Wikipedia:Requests for comment/Petri Krohn

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In order to remain listed at Wikipedia:Requests for comment, at least two people need to show that they tried to resolve a dispute with this user and have failed. This must involve the same dispute with a single user, not different disputes or multiple users. The persons complaining must provide evidence of their efforts, and each of them must certify it by signing this page with ~~~~. If this does not happen within 48 hours of the creation of this dispute page (which was: 20:00, 19 June 2007 (UTC)), the page will be deleted. The current date and time is: 02:18, 13 June 2008 (UTC).

Contents

Information about RFC deletion by Bishonen

Since my warnings about deleting this RFC to Digwuren on his user talk, and on the talkpage of this page, don't seem to have really penetrated, I feel I should repeat them more visibly here. This RFC will be deleted unless some real attempt at dispute resolution is made within 48 hours of posting it. Please see the instructions at the top of this page, and the discussion here. Don't post any comments in this section, please. Take it to talk. Bishonen | talk 17:56, 20 June 2007 (UTC).

Current developments

This RfC does not meet the minimum requirements. This page only exists as a means of facilitating the discussion on the proposed agreement between editors of Estonia-related articles on the talk page. DrKiernan 07:39, 25 June 2007 (UTC)

Users should only edit one summary or view, other than to endorse.

Statement of the dispute

Long-term pattern of attempts to represent private fantasies as historical fact coupled with hostile attitude towards any criticism, regularly leading to ethnic insults against Baltic editors.

Desired outcome

Petri Krohn should refrain from activities that harm Wikipedia and are prohibited by Wikipedia policy, most importantly, pushing private fantasies as fact and persistently bashing editors perceived as "pro-Estonian". The incivility must be stopped immediately and unconditionally. If stopping disruptive editing -- including WP:NPOV violations -- turns out to be impossible, Petri Krohn should refrain from editing all articles relating to Soviet Union, Baltic states, or their history.

Description

Petri Krohn has, over a period of at least six months, displayed a consistent and persistent pattern of WP:NPOV violations, especially in articles having to do with the topics of Soviet occupation and Baltic republics; furthermore, instead of engaging in civil discussion, he has resorted to numerous personal attacks and ethnic slurs.

To be sure, having a WP:POV is no crime, and biased people can still do good work on Wikipedia as long as they follow reasonable precautions — such as meticulously following the sources. Unfortunately, Petri Krohn has consistently put his biases before the sources, not finding it beneath him to invent whole new theories to support his POV, and then representing these unsourced and unsourcable theories as fact, both in Wikipedia main space and talkpages. When contested, Petri Krohn routinely resorts to abuse, from personal attacks, accusations of Holocaust denial -- certainly amongst the worst insults that can be directed at a Wikipedian -- to various attempts of 'gaming the system'. Such behaviour has created a hostile and sometimes outright uncivil environment, as well as led to a number of revert wars.

Repeated attempts to discuss these issues with Petri Krohn have failed; see the section #Attempts to get rid of discussion of his misdeeds below for details.

Representing pet theories as fact runs contrary to the First Principle of Wikipedia -- the WP:NPOV. Inability to deal with reasonable criticism, and attempts to intimidate and harass his way out of that rather than responding, aggravate this problem, by making it nearly impossible to work out civil solutions to disputes. Such conduct harms Wikipedia in several ways, from reduction of reliability to creating a toxic editing environment.

Evidence of behavior issues

Attacks, assumptions of bad faith and insults against opposing editors - WP:CIVIL, WP:AGF

This secion is for diff-s about Petri Krohn's assumptions of bad faith and namecalling on any editors dareing of contradict him.

  • Assumption of bad faith of Alexia Death [1]
  • Calling Digwuren a troll for requesting explanation [2]
  • Calling Digwuren WP:SPA: [3]
  • Accusing the post-WW2 British government and MI6 of promoting and sponsoring terrorism [4]
  • Accusation of "unconstructive editing" in a {{hangon}} tag: [5]
  • Unwarranted accusation of "canvassing": [6]
  • Accusation of an editor being a "bot": [7]
  • Unwarranted accusations of "personal attack" in order to avoid responding to criticism: [8], [9], [10], [11], [12], [13]
  • Other miscellaneous baseless accusations: [14]
  • Referring to proponents of Soviet occupation as a "Baltic gang" of "ethno-fascist POV pushers" [15]

Baseless accusations of puppetry
  • In the process, Petri Krohn, following the same pattern described above, advanced a weird baseless private theory regarding the users in question.
  • When the RFCU failed (but not after a lot of disruption caused by RFCU personnel's misunderstanding of Estonian network architecture), he switched to claims of meatpuppetry: [17]
  • This failure did not hold him from asking to even widen the scope of this fishing expedition: [18]
  • Accusation of meatpuppetry in discussion of the proposed and withdrawn article of Estland: [19]
  • Baseless accusation of "harassing": [25], [26],

Baseless accusations of stalking

Frivolous complaint on WP:AN/I: [39]

Baseless accusations of Holocaust denial

Regardless of the fact that Petri Krohn has already been reprimanded by the ArbCom, he continues his vicious accusations of Holocaust denial against those who disagree with him on one or another topic:

Spurious accusations of bad faith

[42], [43], [44], [45], [46], [47], [48], [49]

Conspiracy theory of bad faith based on ideas knew to be incorrect: [50]

Abuse of dispute tags to induce unreasonable doubt
  • Attaching {{POV-title}} to articles without appropriate explanation on the talk page: [51], [52], [53], [54]
  • Attaching {{POV}} to article without accompanying explanation on the talk page: [61], [62], [63], [64]
  • Attaching {{POV-statement}} to article without accompanying explanation on the talk page: [65]

Abuse of IP-based user tags for intimidation purposes

The intent to use these tags for intimidation purposes is made evident in [66], a sort of excuse following up [67], with whom Petri Krohn appears to agree.

