk:Requests for arbitration/Kuban kazak

Uninvolved opinions

Thoughts from AGK

I'm surprised to see this matter hasn't been presented to the community for general behavioural checks—eg., at ANI. Would it be worthwhile seeing what a stint on the noticeboards comes up with? The Community may well develop a solution that nips this in the bud much quicker than a full ArbCom case would.

Having said that, harassment is an inherently poisonous phenomenon; I would not be adverse to seeing this case accepted simply due to the nature—occasionally, quick intervention and resolution is best. AGK 20:54, 30 October 2008 (UTC)

Response to Mariah-Yulia: Discussion on the case stalled, but there was a MedCom attempt at resolving the dispute, yes. See Wikipedia:Requests for mediation/Podilsko-Voskresenska Line. I Mediated that case for the Committee, actually. Small world, eh? AGK 22:20, 30 October 2008 (UTC)

Discussion stalled? You will have a feeling of deja vu soon ;) -- Mariah-Yulia (talk) 23:52, 30 October 2008 (UTC)

Question by Mariah-Yulia

Was the request to submit Wikipedia:Mediation Cabal/Cases/2007-06-10 Podilsko-Voskresenska Line to the Wikipedia:Mediation Committee a succes and is/was the problem solved? Most Ukrainian/Kyiv metro stations (even the "very young" ones (like Chervony Khutir)) still have a Ukrainian and Russian name in there articles, was that the outcome/verdict of the committee? I can't comment if Kuban kazak/Hillock mediation has a point now without this information. Mariah-Yulia (talk) 21:51, 30 October 2008 (UTC)

Thoughts from Mariah-Yulia

Looking at the Wikipedia:Requests for arbitration/Piotrus 2/Workshop I got the idea that a arbitration will lead to nothing but taking time away from writing articles. Almost all the mayor "players" from the Piotrus 2 Workshop have reacted swiftly at Wikipedia:Administrators' noticeboard/Incidents#User:Kuban Cossack and never ending edit wars. I think a "Workshop" about Kuban kozak will lead to the same effects (with the same editors) then the Piotrus 2 Workshop being: no results and everybody frustrated (the fact that Wikipedia:Mediation Cabal/Cases/2007-06-10 Podilsko-Voskresenska Line also led to nothing also formed this thought). I don't want to be a part of that kind of nonsense, I rather write articles... Mariah-Yulia (talk) 23:49, 30 October 2008 (UTC)

Thoughts from Russavia

Whilst I am reasonably new to this area of WP editing, I have obviously taken the time to familiarise myself with others who edit in this area, their interests, their style, etc; and I can say I am familiar with KK's edits on mainspace. I am not completely familiar with Hillock65. I have gone thru the previous "attempts" at mediation also, and have come to the conclusion that this is not warranted for Arbcom.

Hillock refers to an RFC and Medcab above. If we look at the article in question, Podilsko-Voskresenska Line, it appears that KK and Akhristov worked on this together (with some edit warring), and the dispute that arose was whether Russian language names are suitable for "Ukrainian" topics. Hillock prior to that dispute doesn't appear to have edited any articles relating to Metro topics before this, and it appears that his intervention was due to this message left for Hillock65 on the uk:wiki (in which he calls KK a rabid Russian nationalist), so it appears that Hillock65 had no place in that dispute, except for his being canvassed by another editor to get himself involved; the dispute being hijacked as a result. Before Hillock initiated the medcom request, he filed an RFC against KK, which appears not to have been anything but an attempt to corner and get rid of an opponent.

The AN/I comment by KK may demonstrate that Hillock's editing pattern on en:wiki is somewhat limited to interwiki links and perhaps stalking of KK's edits; for example: [1], [2], [3]....the list goes on, but a pattern has emerged; KK would make an edit to an article, which he would be familiar with. Hillock would immediately revert, provoking an edit war, and takes an uncompromising stance; for example Talk:Ukrainians in Russia#Kuban section and neutrality when KK presented sourced material to Hillock, he removed it completely, not even bothering to check it; when User:Faustian re-presented it to Hillock, he accepted KKs version. It appears the only way Hillock can compromise with KK is when a third party (often an Ukrainian editor) repeats what KK has said. Thus, are we to say that it is KKs additions that are not justified and warranted?

