Wikipedia:Requests for arbitration/Zivinbudas

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Case Opened on 09:55, 2 Jun 2005 (UTC)

Case Closed on 15:44, 22 July 2005 (UTC)


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

Arbitrators will be working on a proposed decision at /Proposed decision.

Contents

[edit] Involved parties

Halibutt is bringing this case against Zivinbudas, on charges that he has failed repeatedly to abide by the three-revert rule, despite numerous warnings and blocks imposed on him as an effect of his actions. In addition, he frequently resorts to personal attacks and continues to wage revert wars. Zivinbudas has very strong Lithuanian nationalist feelings which he has been aggressively airing at most pages involved. Despite his views on the history of Lithuania being very extreme, and his failure to provide any sources backing them, he fails to gain consensus before making substantial changes to disputed articles, even if asked. Finally, he often bypasses the rules of Wikipedia and temporary bans on his account by logging out and continuing the destructive actions as an anonymous user. It is to be noted, that during his month-long stay in Wikipedia, Zivinbudas did not start a single article. All in all, Zivinbudas is constantly in conflict with both the rules and the principles of this encyclopedia.

[edit] Statement by Halibutt

There is no question whatsoever, that Zivinbudas has been engaged in disrupting Wikipedia for over a month now. Although many of his edits are POV and even offensive, we were all hoping that with time he will learn the proper conduct and behaviour. However, this did not happen so far and there is little chance it will change in the future. Currently a large number of articles is blocked solely because of his behaviour (among others the pages on Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth, Lithuania, Partitions of Poland, Vilnius, Demographics of Lithuania and Vilnius region). Both the average users and admins have to waste a lot of time to watch his edits, correct them and then see him revert the corrections or offend them seriously. In my opinion, this user is simply unable to contribute constructively to Wikipedia. Halibutt 03:56, May 30, 2005 (UTC)

  • Statement by Dbachmann: what he said. I have nothing to add, but fully support Halibutt in this. dab (ᛏ) 10:13, 2 Jun 2005 (UTC)
  • Ditto.--Wiglaf 11:08, 2 Jun 2005 (UTC)
  • I also support Halibutt here. Decius 21:19, 5 Jun 2005 (UTC)

[edit] Statement by Piotrus

I support Halibutt's statement entirely. Further, I'd like to add that many, many hours have been wasted on reverthing Zvinbudas/trying to reason with him/preparing those requests/etc. Not only my, but Halibutts and others involved time has been wasted - the time, which I, for example, could use to prepare at least one more FA. Thus I move for

1) right to revert Zvinbudas, his future aliases and proxies as normal vandal (i.e. without regard for 3RR) until the time he sufficiently proves to us he is no longer a vandal
2) month (or longer) IP range ban on a range Zvinbudas is commonly using as a way to avoid temporary bans on his username, beacuse it is clear from his past behaviour that simply banning his username will cause him to return to us as anon, and he will continue his behaviour thus causing the vandalisation of the page's history in a prolonged revert wars. As it has been brought to admin's attention, the IP range Zvinbudas uses is large and would affect many Lithuanian users, however I think that whatever positive contributions anons from that range did (and I have yet to see any), time wasted by regular users on dealing with Zvinbudas, and edit opportunity wasted by protection of so many pages, by which regular users and anons alike are affected, greatly outweights the costs of such an action. Such a range ban should be extended whenever Zvinbudas returns vandalising again. If possible, a special msg for the IPs on that range should be prepared, explaining the reasons for this range ban and inviting anons to register.

In the end, I'd like to note that - with a few negligable points exceptions - not a single user has supported Zvinbudas revisions of history, nor has he provided a single source for his versions. This is cleary a case of one evidently mistaken and uncooperative user against the broad community, and I hope the final decision of the arbitrators will reflect the needs of Wikipedia. --Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus Talk 09:23, 30 May 2005 (UTC)