[68], [69], [70], [71], [72], [73], [74], [75], [76], [77], [78], [79], [80], [81], [82], [83], [84], [85], [86], [87], [88], [89], [90], [91], [92], [93], [94], [95], [96]

Displays of ethnic bigotry
  • Edit summary of [97]:
“ Yes - but it also proves that Estonians are racists, if not Nazis. ”
“ Now that I have more than 200 characters available, I will rephrase the comment: You User:Beatles Fab Four, as an pro-Russian editor, should forget the insult and support this formulation, as it gives support to the Russian view that many Estonians are racists, even giving credibility the the depiction of Estonians as born again Nazis. ”
“ I agree. The Balts who wrote this made a good job in presenting their state as an "ethnofascist" police state. ”
“ Why is it that one Swede and one Finn have to alone defend both the Russian and the neutral point-of-view in this article, againt a horde of agressive and hostile POV pushers from Estonia? Up to now there has been virtually no participation from Russia. ”
“ Articles nominated for deletion by ethnic POV pushers: Republic of Estonia (1990-1991) and Estonian SSR (independent). ”

(Note that there is no reason whatsoever besides WP:Canvassing, or perhaps WP:Trolling, to post Estonia-related AfD to Portal:Russia.)

“ Speedy keep - When I first saw this article, I thought it was Estonian nationalist POV-pushing to delegitimize the Estonian SSR (Exactly the opposite of what the nominators of this and Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Republic of Estonia (1990-1991) claim.) I first considered suggesting a merge to ESSR, but after seeing the related Republic of Estonia (1990-1991) article I understood its logic. The deletion proposal is an effort to push a Estonian POV in the wake of the Estonian - Russian Bronze Soldier conflict, possibly bad faith. ”
“ Hitler was helpfull in creating an ethnically pure Estonia: in 1940 he "called home" the Baltic Germans, by 1942 he declared Estonia Judenfrei. ”
“ reverted: Wikipedia is not Estonia, Soviet symbols are not banned by law and do not need lustration. ”
“ It seems to me, that that you are trying to dismiss the trials and the evidence as "Soviet propaganda". This is a common atitude among Estonians, as evident in the on-line comments to one of the sources: Arvamused artiklile Omakaitse omakohus ”

Disruptive reverts without an explanation, obstructionism - WP:DE

This secion is for diff-s about presistent disruptive and reverting without even an attempt to reach consensus.

  • Disruptive editing in Lydia Koidula He presistently attempts to replace mentions of Governorate of Livonia to plain Livonia against connsensus on talk.[110][111][112] Maybe this should be WP:TE?
  • Edit warring, 3 reverts within 24 hours being a usual feature, sometimes breaks the 3 revert rule. Refuses to listen, when urged to stop edit warring, after he is spared of the block (!).
  • Unexplained removal of sourced reference to Stimson Doctrine: [113]
  • Inciting another editor, Cmapm to avoid "talk pages, or other normal dispute resolution processes" as "You will be talked to death.": [114]
  • Unexplained disagreement of removing useless {{POV}} tags (see also Abuse of dispute tags to induce unreasonable doubt above): [115]
  • Attempts to add a blog and a forum as source references to Bronze Soldier of Tallinn, against reigning concensus on the talk page, merely because he agreed with their ideas (thus, in violation of WP:COI), in concert with M.V.E.i (currently blocked for a month): [116]

Attempts to get rid of discussion of his misdeeds

Petri Krohn has repeatedly deleted discussions of his misdeeds, usually without comment. He is, however, aware of the impropriety of such actions, as is evidenced by his comment in a different matter.

WP:OWN violations

Evidence of contribution issues

It should be noted that this evidence section is mainly confined to the time since May.

Tendentious editing - WP:NPOV, WP:POINT, WP:TE

This section is for samples of tendentious editing. Petri Krohn's possibly most unusual behavioural aspect, the prospensity to construct elaborate fictitious ideas influenced by WP:POV and then present them as fact, also goes here.

  • Attempts to claim that Estonian soldiers forced to serve in Waffen-SS were fascists, or that honouring them constitutes Neo-Nazism in Estonia: [154], [155]
  • Baseless claims of Estonian government discriminating against minorities: [162], [163]

Attempts to present Soviet occupation of Baltic states as unreal or dubious
  • Attempt to represent "Baltic occupation myth" as a real myth: [164], [165]
  • Reference to (non-existent) "propaganda offices" of Baltic states: [192]

Pushing a number of weird ideas about discontinuity of Estonia as facts

The apparent basic ideas behind this campaign are apparently outlined at [193].