KK has a huge number of contributions, has written countless articles from scratch, and for that, despite sometimes holding opposite viewpoints on history and politics to many Ukrainian editors, he has been able to get on perfectly with the majority of them. Indeed, as KK pointed out on AN/I out of the six barnstars, four were given by Ukrainians, that is at a time that Hillock was unable to get on with any editor (including non-Russian ones) that opposed him. At the same time, KK has been a somewhat stabilising force in the Ukraine-Russia area over the edits of his that I have familiarised myself with.

In regards to the edits picked out by Hillock above, using Chernobyl Nuclear Power Plant as an example, I have reverted Hillock's removal of the Russian name out of the lead; this appears to be a major thing with Hillock, in that perfectly legitimate insertions of Russian language names are removed, in what appears to me to be a desire to rid legitimate entries of Russian from Ukrainian-related articles. So I think, that this arbitration request should be looking at some severe issues that Hillock has, instead of simply being an attack on and an attempt to get rid of an opponent that is clearly what he is trying to do. --Russavia ^{Dialogue Stalk me} 03:16, 31 October 2008 (UTC)

Looking at the dispute surrounding Podilsko-Voskresenska Line, I have come across this arbcom filing from 12 months ago. Then arbcom did not take the case, and as the essential elements have not changed...there's a dispute and an editor appears to clearly abusing arbcom processes in order to take out an opponent. This is best dealt with for the time being on an editor level, rather than at arbcom. --Russavia ^{Dialogue Stalk me} 02:27, 4 November 2008 (UTC)

As a result of User:Miyokans banning, there were very clear warnings that discussion of, or even alluding to other editors' ethnicity is an absolute NO-NO, and I absolutely agree with it as it only creates WP:BATTLE conditions, and that shit has to stop on WP. I would expect there to be some sort of sanction against Biophys for even alluding to Kuban_kazak's ethnicity. --Russavia ^{Dialogue Stalk me} 22:13, 4 November 2008 (UTC)

Comment by Biophys

Kuban cossak is a very patriotic Russian user. He even edit warred recently with User:Irpen over placing an image of hanging rope for president Saakashvili (the Russian text under the image means: "Mikhael, I am waiting for you..." [4]). I have also observed his editorial conflict with Folantin and two other users, when Kuban cossak was apparently involved in POV pushing and perhaps a misinterpretation of a Russian language source [5]. The subject of the dispute: Kuban cossak, aided by banned users User:M.V.E.i. an User:Miyokan, tried to prove that Chechens had accomplished a genocide of Russians [6], in spite the facts that it were actually Chechens who have been deported by Stalin to Siberia [7]. Biophys (talk) 04:21, 31 October 2008 (UTC)

this edit summary by Kuban kossak is outrageous; I have never seen anything quite like that. Please see translation from Russian criminal slang here. Basically, Kuban kossak said the following: "we will break down anyone who is against us, just like you, Folantin". But who are the other members of the gang declared by Kuban kossak? He mostly collaborated with User:Irpen.

• It seems that User:Russavia (see his statement above) also operates as a leader of a group. He openly promised to bring other people from his "brigade" for edit waring ("I will ask other members of the web brigade editors for their opinion."), he said [8]. And here they are... User:Beatle Fab Four, an old warier of Bronze Soldier of Tallinn[9] who hunted on "trolls or jackals" together with banned User:M.V.E.i.[10] comes to rescue Russavia. He simply deleted all perfectly sourced materials from a book by two notable historians/politologists, only because these materials are remotely relevant to biography of Putin [11][12].

::Reply to Deacon. Please do not think that Kuban_kazak is actually a Cossack in his real life. He is not: [13].

Clerk note: Biophys has withdrawn this comment. It remains only for archival purposes--Tznkai (talk) 16:23, 16 November 2008 (UTC)

Reply to Beatle Fab Four. Please see my "Reply to Alex" here and my evidence in Piotrus-2 case.

