Wikipedia:Arbitration/Requests/Case/Eastern European mailing list/Evidence/PasswordUsername

Evidence presented by PasswordUsername

Note: I will be posting evidence for the ArbCom case as User:Anti-Nationalist, as I don't have access to the password for my old login when my laptop hardware got fried on September 7th. Anti-Nationalist (talk) 16:27, 21 September 2009 (UTC)

The history reviewed

The situation that ArbCom is now looking at is nothing new, and was already apparent to all who bothered to look from the very get-go, such that when I arrived on Wikipedia, I was already besieged by accusations of bad faith, repeated -- seemingly endlessly iterated -- edit warring against the change that I sought to make, threats to expose me as somebody's sockpuppet, attacks on my motives when I sought to complain to an administrator, and denials of any out-and-out coordinated editing by the team members.

When it was continually shown that such users Biophys, Piotrus, and fellow members of the cohort were using what appeared as extremely well-coordinated edit-warring and harassment against other users to get their way, nothing was ever done, while good editors who pointed out the problems with members of this group were driven away by endless harrassment and confrontation from the team members. Both User:Deacon of Pndapetzim and myself pointed out the matter very succintly when we pointed out the politics of the game for ArbCom members in our opening statements [1] for the (rejected) Easterm Europe case in June.

I pointed out the state of things very clearly on May 26 [2], on just one occasion when the whole team showed up en masse to swamp a request for comment section for Human rights in the United States full of their own POV. Rather than actually do something about users who disrupt the productive lives of other editors, both the administrators at large and ArbCom (when prodded to take a closely resembling case back in June) preferred to ignore such warnings. When 1RR restrictions for both list members and opponents were issued by User:Thatcher in June, these were soon rolled back after an intensive e-mail lobbying campaign from mailing list members; the pattern of things returned to status quo ante. Were it not for this sudden whistleblowing and leaking of the evidence to ArbCom, Wikipedia would have simply let Russavia, one of the most productive Wikipedia editors and an outstanding contributor of Russia-related content, be banned for having made one remark in an edit summary without bothering to check the long-time harassment that he has faced from content opponents such as the stubborn editors from the leaked archive of the clandestine mailing list.

Swamping of AFD and CFD discussions

• Biophys-created Internet operations by Russian secret police (nominated 27 March 2009). Voting keep: Digwuren, Vecrumba, Martintg.
• Digwuren-created category Category:Neo-Stalinism (nominated 9 April 2009). Voting keep: Digwuren, Dc76, Martintg, Biophys, Miacek. (No uninvolved users participated; the semi-involved Petri Krohn – a relatively pro-Russian editor – was subsequently chased off Wikipedia by the same crowd.) (Re: to Radeksz, I meant the category, not the article by GCarty. See the CFD right over here: [3])
• Miacek-created Derzhava [4] (older version; nominated 28 May 2009). Voting keep: Digwuren, Miacek, Biophys, Radeksz, Martintg. (The few uninvolved users voted delete.)
• Digwuren-created Soviet-run peace movements in the West (nominated 11 July 2009). Voting keep: Piotrus, Biophys, Ostap R, Biruitorul, Jacurek. (Most uninvolved users favored deletion.)

Stalking by mailing list members

Various users, all part of the mailing list, appear to have stalked me at various points in the past six months, although the editing patterns of these users may also be attributable to something else. Worst of all was the following of my edits to different parts of the project by Digwuren, who suddenly took interest in all manner of things never related to his understandable niche of things Estonian:

• June 1 - Digwuren twice reverts my edits to Kim Jong-Il, an article he never edited before: [5], [6] – preferring to reinsert Juche as a religion...
• June 1 - Digwuren twice reverts my edits to Ilya Ehrenburg, a page he never edited before: [7], [8] – insisting on including an unsourced statement I deleted.
• May 27 through June 3 - Digwuren and Biophys show up on the talk page for List of Eastern Bloc defectors to support User:Mosedschurte against myself and User:Yaan in a content dispute [9]. On June 5, Biophys and Martintg help Mosedschurte revert addition of pre-Eastern Bloc and post-Eastern Bloc defectors, well outside the scope of an article dealing with defections from the Eastern Bloc. [10], [11]. Neither of these edited List of Eastern Bloc defectors before.
• May 24 - Digwuren reverts me at Benjamin (Animal Farm) [12], Squealer (Animal Farm) [13] (and 2nd revert - 27 May: [14]), and Old Major [15] (and 2nd revert - 27 May: [16]), neither of which he edited before.