  • (This also concerns a number of edits to the article Estonia (1917-1918). The article is now deleted, and the diffs are, unfortunately, unavailable.)
  • Attempts to construe a period (1990-1991) of Estonian history as a distinct state: [243], [244], [245], [246]
  • (This also concerns a number of edits to the article Estonia (1990-1991). The article is now deleted, and the diffs are, unfortunately, unavailable.)
  • Attempts to present as real a fictitious state Estonian SSR (independent): [247], [248]
  • (This also concerns a number of edits to the article Estonian SSR (independent). The article is now deleted, and the diffs are, unfortunately, unavailable.)
  • Unsourced and unsourcable stories about "annexation of Northern Livonia": [252], [253]
  • Miscellaneous, hard to classify: [257]

The personal theory of Estonian SSR's "separation from USSR"

In a number of articles, Petri Krohn has attempted to advance unsourced and unsourcable elements of his private interpretation of the events surrounding restoration of Estonian independence, apparently based mostly on personal likes and dislikes regarding policy. At the time of this writing, a full compendium can be found at User:Petri Krohn/Restoration of Estonian independence.

  • Plain comparison of the laws, which are not unusual among citizenship laws of modern Europe, with Nuremberg laws: [274]
  • Attempts to present "theory of Estonian legal continuity" as something dubious: [301], [302], [303], [304],

[305], [306], [307], [308]

Various peculiar, but invariably nasty theories surrounding the Bronze Soldier of Tallinn
  • Attempts to give undue weight to city property claims into the monument. In reality, the mayor mentioned possibility of such a claim once, in general discussion of the situation; no actual legal claim to the effect was ever filed. Reading Petri Krohn's edits, however, you might think that the militarists (see above) committed theft of precious city property: [316], [317], [318]
  • In support of this weird idea, attempts to (falsely) overstress City of Tallinn as the erector of the monument: [319]
  • Attempts to display the monument as irretrievably destroyed, typically "demolished": [320]
  • Attempt to WP:POVFORK the article in order to make it seem like the monument was destroyed: [321]
  • Characterisation of a reputed newspaper's webbed article describing an emergent Internet phenomenon in the wake of the rioting as "bad taste attack page": [322]
  • Disparaging, non-encyclopedic, unsourced and unsourcable remarks in Wikipedia's main namespace regarding Estonia's handling of war graves: [323]
  • Baseless claims of Estonian-run "concentration camps": [324]

Special addendum: prelude to this WP:RFC/U

Since the proposal for a WP:RFC/U was first made, in an aftermath of Petri Krohn's flat refusal to respond to criticism, and in a glaring illustration of his inability to deal with criticism, Petri Krohn has made two major inappropriate attempts to "just make the problem go away". First, he turned to Neil, and attempted to convince him to extrapolitically ban Digwuren. (To his credit, Neil has categorically distanced himself.)

Secondly, User:Petri Krohn filed a frivolous WP:AN/I at Wikipedia:Administrators' noticeboard/Incidents#Korp! Estonia on wheels, reiterating a number of baseless accusations, and essentially making the same request. Notably, in this WP:AN/I, he attempted to represent this WP:RFC/U here as a "retaliation" to his "request for advice" of Neil:

“ After I first announced my intentions by asking for advise from User:Neil, Digwuren and his group of "volunteers" have been preparing to counterattack, by filing a WP:RFC/U against me. I find this action to be yet an other indication of bad faith. ”

This is untrue, as can be ascertained by comparing the relevant timestamps. Furthermore, this is not only untrue; it's a knowing lie, as the initial mention of WP:AN/I not only predates the "request for advice" by more than 8 hours; it was made on User talk:Petri Krohn, his very own talk page. Any reasonable person would conclude that he must have seen it, and thus, he must have been aware that this version of timeline was wrong.

Applicable policies and guidelines

The most important policies applicable to this WP:RFC/U are WP:NPOV, WP:NPA, WP:CIVIL and WP:NOR. Other policies and guidelines are listed above, next to the diffs.

Evidence of trying and failing to resolve the dispute

(provide diffs and links)

  1. I, Digwuren, have contacted Petri Krohn regarding the problem. The attempt failed. (Note that Petri Krohn's nominal response makes an explicit point about not even reading the complaint.) There have been earlier attempts to discuss some of the issues raised here, mainly on Talk:Bronze Soldier of Tallinn, which are not listed here. (Previous attempts on Petri Krohn's talk page: [325], [326], [327], [328], [329], [330], [331]) I am also pointing out that Bishonen and Illythr have expressed concern of the complaint's ultimativeness. Such concern is misplaced. As just one example, I have made an explicit recent call to discussion that, alas, was completely ignored.
  2. I, User:Alexia Death, have [332] asked this user to reconsider not answering the claims presented by Digwuren and have failed as I have not been deemed worthy of reply. (Previous attempts on Petri Krohn talk page: [333], [334], [335])
  3. I, User:Suva, have asked[336] this user to reply to the claims by User:Digwuren and got no reasonable reply.
  4. I, User:Erik Jesse called User:Petri Krohn (on May 8, 2007) for moderation and asked him to stop controversial practices [337]. At the time, User:Irpen also suggested that Petri should learn from his mistakes. Unfortunately, nothing of the kind has happened to this date. E.J. 07:01, 21 June 2007 (UTC)


  • Petri Krohn was already admonished for tag abuse and poor behaviour in Wikipedia:Requests_for_arbitration/Occupation_of_Latvia/Proposed_decision back in February 2007. The outcome of that arbitration case was to place the article Occupation of Latvia under probation, the terms being "If any editor makes disruptive edits, they may be banned by an administrator from this and related articles, or other reasonably related pages." While the other particpants in that previous case have since moderated their behaviour, Petri Krohn has continued disruptive edits in articles and pages that are related, i.e. Baltic/Soviet. The evidence in this case demonstrates this continued disruption. Martintg 01:42, 20 June 2007 (UTC)
  • Furthermore, a number of issues mentioned here were raised in objections to Wikipedia:Requests for checkuser/Case/Digwuren. All of them have gone unanswered, even unresponded. Petri Krohn has made an attempt to hide some of them.