Reply to Kuban_kazak. No, that was correct translation by Colchichum. No, this Russian expression has nothing to do with Cossacks. It came to common Russian language from Fenya in 1972 with a popular movie Gentlemen of Fortune in a particular combination: "Roga pooblomayu, morgaly povykolu". The second part of this expression (not used by Kuban_kazak) means literally hitting a person with fingers to his eyes to make him blind.Biophys (talk) 18:57, 4 November 2008 (UTC)

Current version of Gentlemen of Fortune provides a decent translation of this expression, partly used by Kuban_kazak:

I'll hit his horns off, tear his mouth, skew out his blinkers!

So much for poor Folantin... And this is link to Russian original text. Colored photo shows a man who is going to hit another person in his eyes. Biophys (talk) 19:28, 4 November 2008 (UTC)

This is beyond belief. Yes, every kid knows: this is from criminal Fenya, not something invented by a writer. See this Russian source. It tells, "Most prison expressions in the movie came from the personal bitter experience of Alexander Sery: "I'll hit your horns off", "I will tear your mouth", "I will skew out your blinkers" (Russian text: "Большинство тюремных выражений привнес в фильм (из личного горького опыта) Александр Серый: "канай отсюда", "рога поотшибаю", "моргалы выколю", "пасть порву".). As about "I will skew out your blinkers", that was also mentioned by Solzhenitsyn or Shalamov; I can check the ref.Biophys (talk) 23:57, 4 November 2008 (UTC)

And certainly, that was not meant as a joke by Cuban_kossak, so vigorously protected by Irpen and Alex_Bakharev.Biophys (talk) 00:00, 5 November 2008 (UTC)

Comments from Beatle Fab Four

User Biophys accuses every Russian(?) editor, who disagrees with him, of being a paid KGB agent, which is becoming really annoying. My reply to him is short, straight and clear: I never received requests from Russavia, I don’t know who he is, and I don’t care who he is. How to stop the flow of such (softly speaking) childish accusations in Wikipedia – it's a question for admins, I presume. Beatle Fab Four (talk) 17:15, 4 November 2008 (UTC)

Yes, the only thing Biophys didn't mention that Gentlemen of Fortune is one of the funniest Russian comedies. And every Russian kid learnt these funny passages (which in fact are not real Fenya) exactly from the film, not from real gangsters. Beatle Fab Four (talk) 20:40, 4 November 2008 (UTC)

Who wrote that article? Don't be kidding, Biophys. What about all these expressions Навуходоносор, петух гамбургский, редиска? Fenya? Irrespective of this, the point is that Russians nowadays percieve phrases we mentioned as jokes/quotes from the popular comedy, not as slang of gangsters. Beatle Fab Four (talk) 00:25, 5 November 2008 (UTC)

Clerk Note: Kuban kazak's comments previously here, removed. Comment in your own section please. AGK 22:00, 4 November 2008 (UTC)

Clerk Note Comments moved.--Tznkai (talk) 00:55, 5 November 2008 (UTC)

Comment by User:Folantin

I'm unaware of the details of this particular case but I second Biophys. I've edited many of Wikipedia's "trouble spots" and I can safely say Kuban Cossack is one of the most tendentious users I've come across. He seems to have a massive grudge against the Chechens for one thing. As Biophys says, he edit-warred to insert material on Chechen people which completely misrepresented the Russian-language sources he gave. Later, he planned to add the following sentence to the article: "The Chechens were known for their bitter savagery against the Russian military, and civilian population during their raids”. Unfortunately, I was unable to find one single reference to the Chechens in the English-language book he cited as a source for that. If this is an example of his work, then I'm not sure how far I'd trust any of his other contributions. The threat to hang President Mikheil Saakashvili on his user page is a further indication he's here to violate WP:SOAPBOX. --Folantin (talk) 09:02, 31 October 2008 (UTC)