From the very beginning of my stumbling upon this team, I asked members (specifically Biophys and Digwuren) not to stalk me around: [17], [18]. User:Vlad fedorov has also noted the stalking performed by Biophys on various occasions [19], as has Russavia [20].

Members of the mailing list defend each other from sockpuppet investigations

• Comments at the Molobo sockpuppet investigation by Digwuren: [21], [22]. Comments at the Molobo sockpuppet investigation by Radeksz: [23], [24]. Comments at the Molobo sockpuppet investigation by Martintg: [25], [26]. Comments at the Molobo sockpuppet investigation by Jacurek: [27]. Comments at the Molobo sockpuppet investigation by Piotrus: [28], [29]. Comments at the Molobo sockpuppet investigation by Poeticbent: [30]. Molobo's role as a sockpuppeteer was subsequently confirmed.

False accusations of sockpuppetry and persisting insinuations against myself by team members

Within a day of having discovered me after I submitted a Digwuren-made category for discussion in early May, Digwuren came to my talk page to inquire, in a very indirect way, whether I was a sockpuppet of User:Anonimu, who was notably targeted for elimination by team members in 2007: [31]. Being a relative newbie to much of the editing trends and unfamiliar with the drama, I reverted this, and, seeing no basis for Digwuren's accusations after his incivil comments in my address at a CFD, wrote in my edit summary for the talk page rvt: "Deleting bad faith edit" [32]. Digwuren instead came to the administrators' noticeboard, a very public place, with warnings of a "possible return of Anonimu" [33]. As one of his main items of "evidence," Digwuren wrote:

"When, after a little digging, I asked PasswordUsername if he might know Anonimu, he responded in a way rather uncharacteristic for a new user -- by deleting the question from his talkpage within about a minute, claiming it was "bad faith edit". When Anonimu was active, he was very aggressive in removing all criticism -- including warnings -- from his talkpage, going as far as to post a set of rules about how his talkpage should remain blank onto his talkpage."

Additionally, Digwuren misrepresented my editing pattern and contributions, simply trying to tie me to his own portrayal of Anonimu in any possible way, then proceeded to inform administrator (and ArbCom member) User:Newyorkbrad of his suspicions: [34]. After being told that Anonimu came from Romania, Digwuren did not withdraw his complaints from the noticeboard, but hedged his bets and began referring to the case as a "possible return of Anonimu or Jacob Peters." [35] Nobody, of course, took the episode of the ridiculous accusations thrown seriously: when I patiently explained to the admins reading the noticeboard what my reaction was [36] and that Digwuren's reading of my edits was completely and blatantly distorted [37], admin User:Hans Adler responded that Digwuren was abusing ANI and should "stop crying wolf and start apologising" [38]. Rather than having a well-deserved apology or even having the chapter close right there and then, the accusations continued when Biophys showed up to support Digwuren with questions about my editing as an IP (not something I ever denied); Biophys also posted at Moreschi's talk page, which prompted User:Unomi to ask Biophys to go to SPI if he thought the concerns were genuine and to stop with the admin blockshopping [39].

Despite having no case against me and in fact never bothering to go to the CheckUser, both Biophys and Digwuren continued their insinuations in messages to my talk page days after they were told that they had no evidence, both on talk [40], [41], [42], and in edit summaries: [43] (here Digwuren also manages to cleverly accuse me of "diluting the gravity of anti-Semitism" because of my inclusion of material regarding an instance of Estonian anti-semitism). From on-wiki speculation that I was Jacob Peters or Anonimu the current moved toward speculation that I was M.V.e.I. or somebody else – team member Ostap R betting "100 euros" that I was a sock of M.V.e.I.: [44]. Did mailing list members actually convince themselves that this was the case? While this is very representative of this cabal's campaign of Wiki-hounding, I am sure that off-Wiki evidence sheds light on even more material of this sort, and I have every reason there is to believe Alex Bakharev's summary of the nature of these editors' off-wiki conduct. Accusations like these are unreasonable, and there was no reason to be harassing me with them when there was a clear lack of evidence for doing so.

Cases of revert-warring by members of the mailing list

The following incidents and descriptions (which I picked so as not to overlap with the incidents described by others) is a partial representation of the problem, as my serious involvement with the project begins in May, whereas documenting and helpfully annotating every possibility of coordinated editing (I do not have access to the secret mailing list's archive) even from my period of involvement only would take up an extraordinarily Byzantine amount of time. (In any case, note also: [45].)