Users certifying the basis for this dispute

{Users who tried and failed to resolve the dispute}

  1. Digwuren 15:16, 19 June 2007 (UTC)
  2. Suva 15:38, 19 June 2007 (UTC)
  3. Alexia Death 15:45, 19 June 2007 (UTC)
  4. --E.J. 07:02, 21 June 2007 (UTC)

Other users who endorse this summary

  1. Biruitorul 22:13, 19 June 2007 (UTC)
  2. Martintg 00:39, 20 June 2007 (UTC)
  3. DLX 03:18, 20 June 2007 (UTC)
  4. --3 Löwi 05:11, 20 June 2007 (UTC) (Disclaimer: I, 3 Löwi, editor since 2005, was accused by Petri Krohn of being a sockpuppet of Digwuren, editor since 2007. As a result of the checkuser proceedings, I was first blocked by administrators indefinitely, and subsequently served a reduced one-week block for allegedly abusing Wikipedia as probable sock-puppeteer of Klamber and DLX.)
  5. Pēteris Cedriņš 06:28, 20 June 2007 (UTC)
  6. Staberinde 11:13, 20 June 2007 (UTC)
  7. Turgidson 11:45, 20 June 2007 (UTC)
  8. --Lysytalk 13:00, 20 June 2007 (UTC)
  9.  :Dc76 16:39, 20 June 2007 (UTC)

Response

This is a summary written by the user whose conduct is disputed, or by other users who think that the dispute is unjustified and that the above summary is biased or incomplete. Users signing other sections ("Statement of the dispute" and "Outside Views") should not edit the "Response" section.

This RfC is filed by a single-purpose-account, who registered on Wikipedia in the wake of the the Bronze Soldier controversy, with an obvious aim of waging the Russian-Estonian propaganda war on Wikipedia. His contributions so far are limited to tendentious editing, disruptive editing, trolling and personal attacks. In the last two months he has summarily reverted most of my contributions to Estonia related articles, usually in under ten minutes. <paranoia> I suspect that he is not only stalking me, but also using some automated process to alarm him of my edits.</paranoia> During this time I have created 11 new Estonia related articles, while he and his supporters have managed to delete at least three articles.

This RfC was started after I asked an impartial administrator to block him indefinitely for complete failure to accept and understand Wikipedia's basic principle of neutral point of view. This RfC may be his last attempted defence, before his case goes to WP:ArbCom.

Of the accusations presented here, only one has any merit: some of my edit summaries may have been open to interpretations, some may even have offended or provoked other users. In the future, I will try to be more careful with my edit summaries.

Difs

If you intend to to endorese the "Statement of the dispute" presented above (not my response, but the original accusation), I ask you to check all the 323 difs presented, and verify that they in fact support the accusations. More important, please check the context of the edits, including the preceding edits.

I will provide refutations for each of the 323 difs, once I know that I am not shoting at a moving target (reference numbers will not change). In the meantime, see Wikipedia:Administrators' noticeboard/Incidents#Korp! Estonia on wheels.

  • Most of the accusations of adding objectionable material are in fact restoring material and edits removed or reverted by User:Digwuren as part of his constant edit warring.

I will for now only respond to two of the other difs, in both cases the accusation of improper conduct is laughable, but indicative of the quality of the other accusations.

  • In this, attempting to non-factually imply Hjalmar Mäe, this puppet governments leader, was a head of state or head of government of Estonia: 132
    • I added the template {{EstonianPMs}} to the article I created on Hjalmar Mäe. The template listed Mäe as one of the "Heads of Government of Estonia". It is evident, that the template needs to be on that page. (By the time you read this Mäe will most likely be removed from the template: see history). On top of all this, the template was in fact created by one of the users who now endorse this RfC.
  • Nonfactual, unsourced and unsourcable attempts to claim that Arnold Rüütel preceded Lennart Meri as the president or head of state of Republic of Estonia: 253, 254, 255
    • The article had a succession box in the bottom of the page clearly stating Arnold Rüütel as Meri's predecessor as the "Head of state of Estonia". This box was later removed by one of the associated POV-pushers, but as of now Arnold Rüütel is presented as the predecessor in both the info-box and the succession box. (Do not count on this being the case, when you read this, see history.)


Users who endorse this summary:

  1. Petri Krohn 02:34, 20 June 2007 (UTC)
  2. BScar23625 15:22, 20 June 2007 (UTC)

Outside view by Otto

This is a summary written by users not directly involved with the dispute but who would like to add an outside view of the dispute. Users editing other sections ("Statement of the dispute" and "Response") should not edit the "Outside Views" section, except to endorse an outside view.

The above request is in my opinion biased and unfounded. The above request is a reaction on the WP:ANI report by Petri Krohn earlier today. Support for Petri by me and other editors can be found at the WP:ANI section "Independent view". I have first hand experience of edit warring and incivility by requesters Digwuren and Alexia.