Reply to KK: "Now then, let's have a look at my accusations, Folantin below stated that I had the allegiance of a blocked user, well on the same WP:BATTLE she had the sockpuppet of HanzoHattori". Wrong three times. I did? I'm a "she"? And far from being in cahoots with HanzoHattori (who it later turned out was working under the name Captain Obvious and his Crimefighting Dog on the Chechen people page - the only place I've had any contact with him) I also reverted unsourced, fringe information he had added to the Chechen people article per policy [14] and questioned him about it on his talk page. The difference between him and you is that he did not constantly re-add his dubious material to the article. On the other hand, you still sport a barnstar from User:Log in Log out (a sock of the notorious banned racist M.V.E.i.) on your user page even today, a barnstar awarded as a result of this very "battle": "For fighting against Chechen nationalists (sic) pushing their POV". So much for moving on. --Folantin (talk) 15:05, 3 November 2008 (UTC)

And you're still adding highly contentious, unreferenced material to pages about Chechnya even as we speak [15]! --Folantin (talk) 15:44, 3 November 2008 (UTC)

"reminding of how in every single war our men returned with victory, Turks, Poles, Nazis, Circassians, Chechens, Georgians you name 'em". In your own words, you demonstrate you're a jingoist braggart who's here for a fight. Nice going. You repeatedly edit-warred to reinstate a reference in the article to a source which made no mention of the statistic you claimed it did and which you finally admitted you had not read after two and a half weeks of conflict. WP:V and WP:RS take priority over whatever bizarre notion you have of "consensus". You also violated WP:BLP on ANI itself (a violation which is still there) by comparing a tenured professor to a Holocaust denier (incidentally, props to our admin corps for allowing that on their very own noticeboard; I thought BLP was an important policy - clearly I was mistaken). --Folantin (talk) 17:43, 4 November 2008 (UTC)

Comment by uninvolved Durova

Due to the language issues raised, particularly the concerns about proper sourcing, this might be a matter better handled by the Committee than by the community at large. During the Franco-Mongol Alliance case there were sourcing issues and the Committee consulted uninvolved multilingual individuals to get an independent assessment of relevant claims. AN or ANI wouldn't have the capacity to evaluate fairly and objectively, unless policy violations (in English) were so straightforward that no other metric were necessary. Durova^Charge! 11:15, 31 October 2008 (UTC)

Comment by mostly uninvolved Piotrus

My interactions with Kuban Cossack have been sparse, sufficient only to recognize that he seems to have a strong Russian POV (which is a perfectly fine and valid POV to have). Recently I was however shocked to stumble upon an "out of the blue", very uncivil comment made by him regarding my person on ANI: "However the biggest irony about him, is that unlike some active POV-pushers and stalkers like User:Piotrus...". Apparently that thread later developed into this ArbCom request. I cannot say if this comment represent an exception to the rule or part of a pattern of estabilished incivility on the part of KC, but I do know that so far this comment has not been refactored, apologized for or withdrawn, and that is fits into a larger pattern of gross bad faith and incivility responsible for much dramu on EE topics on Wikipedia.--_{Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus| talk} 22:55, 31 October 2008 (UTC)

PS. I have interacted much more with Hillock, whom I found to be a very civil and reasonable editor. He has a Ukrainian POV (perfectly normal) and was reasonable whenever we discussed Polish-Ukrainian history, including controversial subjects. I was aware - mostly on the sidelines - that Hillock has been a target of harassment campaigns originating from some editors, representing a more extremist and less compromising POV, and in early 2007 he was harassed enouugh to have taken a few months of a wikibreak, even temporarily asking for a deletion of his userpage. Bottom line is that I have found Hillock to be a good editor, whose only fault is that he doesn't abandon this project to more uncivil extremists.--_{Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus| talk} 00:51, 5 November 2008 (UTC)

Comment from Moreschi

Just ban this soapboxer. Cossack has to go. Moreschi (talk) 23:34, 31 October 2008 (UTC)