Anti-Russian sentiment: 8-16 May 2009

Following a chain of reverts of Offliner by Digwuren [46] [47] [48] [49] [50] [51], fellow mailing list mates Martintg [52] [53], Radeksz [54] [55], and Vecrumba [56] join in edit warring against Offliner, Beatle Fab Four, Kupredu, and myself.

Neo-Stalinism: May 10-18 2009, August-September 2009

May 10-18 - Digwuren and Biophys repeatedly edit war against me while discussion is ongoing, while the only uninvolved editor User:Magioladitis, takes my side at talk.

May 14 - After pointing out problems with the way Biophys edits to an admin, User:Hans Adler and Adler expressing his concern about Biophys' POV, Biophys (all the while telling Hans Adler that I am the one culpable of stalking him) writes that he does not care about neo-Stalinism [57], and actually leaves the page alone from then on. Subsequently, Biophys comes back in order to revert Russavia at August's end: [58], [59], [60]. Vecrumba helps out [61].

August-September 2009 - Edit war as Radeksz reverts my changes. Jacurek and Biophys help edit war. I do one other revert. User:LokiiT attempts to edit the article, but encounters further members of the team – Radeksz [62], Jacurek [63], and Vecrumba [64] (all perform almost identical reverts).

Timeline of antisemitism: 3-10 June 2009

3 June – I make an edit to Timeline of antisemitism [65]. Secret cabal member Digwuren, never having touched the article before, arrives to engage against me in an episode edit warring, removing my addition of an episode of Estonian anti-semitism from the timeline: [66]. Martintg, never having edited the article before, arrives in support of Digwuren: [67].

After edit warring between myself, Digwuren, Martintg, and Offliner, Biophys - never having edited the article before – joins in on 5 June to revert my edits to Digwuren’s version [68]. Dozens of reverts by Martintg, Digwuren, and Biophys follow. (see history [69])

Mark Sirők: 3-17 June 2009

3 June – Shotlandiya creates an article stub for Mark Sirők. Digwuren arrives within a half-hour, demanding a removal of the article based on Shotlandiya’s having misspelled “Russophone”: [70].

4 June – after Digwuren fails in having article deletion proceed, Sander Säde joins Digwuren in their attempts to discredit Mark Sirők -- [71]. Sander Säde and Digwuren begin combating Shotlandiya jointly. Finding the newly-created article, I only make one minor change: [72].

7 June – Radeksz arrives on the scene to make major changes, significantly altering content: [73]. Digwuren continues battling against Shotlandiya.

8 June – Martintg arrives to revert Shotlandiya: [74]. Digwuren’s further massive changes invite revert from Offliner: [75]. Digwuren continues warring: [76]. Offliner doesn’t revert further, but constant reverting by mailing list members against myself and Shotlandiya rages until the numerically weaker party leaves (allowing the last revert for Digwuren on June 17).

Moscow Victory Parade of 1945: 13-14 June 2009

After my initial edit to this page on 13 June, Digwuren [77], Martintg [78] [79], and Radeksz [80] all arrive to combat me, all reinserting the same piece of text. Neither Martintg, Radeksz, or Digwuren had edited the article at all prior to June 13-14.

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

In spite of ongoing discussion at talk (quickly concluded in my favor), Jacurek [81] [82], Vecrumba [83], Radeksz [84] edit war against myself over my removal of out-of-scope text about the Molotov-Ribbentrop Pact agreements from an article about pro-Nazi collaborationism, alongside an image inserted by Piotrus [85] in July.

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

Please look at the section PasswordUsername - here we go again in Rjanag's admin talk archive to get the complete picture.

In what appears to be coordinated team battling, Radeksz and Martintg arrived almost simultaneously at an admin's talk page to complain regarding my "edit warring" to Monument of Lihula, where, in fact, I had accidentally passed the 3RR rule but almost instantaneously reverted myself, long prior to these administrator user page reports: [86], [87]. (Apparently, they decided to lobby the administrator, User:Rjanag, in their favor, as a very similar "3RR report" where I had self-reverted was dismissed from the noticeboard a very sort time prior to that.) Rjanag, while noting that three reverts could be considered gaming the system, properly said that with regard to my reverts, no violation of 3RR had been committed and that my edits were compromise attempt. [88])

At that point, Dc76 (also a member of the team) arrived to back up Radeksz and Martintg with very hostile comments, accusing me of doing battleground behavior, making "ad hominems" in edit summaries (that no reasonable person would read from of them and which I never made) and making the accusation that my edit summaries were clear "challenge you"s. [89]. (Quite disingenuously, in the very same comment, Dc76 gives it away that he'd stopped editing the article a long time prior to my changes.)