Users who endorse this summary:

  1. Otto 20:32, 19 June 2007 (UTC)
  2. Dojarca 08:24, 20 June 2007 (UTC)
  3. --Pan Gerwazy 11:31, 20 June 2007 (UTC)
  4. Jehochman Talk 15:45, 20 June 2007 (UTC)
  5. Illythr 16:32, 20 June 2007 (UTC) - Phrases like "[you keep] inserting weird fantasies", "you have resorted to pure obstructionism" [338], or "your racist opinion" [339] certainly don't look like attempts to resolve the dispute to me.
  6. Cmapm 20:42, 20 June 2007 (UTC)
  7. RJ CG 12:47, 22 June 2007 (UTC)
  8. --Ghirla-трёп- 22:33, 22 June 2007 (UTC)
  9. Alex Bakharev 02:02, 23 June 2007 (UTC)
  10. Grafikm (AutoGRAF) 14:55, 23 June 2007 (UTC)
  11. Ilya1166 15:04, 25 June 2007 (UTC)

Outside view by Beatle Fab Four

This is a summary written by users not directly involved with the dispute but who would like to add an outside view of the dispute. Users editing other sections ("Statement of the dispute" and "Response") should not edit the "Outside Views" section, except to endorse an outside view.

I edit wiki only occasionally. But I can attest that “Users certifying the basis for this dispute” are extremely aggressive and incivil. My opinion is already expressed in [340]. I strongly believe that they have to be punished. Surely, Petri is not guilty.

Users who endorse this summary:

  1. Beatle Fab Four 22:07, 19 June 2007 (UTC)
  2. Otto 22:13, 19 June 2007 (UTC) Beatle and I state more or less the same.
  3. Jehochman Talk 15:46, 20 June 2007 (UTC) The sheer length of this complaint is evidence of a snow job.
  4. Cmapm 20:42, 20 June 2007 (UTC)
  5. Dojarca 03:14, 21 June 2007 (UTC)
  6. --Pan Gerwazy 09:48, 21 June 2007 (UTC)
  7. Petri Krohn is thanked for his attempts to patiently and constructively defuse a number of conflicts instigated by a group of connected editors who entered Wikipedia last month. It's a shame that a Finnish wikipedian should tackle the problem, while Russian editors seem to be nonchalant. --Ghirla-трёп- 22:40, 22 June 2007 (UTC)
  8. Agree, though Beatle sometimes did not show the best example either Alex Bakharev 02:06, 23 June 2007 (UTC)
  9. --Ilya1166 15:07, 25 June 2007 (UTC)

Outside view by Pēters J. Vecrumba

This is a summary written by users not directly involved with the dispute but who would like to add an outside view of the dispute. Users editing other sections ("Statement of the dispute" and "Response") should not edit the "Outside Views" section, except to endorse an outside view.

My first experience with Petri and the Baltics was his restoration of {{POV-title}} and {{noncompliant}} on the occupation of Latvia (no discussion) [1]. When someone removed those tags, he reinserted them again, this time with a one word "POV!" [2] (still no discussion).
    Petri finally weighed in with his objection: that occupation of Latvia article, by lumping together the Soviet and Nazi presences, was equating Soviet acts to Nazi acts and in doing so perpetrating Holocaust denial.[3]. His rationale appeared to be that Nazi acts were uniquely heinous and by lumping in alleged heinous Soviet acts, the heinousness of Nazi acts was being diminished and therefore actively denied. Petri then rearranged the article's talk to focus on the article's alleged Holocaust denial aspect.[4]
    Petri then launched into full frontal assault, tagging the well-referenced == Non-recognition of the occupation == section as {{Totally-disputed-section}}, no additional comment. And shortly thereafter revealed his opinion of those taking the position that the Baltics were occupied: a "Baltic gang" of "ethno-fascist POV pushers."[5].
     Unfortunately I cannot speculate as to the source of Petri's position, I have inquired in various discussions and even in Email, all to no avail. I am all the more baffled because of Petri's excellent contributions in other areas. I have concluded, with some regret, that I will likely never understand the source of Petri's vitriol. I have only been sporadically engaged with Petri of late and therefore responded here.

  1. ^ http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Occupation_of_Latvia_1940%E2%80%931945&diff=prev&oldid=100191108
  2. ^ http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Occupation_of_Latvia_1940%E2%80%931945&diff=prev&oldid=100695355
  3. ^ http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Talk:Occupation_of_Latvia_1940%E2%80%931945&diff=prev&oldid=100853242
  4. ^ http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Talk:Occupation_of_Latvia_1940%E2%80%931945&diff=prev&oldid=100861795
  5. ^ http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=User_talk:Grafikm_fr&diff=prev&oldid=100988875

Users who endorse this summary:

  1. Pēters J. Vecrumba 04:05, 20 June 2007 (UTC)
  2. Martintg 04:14, 20 June 2007 (UTC)
  3. --E.J. 04:32, 20 June 2007 (UTC)
  4. Pēteris Cedriņš 06:29, 20 June 2007 (UTC)
  5. Staberinde 11:14, 20 June 2007 (UTC)
  6. Digwuren 12:50, 20 June 2007 (UTC)
  7. --Lysytalk 12:58, 20 June 2007 (UTC)
  8. DLX 15:06, 20 June 2007 (UTC)
  9. Dc76 16:44, 20 June 2007 (UTC)
  10. Biruitorul 22:57, 20 June 2007 (UTC)
  11. Turgidson 19:56, 21 June 2007 (UTC)

Outside view by User:Dojarca

This is a summary written by users not directly involved with the dispute but who would like to add an outside view of the dispute. Users editing other sections ("Statement of the dispute" and "Response") should not edit the "Outside Views" section, except to endorse an outside view.