• It is worth pointing out, BTW, that due to friends in high places it is still very difficult to get the worst offenders in any side of these disputes (EE) kicked off the project once they become the slightest bit established except via arbcom. The only examples I can think of are Molobo's year-long ban from Dmcdevit (who was on the arbcom anyway at the time, was he not?), and the eventually banning of M.V.E.i. (talk · contribs) - and even THAT was tremendously difficult. Cossack should have been dealt long ago via routine administrative action. That he was not is partially due to this effect (and also, in fairness, partially due to sheer slothfulness, ignorance and incompetence on behalf of the admin corps). Influential editors and admins on both sides need to step back and let those of us with no axe to grind shove the most disruptive tigers out the door. Ultimately both community and encyclopedia will benefit. Moreschi (talk) 23:46, 31 October 2008 (UTC)

Comment by uninvolved Irpen

I see the issue as two-fold: Kuban kazak's hot-headedness when the discussions evolve to reach the personal level (not always by his fault) and the dispute about his content edits.

On the former, I freely admit that unfortunately Kuban looses his cool from time to time, especially when he feels (on many occasions justifiably but on some occasions not) being provoked and poked. On many occasions I attempted to moderate his temper, convince him to talk more calmly, avoid using strong language in discussions (he did it several times both in English and in Russian) and moderate his userpage. I am proud to say that my attempts to change this editor's conduct for better had partial success. He certainly needs to do more but he is on the right track and I would recommend him to accept volunteer mentorship from some highly regarded editor who Kuban respects. Editors like Alex Bakharev or Faustian would ideally fit to this role. His occasional incivility, while regrettable, can be thus dealt by community since it is hardly of the ArbCom level anyway. Even many of his frequent content opponents admit that Kuban is a nice, friendly and likable guy. Not everyone is able to engage him, but no editor who argued with him in a patient and good-natured way ever had a problem.

With a number of trigger-happy admins always on hand and some of his opponents' propensity to block-shopping as the primary method of dispute resoluton (and their high skill at that), harsh and unwarranted arbcom sanctions of him would amount to putting him into a category of editors with a mark on their backs which would lead to his eventual departure to the detriment of the project. To the detriment, because despite being opinionated, Kuban is a valuable contributor who contributes vast amounts of content and practically single-handily carries the whole FSU Metro Wikiproject.

As for his content editing, I see no Arbcom level dispute whatsoever. Hillock and Kuban frequently disagree on multitude of articles and their disputes usually end when more editors get involved and voice their support to either of them, depending on the particular dispute. It is indisputable that they both consider each other as nationalist POV pushers and Hillock checks Kuban's edits (probably looking for NPOV violations) at least no less (and it seems to me more) than he accuses Kuban of. In the particular article dispute, they briefly reverted each other and Kuban was perfectly willing to discuss the problem at the talk page. Hillock suddenly tried to blackmailed Kuban that if the latter does not accept Hillock's version, Hillock would seek administrative intervention [16]. Having that failed, Hillock filed this Arbcom. When two parties cannot find an agreement, the usual route is article's RfC, or other requests for more opinions such as at WP:3O or other noticeboards. Hillock's ignoring these common routes and choosing instead to seek sanctions of his content opponent all the way up to filing an arbcom clearly indicate an attitude problem.

So, ArbCom has a choice of one of three things:

1. To accept the case. Knowing what I know of the topics at hand and their editors most active at arbcoms, the case would be a close repetition of the currently ongoing Wikipedia:Requests for arbitration/Piotrus_2 with mostly exact same characters posting mostly the exact same stuff to the workshop, evidence and their talk pages. I cannot see any possible useful outcome since Kuban's content conduct does not reach even near the arbcom level of concern and his civility issues can be best dealt in the way I described above. If, however, arbcom wants another circus case, this is the way to go.
2. To "merge" the case with the ongoing Piotrus_2. This would avoid creating a second ugly mess since the the ongoing Piotrus_2 was bloated and messed up so much that adding more loosely related or unrelated stuff or nothing at all to would not change anything since there is simply no way to mess that case up any more than it is already messed up. The case is already outrageously nonsensical and largely steered away from productive discussion to a complete crankery (partially due to lack of arbcom's intervention in spite of the most outrageous rants liberally posted all over the case.)
3. To reject the case and let the community and Kuban find an acceptable mentor or find another drama-minimizing solution.