These very nasty attacks on my edits made no sense at all. Dc76 simply backed up his team's members by accusing me with extraordinary slander: what was written against me was pure provocation, and provocation that occured after Rjanag clearly let everyone know that he wasn't going to sanction me for this, although Martintg's particularly aggressive behavior didn't look at all good for him. At this point, I asked Dc76 to explain his unfounded attacks [90], but received no answer, leading me to think that in all likelihood his characterization of my editing was either deliberately belligerent and frivolous or he doesn't normally arrive to peek at Rjanag's talk. (Both may very well be true.)

I believe that this was an episode of gaming the system in order to make myself look bad in the eyes of an admin; since Dc76 had only very limited contact with me and arrived to support Radeksz and Martintg with such outstandingly careless sophistry, I have no doubt that this was coordinated through the mailing list in e-mails that the members exchanged around September 4th. At least, if Dc76 cared about what I was reverting and did not simply want to be part of a team project, he would have made some actual arguments. And I have every reason to doubt that in the "innocent" scenario Dc76 would have arrived so quickly to make nonsense charges about me on Rjanag's talk page.

Subsequently confirmed that Dc76 arrived after a call to arms against myself issued on the mailing list: see subsequent section on evidence from the archive. Anti-Nationalist (talk) 15:16, 12 October 2009 (UTC)

Evidence from the e-mail archive

Having now begun looking at the archive, I see that the bonanza of evidence is gigantic. I encourage Arbitrators to read each and every one of the e-mails listed here, as the remarks (quoting them is not permitted here) in many instances give the game away far better than these edit summaries, and the now publicly-revealed "rationales" for them are evasive excuses, by all appearances flying in the face of the reality that went on in secret among its members and as the consequences of these e-mail exchanges on-Wiki. Among other things (I have done my best to avoid the repition of evidence from the mailing list disclosed by other victims of the cabal):

• Vecrumba describes his baiting of User:Paul Siebert and a tentative plan to get the team to coordinate on ruining Paul's reputation by means of an RfC, given Paul's strong command of the facts in historical articles: In Re: [WPM] DYK for Nazi-Soviet military parade in Brzesc, 20090907-1906

• Martintg circulates an e-mail inviting people to complain about me to Rjanag (as – see section above – he himself, Radeksz, and Dc76 do): In Re: [WPM] PU escapes clear 3RR violation, 20090904-2019 (although it was not found to be a violation)

• Piotrus (very blatantly) asks for supporting votes at a Poland-related file for deletion discussion: [91], also nominated by J. Milburn, just as he does in the different incident with J. Milburn described above by Offliner – supporting Piotrus are members of the email archive Poeticbent, Radeksz, Jacurek, and Vecrumba: In Re: [WPM] images being deleted, 20090818-0328

• Jacurek calls everyone on the list for help, noting that he's running out of reverts against Skäpperöd: In [WPM] HELP!! Radek , Piotrus, Tymek and others., 20090725-2229

• Tymek says that he doesn't follow my edits and he has no idea of what my edits are like, but that anyone who wants to file a report against me can use his username, as everybody on the list knows what his account password is: In Re: [WPM] PasswordUsername edit warring, 20090814-0455

• Piotrus presents an AFD to the closed mailing list, violating WP:CANVASSING: In Re: [WPM] AfD of interest: Soviet-run peace movements in Western Europe and the United States, 20090717-1732

• Radeksz suggests that he could do anonymous reverts as an anonymous IP from Europe, as he happens to be doing some traveling: In Re: [WPM] Molotov Ribbentrop Pact article/Baltic states occupation, 20090716-2317

• Dc76 asks for help in reverting an opponent, User:Paul Siebert, on Molotov-Ribbentrop Pact: In Re: [WPM] Molotov Ribbentrop Pact article/Baltic states occupation, 20090716-0121; he then again proceeds to call for meatpuppety a short while afterwards: In Re: [WPM] Molotov Ribbentrop Pact article/Baltic states occupation, 20090716-08336

• Biruitorul canvasses for a delete on this Christian violence-related AFD [92]; Piotrus and Poeticbent arrive with supporting votes: In [WPM] Interesting AfD - "Christian violence", 20090716-0006