Thank Petri Krohn for being one of a few users in English Wikipedia who tries to secure neutral point of view. In fact, many articles in Wikipedia, especially related to Eastern Europe, i.e. the Baltics and Poland are biased to the point of the second cold war. Many of those articles (Occupation of Baltic States for example) reflect only one side's point of view or present it as the only correct. In fact this is a point of view of extremists and revanchists bordering neo-Nazism who want ultimately to reconsider outcomes of WWII and post-WWII borders in Europe. It used to support territorial claims and discrimination against minorities. Unfortunately those views find support in Wikipedia making it one of nests of such extremist propaganda, although it deeply conflicts with Wikipedia's rules and principles.--Dojarca 08:08, 20 June 2007 (UTC)

Users who endorse this summary:

  1. Dojarca 09:37, 20 June 2007 (UTC)
  2. --Pan Gerwazy 11:33, 20 June 2007 (UTC)
  3. Otto 17:20, 20 June 2007 (UTC) I endorse only the first three sentences until "In fact this is ..."
  4. Anonimu 19:40, 20 June 2007 (UTC)
  5. Cmapm 20:42, 20 June 2007 (UTC)
  6. --Ilya1166 15:08, 25 June 2007 (UTC)


Outside view by User:Colchicum

This is a summary written by users not directly involved with the dispute but who would like to add an outside view of the dispute. Users editing other sections ("Statement of the dispute" and "Response") should not edit the "Outside Views" section, except to endorse an outside view.

There are two camps fighting a battle here, unfortunately, and the "outside" views stated above are not really outside (see e.g. a bright example right above), as well as that of mine. Most of the people here have been involved. Although I strongly disagree that edit-warring can help here, I agree that there are serious POV problems with Petri’s edits. There seem to be some misunderstanding of WP:NPOV. If you read the policy, you will see that there shall be no such thig as a single neutral point of view and a single person cannot maintain NPOV. It is always a collective effort. Wikipedia must be written from a neutral point of view (NPOV), representing fairly and without bias all significant views (that have been published by reliable sources). If you guys are really willing to resolve the dispute, concerning Estonia-related articles (i.e. tagged for Wikipedia:WikiProject Estonia) I would suggest the following to both parties (as well as outside-viewers including myself):

  • (1) Absolutely don’t add or modify information, internal links and redirects if you don’t support your claims (internal links and redirects – literally) with inline references to reliable souces. Blogs, wikis, forums and editorials are by no means reliable sources and can only be referred to if the author is notable and attrribution is explicit (According to…, Putin said…), peer-reviewed publications are absolutely reliable (there are plenty of them for the hot Estonian topics). For direct quotations page numbers are a must.
  • (2) Don’t delete or modify text from Estonia-related articles, unless it is unsourced and you add contradicting sourced information. Text accurately supported by inline-references to reliable sources absolutely cannot be deleted, but attribution can be made more explicit (According to…).
  • (3) Don’t discuss each other, talk about content, and avoid talk pages of your opponents – commenting there is not productive. As to incivility – if it happens, don’t take it personally. It is not harmful if you don’t react.
  • (4) Try to find some people that are ok with both parties and ask them to resolve content disputes that cannot be settled otherwise. People that have contributed to Estona-related articles and are not ok with both parties are to be considered involved.

Users who endorse this summary:

  1. Colchicum 09:33, 20 June 2007 (UTC)
  2. Suva 10:21, 20 June 2007 (UTC)
  3. support (1) except to rv vandalism, (2), (3), don't really understand when you mean by (4), but I'm sure we can find independent outside people. :Dc76 16:51, 20 June 2007 (UTC)
  4. (2) is incomplete. A common tactic displayed above is adding to articles irrelevant tidbits in violation of WP:UNDUE; the proposed (2) does not offer a way out. Otherwise, I endorse this view. Digwuren 17:47, 20 June 2007 (UTC) [P. S. DrKiernan has proposed amendments to deal with this problem; see the talk page. Digwuren 09:15, 23 June 2007 (UTC)]
  5. E.J. 06:46, 21 June 2007 (UTC)
  6. Otto 09:06, 21 June 2007 (UTC)
  7. DLX 09:15, 21 June 2007 (UTC)
  8. I like the trust of the statement, though the life is more complicated than that. There is no such thing as an absolutely reliable source: both Stalinist USSR and Nazi Germany have plenty peer-reviewed publications, there are many biased peer-reviewed publications in the western world as well. There are such things as undue weight, irrelevant sourced information, wikipedia conventions, etc; so we cannot subscribe that every piece of a sourced info should be put into any article at will. Still I think in the most cases Colchium's proposal should work Alex Bakharev 02:35, 23 June 2007 (UTC)

Outside view by Cmapm

This is a summary written by users not directly involved with the dispute but who would like to add an outside view of the dispute. Users editing other sections ("Statement of the dispute" and "Response") should not edit the "Outside Views" section, except to endorse an outside view.

Since Digwuren joined Wikipedia I see POV pushing in almost each of their edits. This should be not too bad, if they should not delete alternative POV. For example, I accept, that modern view in Baltic states is that they were occupied, at the same time I have a right to cite an alternative POV, that they voluntarily joined the Soviet Union. But Digwuren systematically deletes such references. Apart from that, they strangely find support in this from relative newbies. I can't imagine anything worse than establishment of a single POV monopoly on a large topic and its descendants, by some mob that came into Wikipedia solely to do this. Police regime with alternative view suppression becomes much more real here, when such newbies join Wikpedia.