[edit] Statement by DeirYassin

User Zivinbudas as well have added some useful information and corrections of mistakes to various Lithuania-related articles (example Klaipeda region http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Klaipeda_Region&diff=14179407&oldid=13997997 ). Also where revert wars happened, he in most places written interesting historical information in the talk pages which weren't known to me, but as I checked, were true; as he studies history, and there are not many Lithuanians able to contribute here and knowing these things well, I think he is useful. I agree that sometimes he makes an article POV, but sometimes that article is POV of other side at the start (due to lack of Lithuanian editors many articles have Polish, Belorussian and other POVs about Lithuanian history). However, such disputed can be resolved, as they were resolved on Talk:Confederation for example. Although insults and lack of reasoning - a problem, but I think it got better with time, at start it was mostly insults, while now there is more reasoning I think, facts and information, as well explainings if he does reverts. The problem with some unexplained reverts (fewer of them now though) comes from fact that certain information would not be doubted in Lithuania, therefore for some it might seem even "wrong" that someone doubts it and requests more information, especially immidietly after coming to wikipedia. And, there is a real problem with Poles deleting Lithuanian names (which Zivinbudas and I add in brackets together with e.g. German names which are already added there) of cities in Poland even if they used to have Lithuanian majority and such (example: Goldap), and even if they are very different from Polish ones and etc. while Poles at the same time adds Polish names to cities of Belarus, Ukraine, Kaliningrad Oblast, Lithuania, Latvia, etc. even to those cities where Poles never made even significant minority (examples: Panevežys, Siauliai, Jelgava, Kaliningrad); current arguements for that are like "there are more Poles who speaks English so more historical English sites using Polish names", which might make it seem to some that these people thinks of Lithuanian language as lesser;This is just an example of a thing which might annoy Lithuanian and I think things like this one is what causes Zivinbudas to write for example anti-Polish sentiments and push more Lithuanian POV as a 'retalliation'. Not saying that such retalliating is good, but I think it changes with time. DeirYassin 05:46, 30 May 2005 (UTC)

  • I am afraid the Talk:Confederation is far from resolved. Zvinbudas is ignoring both my proposed compromise, and my request for sources, and thus the relevant pages stay protected, while he moved on to vandalise new pages in the past 3 days since the Talk:Confederation was active. Yes, he has corrected a few minor errors, but his positive contributions pale comapred to the amount of fictional (not backed by any source!) ideas (I'd estimate the controversial inserts are at least 90% of info he adds), not to mention that most of his time is spend on revert wars, not meaningful contribution to articles or talk. I really wish he was a more reasonable user like you, unfortunately, this is not the case. Besides, why won't he came defend here himself? Of course, if he does come here, we are bound to hear some lithuanian insults or - if we are lucky - his rant about Polish administrators conspiracy to thwart him... --Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus Talk 09:31, 30 May 2005 (UTC)
    • As for adding things without source, I am not supporting it. The reason however is I think because some of things he says are undisputable in Lithuania, and every Lithuanian who is interested in history knows it. So if a Pole says he doesn't knows it, maybe he thinks that it means that the Pole is making fun of him or such. I can tell however that when he writes something into my user talk in Lithuanian, he gives evidence, information and such. DeirYassin 14:02, 2 Jun 2005 (UTC)
  • I'm afraid his behaviour whether a month ago or today is way from anything acceptable. He still uses anonymous access to circumvent blocks and most of his activity is limited to aggresively starting new edit wars (much of which he does anonymously). Also I don't think it's really a matter of Polish versus Lithuanian POV, but rather his way of conduct, as all the other Poles and Lithuanians on Wikipedia get along well and are able to collaborate fruitfully. In fact his attempts to conflict Poles and Lithuanians (e.g. when he signs his statements with different signatures, pretending that he is "many Lithuanians") are VERY harmful. He put many articles at least a month backwards but what's worse he tied up lots of otherwise valuable wp resources, and I doubt if his input is worth it. His conflicts on wp are not limited to Lithuanian/Polish issues and his contributions are minor, controversial and dubious, as he rarely cares to support his claims with any sources. (why do you think he studies history, btw ?). In summary: I don't see any progress in his behaviour or it's too slow to be noticed. Lysy 07:29, 30 May 2005 (UTC)
    • Signing with different names only happened at the start, when he first came to Wikipedia and did not know how to register a username presumably and how to sign. Once he registered a username (Zivinbudas), he signs everything with this username; recently even when he writes something to talk page when he forgets to login he later logs in to resign it as Zivinbudas. And he told me that he studies history. DeirYassin 08:24, 30 May 2005 (UTC)
      • He purposefully used to edit his own comments only in order to change one of his fictious signatures to another, this has nothing to do with his knowledge on how to sign in. I'd call it a naive version of sockpuppeting. As for his forgetting to log in, he "forgets" to do it usually when his account is blocked, like here: Talk:Germany#To_my_German_friends. Obviously the purpose of these recent edits was not to discuss about the Germany article but a clear attempt to conflict people based on their nationality. His account was already blocked when he did these edits, so he could not log in (and not forgot to) and did it from 85.206.193.63 and 85.206.194.239 IPs. He's actually anonymously involving into new edit wars as I write this (e.g. Kaunas) and "fogot" to sign here. Lysy 18:10, 31 May 2005 (UTC)
        • Despite that he edites without signing in (in the Talk:Germany), he signed every except the last of his comments by his username (and from the context it is clear that last comment is also hi sanyways). Now when he is editing without logging in he usually signs with username anyways.DeirYassin 14:02, 2 Jun 2005 (UTC)