• Radeksz suggest making various throwaway sockpuppet accounts in order to revert opponents without bringing attention to the team's members actual accounts while tarnishing their opponents'; he suggests Molobo as a good candidate for engaging in this: In Re: [WPM] Hanzo (was Women and Wiklp), 20090703-1749

• Dc76 suggests baiting Anonimu (who's just returned on 1RR parole following a ban placed as a result of his altercations with the same editors) by inserting negative material into articles on Romanian politicians Anonimu has an interest – following this June message, Dc76 and Biruitorul repeatedly show up to revert Anonimu on Traian Basescu throughout the summer of '09: In Re: [WPM] Dealing with Anonimu, 20090618-2344

• Vecrumba makes this edit [93], essentially reversing my two sequential edits [94] [95], where I deleted the anti-semitic contention that "Jewish Bolshevism" is an "objective" term. Vecrumba tells the e-mail group that this was designed as a provocation, and could be masked by his previous involvement in another article: In [WPM] PasswordUsername on Jewish Bolshevism, 20090615-0359

• Digwuren fashions a thick plot to have Piotrus blacken my block log with false accusations of WP:OUTING, along with coming back as a sock so as to create a clean record for himself: In Re: [WPM] blocked, 20090612-0943

• Dc76 sends a lengthy e-mail about how the cabal can go about conducting a relentless smear campaign against myself and destroying my reputation as an editor: In Re: [WPM] blocked, 20090612-0904

• Vecrumba calls for team gameplay in response to my request for a more neutral article name at Talk:Nochnoy Dozor (group)#POV name: In Re: [WPM] PasswordUsername and Jaak Aaviksoo, 20090611-0225; Digwuren then suggests that the group try to block me should I keep persisting with attempts to get the article moved: In [WPM] PU move-warring, 20090614-1128

• Piotrus encourages team members to coordinate reverting Offliner to avoid breaking 3RR while waging edit wars: In Re: [WPM] tactics re Offliner and PasswordUsername, 20090606-0618

• Vecrumba issues call to arms on Ethnocracy: In Re: [WPM] tactics re Offliner and PasswordUsername, 20090606-1817

• Piotrus gives advice to Molobo regarding targeting User:Skäpperöd, suggesting that other team members file Molobo's RFC, listing Tymek or Radeksz as possible candidates – even as he notes in the same e-mail the likelihood of Molobo being banned for sockpuppetry: In Re: [WPM] RfC regarding Skapperod, 20090524-1506 (note Martintg's and Radeksz's defense of Molobo after this: [96] [97])

• Biophys sends e-mail supportive of User:Mosedschurte, an editor often discussed as an ally of the mailing list in other e-mails, at the Human rights in the United States RfC and a link to the request for comment : In [WPM] Human rights in the US, 20090525-2315. After supportive mailing list messages, team soon shows up en masse to support Mosedschurte.
  • (Although Biophys denies that this was an example of canvassing, just as other opponents misrepresent my editing and even this evidence as regards this ArbCom, Biophys forbade me from quoting verbatim from the e-mail when I prodded him regarding whether I may post a quote: [98]. (And he forbids Arbs from even reading it.) Arbitrators, examine and make your call.)

• Digwuren makes an advertisement regarding a proposed "community ban" for User:Petri Krohn, whose remarks were misconstrued as a "legal threat": In Re: [WPM] Estonian embassy interest in Wikipedia, 20090523-1324. The !vote majority that blocks Petri Krohn is made up of Petri Krohn's content opponents – most of them members of the mailing list. He had avoided interacting with Digwuren at all costs until being baited into conflict by on-Wiki action specifically designed to ensnare him, as discussed in the earlier e-mails of the list. Cabal member Miacek also sends an additional e-mail to Petri Krohn's enemies to encourage team !voting, lest anybody on the list missed the !banvoting campaign before then: In [WPM] banning Petr Krohn? [sic], 20090529-1210.

As regards the cabal members' counter-accusations: re. Aaviksoo, etc.

Since Martintg, Sander Sade, et al. have taken on the strategy here that their long-term harassment is justified by my insertion of sourced material into Jaak Aaviksoo and other articles (along with my insistence, together with that of others, of also keeping this material where relevant), I will simply note that I will not indulge members of the mailing list, whose attacks on my editing and my evidence here are baseless and repugnant. If members of ArbCom would like me to discuss my on-wiki conduct or anything else, they are free to contact me personally to discuss or examine my on-wiki work. I am open to any questions on my talk page; I do regard transparency as an inherently good thing – and very much so in this case especially.