Users who endorse this summary:

  1. Cmapm 21:09, 20 June 2007 (UTC)
  2. Dojarca 03:19, 21 June 2007 (UTC)
  3. Otto 09:08, 21 June 2007 (UTC)
  4. Endorse, with the added proviso that things get exacerbated when people who want to put the other POV (which they may not even believe in themselves) are instantly accused of suffering from "Soviet occupation denial".--Pan Gerwazy 09:58, 21 June 2007 (UTC)
  5. Anonimu 13:39, 21 June 2007 (UTC)
  6. RJ CG 16:17, 21 June 2007 (UTC)
  7. Both POVs should be represented in equal measure. Wikipedia is neither a soapboax nor a propaganda machine. --Ghirla-трёп- 22:48, 22 June 2007 (UTC)
  8. Agree with the principle. Not sure about the example used as it might be WP:UNDUE. Completely voluntarily joining by Baltic states seems to be out side of the mainstream Alex Bakharev 02:43, 23 June 2007 (UTC)
  9. Grafikm (AutoGRAF) 14:42, 23 June 2007 (UTC)
  10. --Ilya1166 15:10, 25 June 2007 (UTC)

Outside view by Ghirla

This is a summary written by users not directly involved with the dispute but who would like to add an outside view of the dispute. Users editing other sections ("Statement of the dispute" and "Response") should not edit the "Outside Views" section, except to endorse an outside view.

I had quite a few conflicts with Petri Krohn in the past. In fact, so many that we were not on speaking terms for a while. In this particular case, I feel obliged to step in on his behalf and to refute this carefully planned attempt at character assassination. I imagine it was fun to prepare this attack in the cool of the Tartu classrooms, so as to launch it on June 22, the day when Nazi Germany invaded the Soviet Union. The kids might have been unaware that "RfCs brought solely to harass or subdue an adversary are not permitted. Repetitive, burdensome, or unwarranted filing of meritless RfCs is an abuse of the dispute resolution process". This is exactly what we have here.

There is no evidence of behavioural problems on the part of Petri Krohn. On the contrary, the page reveals a long history of inappropriate conduct (trolling, mind-boggling revert warring, attack pages, general disruption) on the part of his opponents. Their mass arrival (or should I say invasion) of English Wikipedia in the run up to the V-Day made regular editing of Estonia-related articles virtually impossible. They disrupted a large swath of our pages in order to promote their all-too-predictable agenda to the effect that the Commies were much, much wickeder than the Nazis and their henchmen.

Their main argument seems to be that Petri Krohn dared to express opinions that contradict the beliefs of the accusers, that is, the notorious "Soviet occupation theory" so vital for suppressing the rights of huge ethnic minorities in the Baltic states. This really does not amount to "user conduct". I would call it a typical content dispute.

The only behavioral issue at stake is the following. A group of determined editors based in the same institution attempts to ram through their POV, by harrassing their only vocal opponent via this RfC, in the hope that their histrionics and screams would entail some sanctions against him. This strategy is as old as Wikipedia itself. I believe that seasoned wikipedians will not be deluded. The only complete outsider, BScar23625, was not. All the signs of good ol' trolling are here.

Users who endorse this summary:

  1. --Ghirla-трёп- 23:31, 22 June 2007 (UTC)
  2. I should add, that the "oldest" out of four "Users certifying the basis for this dispute", Erik Jesse, joined Wikipedia on April 16 this year, while other three joined it on actually the same day - April 30/May 1. And two months later they have RfC filed against Petri Krohn, who is contributing since August 2005 and has 18k+ edits...Cmapm 00:11, 23 June 2007 (UTC)
  3. Jehochman Talk 00:16, 23 June 2007 (UTC) - I believe some of the "attackers" are disruption-only accounts.
  4. Little bit overemotional but true Alex Bakharev 02:48, 23 June 2007 (UTC)
  5. Otto 17:45, 23 June 2007 (UTC)
  6. I am sure Digwuren did not mess up with the intention of having this coincide with Barbarossa. I agree with the rest and with Jehochman. --Pan Gerwazy 21:59, 23 June 2007 (UTC)
  7. Anonimu 19:20, 24 June 2007 (UTC)
  8. Dojarca 07:46, 25 June 2007 (UTC)
  9. --Ilya1166 15:11, 25 June 2007 (UTC)

Outside view by Termer

This is a summary written by users not directly involved with the dispute but who would like to add an outside view of the dispute. Users editing other sections ("Statement of the dispute" and "Response") should not edit the "Outside Views" section, except to endorse an outside view.

Well, despite the accused been the most obsessive user on Wikipedia that I've noticed so far who wants to write a history for Estonians, perhaps for Latvians and Lithuanians as well. It's not a question of a single case here but much broader issue I think. Namely, the neighbors of the Baltic countries in some cases have become used to write a history for them. And even though the Baltic republics have became independent states for the second time, some of the neighbors still are used to the old ways and habits when nobody asked Estonians, Latvians, Lithuanians what they think. So, now when suddenly there are people from the Baltic countries on Wikipedia that have their own story to tell, it's getting labeled as POV by the people that are used to do the talking job for them. Well, for 50 years these small nations were cut off from the rest of the world, but now these days are over and Estonians, Latvians, Lithuanians are here to stay.

In 1940 the Baltic countries were naive, did let themselves get occupied without a fight. We've learned from our history and are not going to let it happened again. Therefore nobody is going to get a chance and steel or occupy the history of the Baltic countries by the Baltic people on Wikipedia without a fight, even though some of you who read this, used to own it once.