[edit] Comment

Because of Zivinbudas' breaking of the 3RR on four pages in one day, he is now blocked for several days by User:Noel. Details of the case are available here. Therefore it might take some time for him to reply (if...). I believe it would be fair to ask the ArbComm to take that into consideration. Halibutt 09:22, May 30, 2005 (UTC)

Apparently the range block of Zivinbudas affected also User:AndriuZ, so it has been lifted. However, to counter the threat Noel had to block the most commonly-vandalised set of articles, including Gdansk, Goldap, History of Pomerania, Olecko, Pomerania, Podlasie, Podlasie Voivodship, Sarmatism, Siauliai, and Sudovia. Halibutt 01:47, May 31, 2005 (UTC)


[edit] Comment by Aalien

Zivinbudas is a clean and acceptable person. A clique lead dbachman, Jayig, wiglaf and other haters of humanity believe, they can suppress other persons, provocate them with comments acting in a herd can monopolize the Wikipedia for their dark purposes. Aalien

[edit] Preliminary decisions

[edit] Arbitrators' opinions on hearing this matter (5/0/0/0)

  • Accept. RfC is of concern. Ambi 11:06, 30 May 2005 (UTC)
  • Accept Fred Bauder 19:11, May 30, 2005 (UTC)
  • Accept - revert injunction and/or injunction against editing outside this case likely. -- Grunt   ҈  22:26, 2005 May 30 (UTC)
  • Comment: I've been following this one on WP:AN/3RR. One of the problems with this particular abuser is that when blocked, he edits as an anon, redialing for a new IP as needed - leading to a need for frequent short blocks of the whole /16. That is, this is an arbitrable problem, but I'm not sure a lot more can actually be done than what is being done by admins patrolling for abuse now. I suppose he could be declared "shoot on sight", but ... - David Gerard 00:53, 31 May 2005 (UTC)
  • Accept. Neutralitytalk 06:44, May 31, 2005 (UTC)
  • Accept ➥the Epopt 22:19, 31 May 2005 (UTC)

[edit] Temporary injunction

Pending final resolution of this matter User:Zivinbudas is limited in editing to his user pages and this arbitration. Any other edits which are obviously Zivinbudas (which exhibit immature Lithuanian nationalism) may be removed.

Passed 4 to 0 on 9 July 2005

[edit] Final decision

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

[edit] Findings of Fact

[edit] Lithuanian nationalism

1) Zivinbudas (talk · contribs) edits from an immature Lithuanian nationalist perspective [1], [2], [3], [4], [5], [6], [7]

Passed 6 to 0 at 15:44, 22 July 2005 (UTC)

[edit] Anonymous ips

2) When User:Zivinbudas is blocked he uses a wide range of ips to log in. Blocking the range might affect access of Lithuanian users to Wikipedia. Anonymous ips used by Zivinbudas include 85.206.194.242 (talk · contribs), 85.206.193.233 (talk · contribs), 85.206.193.205 (talk · contribs)

Passed 6 to 0 at 15:44, 22 July 2005 (UTC)

[edit] Remedies

Note: All remedies that refer to a period of time, for example to a ban of X months or a revert parole of Y months, are to run concurrently unless otherwise stated.

[edit] One year ban

1) User:Zivinbudas is banned for one year. Any edit by Zivinbudas using an anonymous ip (exhibiting his trademark immature Lithuanian nationalism) may be removed by any user.

Passed 6 to 0 at 15:44, 22 July 2005 (UTC)

[edit] Enforcement

1) Bans of User:Zivinbudas shall run for one year. At the end of each year they shall expire, but may be imposed for an additional year by any administrator if the usual pattern of immature Lithuanian nationalism persists. An appeal may be considered should the ban be imposed without adequate cause. Any appeal should be made at Wikipedia:Requests_for_arbitration.

Passed 5 to 0 at 15:44, 22 July 2005 (UTC)