I sincerely hope that Arbcom accepts the solution #3. This would be the only way that may actually help address this conflict properly.

Comment by uninvolved Faustian

I have made a similar comment elsewhere, but I can't believe that Kuban Cossack is being threteaned with sanctions while for months nothing is ever done about, say, Jo0doe (talk), whose behavior is far more outrageous than what Kuban Cossack is accused of. Kuban Cossack and I often - indeed usually - take different sides on issues. He does lose his cool at times, but in general we have been able to collaborate very effectively on articles such asUkrainian Russophiles or Danubian Sich. This is so much the case that when I recently created the article Conversion of Chelm Eparchy one of the first things I did was invite Kuban Cossack to make contributions to that article. I am frankly floored that Kuban Cossack has been sanctioned and may be here when a truly disruptive editor such as Jo0doe is allowed to do his thing with impunity. With respect to the latter, just look at his edit history, it's all either revert wars or arguments for at least the last year: [17] (along with cherry-picking sources etc. as demonstrated here: [18]). He has been warned about uncivil behavior a couple of times: [19] [20]. So based on what criteria is Kuban Cossack threatened with sanctions while someone like Jo0doe is allowed to behave in a worse way. I brought this up at ANI before, when Jo0doe was referring to me as someone writing hoaxes because I got the date wrong for a reference (it was published in 1973, I wrote 1972, since no 1972 book exists Jo0doe claimed I perpetrated a hoax by referring to a nonexistent book) and nothing came of it: [21]. So what has Kuban Cossack done worse than Jo0doe that earns the former sanctions but the latter editor total freedom? Faustian (talk) 02:50, 1 November 2008 (UTC)

I generally and strongly agree with Bakharev's statement below mine. I mentioned above some areas of cooperation between Kuban Kazak and I; another occurred in the article onZaporozhian Cossacks. Initially he and I clashed over its content, but over time we were able to compromise and work together, as is seen here. This phenomenon, of working together with people of sometimes radically different backgrounds, is I think is one of the joys of editing on wikipedia, and Kuban Cossack is that type of ultimately cooperative editor. It should be noted on that article that with respect to wording, a consenus was reached[a survey] that Hillock subsequently revert-warred against:[22]. In my previous comment I mentioned Jo0doe's disruptions. Despite Kuban Kozak's obvious pro-Russian POV he still reverted Jo0doe's anti-UPA POV massive reverts, which speaks to Kuban Kozak's integrity.Faustian (talk) 03:17, 2 November 2008 (UTC)

I would add that for some unkown reason Deacon of Pndapetzim seems to have an anti-Ukrainian bias in his edits, such that for him in any controversy Ukrainians are nearly automatically referred to as "nationalists" while the opposing side is "objective."Faustian (talk) 05:24, 4 November 2008 (UTC)

Comment by uninvolved Alex Bakharev (talk)

I want to support Irpen and Faustian. While Kuban has certainly quite strong opinions he has made enormous contributions to the project. Including e.g. metropolitan project with hundreds of new articles on subways in Russia, Ukraine and Belarus. He is certainly not a soapboxer despite having an editorial disagreement with User:Moreschi in the past. Despite being occasionally incivil he is certainly a strong asset to the project. I have given him a barnstar and I stay for my decision. I have also given a branstar to Hillock for his Battle of Konotop article. I think he is also a great asset to the project. Still I have got an impression that recently his contribution reduces to the edit wars over a few wiki flame baits: spellings, titles, language and ethnicities in the bios, etc. I honestly think his wiki time could be spent more effectively doing other things. The analyse of the editorial conflicts between Kuban and Cossack done by Russavia shows that it seems like Hillock is following Kuban's edits rather than the other way around. I have not done a similar analysis myself but I have a similar impression.