Labeling the facts the way the Estonians, Latvians, Lithuanians interpret it with POV-tags, thats fine. So lets have 2 histories in Wikipedia, one from the POV of the Baltic countries and another one from the POV of whomever wants to write the history for them. After all, it's not a secret that many people still consider the Baltic countries their historic property that has been stolen from them by the "Baltic nationalists", so lets hear their story as well.

I've already started splitting up controversies, and as long as we can keep the split clean. Stating: this is an article or a section from a POV citing sources from the Republic of Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania, another one a POV citing the sources of a formerly existed country the USSR, a POV of current Russian government etc. everybody should be happy. And if not, if this is not a solution, an alternative is continuing Cold (edit) War in Wikipedia. --Termer 14:47, 23 June 2007 (UTC)

Users who endorse this summary:

  1. Otto 17:47, 23 June 2007 (UTC) Apart from the last sentence, of course. Edit warriors should be blocked.
  2. I agree with the view that Estonian Wikipedia editors have every right to edit their own histories. I have reservations with your approach to splitting the "controversies" in the articles, as it may give equal weight to the minority view point by juxaposing it with the majority view point. Martintg 21:22, 23 June 2007 (UTC)
  3. I still don't like the idea of posting Soviet propaganda calling estonian nationalist faschist. It would be the same as citing nazi propaganda in jews related articles. But at the same time, it's interesting to know the whole story in several points of view. Suva 07:36, 26 June 2007 (UTC)


Outside view by User:Roobit

We face an outlandish situation here where a gang of dedicated ethnic nationalists and ethno-fascists from the Baltics, primarily from so-called Estonia, which is today the real center of ethnic hatred and official neo-Nazi malfeasance in Europe and the world, and their supporters have managed to totally falsify the recent history and are waging a concerted relentness campaign to silence anyone who may possible possibly dare to oppose their propaganda or even hint , no matter how meekly, that other viewpoints are possible.

Petri Krohn is the voice of reason here and his dedication to stand for plurality of opinions and for the right of others to be heard, considering the strength of the ethnofascist onslaught, is both amazing and noble.


When it comes to Estonia the roots of ethnofascist hatred for Petri Krohn are understandable as is understandable that Wikipedia's democratic format is prone to manipulation by a dedicated group - as is the case in all articles pertaining to Estonia.

Being created with assistance of Bolsheviks in the aftermath of World War I, and unlike other postwar creations like Czechoslovakia which has a rich past, Estonia lacks any history. It never existed as a nation (it is not even a nation today) prior to 1919. It has and never had any architecture, music, culture or art or, among those who call themselves Estonians, there were never musicians, merchants, skilled artisans, midlevel or upper clergy or aristocrats. It’s a nation of landless peasants with immense inferiority complex that due to idiotic Soviet policy of ethnic separation and encouragement of local languages and culture has, after Soviet dissolution, found its collective solace in modern-day ethnic fascism; it's ideal is an ethnic state a state where Estonians (esths) are superior to others only because their ancestors may or may not been the indigenous peasants who toiled the territory.

For political reasons (and in returned for ethnofascist regime's loyalty both the EU and US went along (or rather kept silence) on three most outlandish ethno-Nazi claims - - that Estonia was somehow occuppied by Russia or USSR. Patently false as it never was. - that the continuty of the pre-war statelet is legitimate. It is not. - that the current apartheid system in Estonia can be legitimized. It is unique in the modern world and is beyond any redemption. It is totally illegal.

When it comes to spreading propaganda or turning Wikipedia into a propagandist vehicle (and that’s what Wikipedia has become) Estonian ethnofascists have a great advantage over "Russians" or most other Europeans (or let's call them non-Estonians). As Estonians (Esths) lack culture and developed language, they submerge into English-speaking environment much easier than those who do; English is a language of a relatively uncomplicated grammar that offers immense cultural wealth and is the perfect communication tool for. dealing with the greater outside. Russians (or French) are held back by their own cultural environment – there are books, discussion groups, film, and so on and on, available in Russian in such variety and richness that learning other language perfectly or submerging into a different cultural milieu is often out of question.


Although there are variety of points one can argue about, fundamentally it all comes down to two main issues (questions about ethnofascist "citizenship" aside:) -

1. Estonia was a nation occupied by Russia.

Russia never occupied by Russia and Estonia was never a nation. It was a territory, two distinct provinces with no history of ethnic self-governance, this territory was both Russian and a part of Russia since 1707 factually and since 1724 legally. The attempt to create a monolingual ethnically pure state there, or one where one ethnic group is superior as well as an attempt to resurrect short-lived monstrosity, the interwar Estonian republic, is an aberation.


2. Estonia was a ethnic state and its course of development was interrupted through injection of Russian (Soviet) settlers and its ethnic purity diluted. Actually Russian administration was first to allow Esths (Estonians) to move to the cities and Alexander I freed them from century old serfdom and personal bondage. As of ethnically pure state, I’d use words of Gen Wesley Clark (though US officials for some reason believe that Baltic satrapies have a waver from this) - “There is no place in modern Europe for ethnically pure states. That’s a 19th century idea and we are trying to transition into the 21st century, and we are going to do it with multi-ethnic states.” - I'll second the general - there is no place for monoethnic apartheid fascist statelet of Estonia on the map of Europe. On the other hand I understand that others may have different opinions.

I am thankful to Petri Krohn for his courageous stand on the issue of freedom of opinion. Petri fights for the right of others to express opinions (like my own) with which he, Petri Krohn, personally disagrees with.


Discussion

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