In short I do not see arbcom level policy violations by either Kuban or Hillock. Both are productive although at time troublesome editors. There are a few long time content disputes there Kuban and Hillock are involved on the opposite sides. It would be beneficial to somehow sort them out one way or another but it is not done by Arbcom Alex Bakharev (talk) 04:02, 1 November 2008 (UTC)

Comment by uninvolved Deacon of Pndapetzim

Hillock is an Ukrainian nationalist user who edits tendentiously along his own nationalistic lines and dislikes Kuban. Kuban is a Russian editor with his own ideologies and has unfortunate tendencies not to gauge the social environment around him. One of the reasons Hillock dislikes Kuban so much is over Cossacks. Cossacks have a founding place in the version of "Ukrainian history" Ukrainian nationalists push, and Kuban (his name tells it) comes from a region of the Russian Federation where Cossack tradition is also important. Not to say that nothing in Kuban's behaviour is bad, but this ArbCom has been coming for ages, largely because of the ill-will in existence, as revealed in this threat to Kuban some months ago by Hillock's nastier sparring-partner Ukrained:

Sashok, your recent edit summaries like this one are nothing more but steps to your NEW RfA and eventually your Permaban. I’m watching you, please consider this as an official dispute warning. Happy edits, Ukrained (talk) 23:55, 6 March 2008 (UTC)[23]

This ain't arbcom level stuff though ... I don't think. Both users are fairly weak and can be "disciplined" by normal admins, though Moreschi is correct that few take any interest.

Ukrainian articles have major issues though, for which no individual user could ever be "punished", but which nevertheless would still benefit muchly if the Arbcom were to address them. The problem is that the proportion of editors on Ukrainian topics representing views not mainstream in the English-speaking world is too high, and in matters nationalistic they sometimes become a haven for "Russophobes" all over eastern Europe to unite. The result of which Ukrainian topics on wikipedia are awash with SYNTH and NPOV violations, everything from Denial of the Holodomor to the nice nationalistic SYTHy trio Ukraine after the Russian Revolution-Ukrainian-Soviet War-Ukrainian War of Independence. No normal editor will waste their time trying to fix these on their own though, as they know their efforts would just end in some joke vote and a lot of animosity. Though it's not like Arbcom could do anything either unless someone took the time to do all their content work for them.:( Deacon of Pndapetzim (Talk) 05:08, 4 November 2008 (UTC)

Comment by Ostap

Kuban is an Russian nationalist user who edits tendentiously along his own nationalistic lines and dislikes Hillock. Hillock is a Ukrainian editor with his own ideologies. One of the reasons Kuban dislikes Hillock so much is over Cossacks. Cossacks have a founding place in the version of "Russian history" Russian nationalists push, and Hillock comes from Ukraine where Cossack tradition is also important. Not to say that nothing in Hillock's behaviour is bad, but this ArbCom has been coming for ages, largely because of the ill-will in existence, as revealed in a threat to Hillock last year by Kuban on Russian wiki [24]

This ain't arbcom level stuff though ... I don't think. Kuban can be dealt with the way User:M.V.E.i. and User:Miyokan were, though Moreschi is correct that few take any interest.

Ukrainian articles have major issues though, for which no individual user could ever be "punished", but which nevertheless would still benefit muchly if the Arbcom were to address them. The problem is that the proportion of editors on Ukrainian topics representing views not mainstream in the English-speaking world is too high, and in matters nationalistic they sometimes become a haven for "Russophiles" all over eastern Europe to unite. The result of which Ukrainian topics on wikipedia are awash with SYNTH and NPOV violations, looking less like modern scholarly encyclopedia articles and more like Russian nationalist propaganda. Ostap 06:17, 4 November 2008 (UTC)

Comment by NVO

As a one-quarter Kuban Cossack (that family, btw, was half Ukrainian, half-Kalmyk-Greek-Whoknowswhat), I am probably an unappropriate witness.

So I should draw the attention to the future, not the past. Right now the economy of the former Soviet Union is in a state of a quiet meltdown. Thousands of young educated internet users are laid off each day, many of them English-writing. They are not here ... yet. The Arbcom should be prepared to handle not the usual suspects, but a new wave of nationalists, very irritated, on either side. Are you prepared? Maybe Mariah-Julia is right, and a person-to-person case, again, will stall in a kind of nonsense (quote)... Think prevention, not punishment. NVO (talk) 16:47, 5 November 2008 (UTC)