Wikipedia talk:Requests for arbitration/Armenia-Azerbaijan

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[edit] Full length statements

[edit] Statement by Dmcdevit

I'm making this request as a third-party initiator that has become very involved in this dispute as an administrator only. Don't be fooled by the number of parties I've attached; I'm not going overboard, here are actually more tht could have been included. This is a very wide-ranging nationalist dispute with so many participants willfully engaging in blind edit warring, personal attacks, and sockpuppetry, that resolution has become impossible. Every party here has been blocked for edit warring, incivility, or some combination of the two.

There can be no dispute resolution as long as the parties persist in WP:NOT#BATTLEGROUND mentalities, endlessly reverting. Additionally, no amount of encouraging them to seek out mediation has resulted in any attempts to resolve the dispute with peaceful means. In fact, the 10 parties listed have a combined total of 13 blocks from me alone in the last month. An injunction is needed as soon as possible, and I expect to see several paroles or bans as a result of arbitration, for the parties with no capacity for working with others. I suspect with so many parties, the nature of the dispute will become obvious when they all give their statements, but I'll expand if it isn't clear. Dmcdevit·t 10:22, 22 February 2007 (UTC)

Note that the issue here is not some unresolvable nationalist dispute (the content dispute is not considered during arbitration anyway), but the actual conduct issues(edit warring and incivility) of some of these parties that make a resolution impossible at this time. That is what arbitration seeks to resolve. Dmcdevit·t 20:57, 23 February 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Statement by Grandmaster

I would like to respectfully disagree with some of what has been said with regard to the situation. Saying that no dispute resolution was tried is not entirely accurate, I personally initiated a dispute resolution with regard to one of the articles that are mentioned above, i.e. Paytakaran. Please see: Wikipedia:AMA_Requests_for_Assistance/Requests/January_2007/Grandmaster It is currently underway, please check Talk:Paytakaran. Also, I initiated or supported a couple of RfCs with regard to disputed issues. [1] [2] Unfortunately, they did not generate much response. I know that some of other above mentioned people, for instance Dacy69 also tried dispute resolution procedures. Also, the disputes were mediated by wiki admins, and I would like to specifically mention Francis Tyers, who made a tremendous contribution to resolution of disputes between the parties. I would like to add that for people not familiar with our region such intense disputes may seem strange, but one has to bear in mind that the two countries were engaged in a war that took thousands of lives, and therefore the people from our region take the issues with more passion than those who were not affected by such tragedies. I don’t think that banning the current group of editors will help resolve the situation, it means that all active users representing these two countries would be banned, and those who take their place would start everything all over again. If you check Armenia-Azerbaijan related internet forums, you’ll see what I mean. Instead, I would recommend that the wiki community should be more active in monitoring such heated disputes related to this particular topic and help parties to find middle ground. My negative experience with RfCs shows that no one is really interested in what is going on these articles and some admins see the only way of resolving the problems by blocking and banning active editors. Grandmaster 12:21, 22 February 2007 (UTC)

Additional statement. Since the personal accusations started, I would like to provide some insight as to what caused edit wars in the first place. Time after time I found myself in a situation, when all of my edits, no matter how well sourced and referenced they were, were fully reverted by certain users. Paytakaran is a typical example of such indiscriminate blind reverts. [3]

Other examples could be found here: [4] [5]

I tried to discuss issues on talk, and 2 archives on Paytakaran and extensive archives on other pages are a proof of that. When a third party editor filed a request for the official mediation with regard to the dispute on Paytakaran, me and other involved editors on both sides agreed, and it was Fadix who rejected it, and mediation never took place. After that I filed an AMA request, and the issue is currently being mediated. I don't think Fadix has much room for accusing others, while he himself was not much willing to have disputes resolved via the respective dispute resolution procedures. I was the one who always supported and in most cases initiated dispute resolution, however sometimes the other party was unwilling to cooperate. Of course it is very frustrating to see that the edits you put so much research and effort in being reverted without any valid explanation or under a false pretext. This is what causes edit wars. It is also not nice to see your edits being reverted by people, who never contributed a singe line to the articles they rv or their talks, and you can only guess what their real motives are. Therefore I think it would be fair to add User:Azerbaijani and User:Mardavich to the list of involved parties. If you check their contributions, you’ll see that in addition to edit warring on various Iran related articles, these people have been actively involved in edit wars on Armenia – Azerbaijan related articles, undoing edits by Azerbaijani users. Just a couple of examples of their rvs of the articles, to which they never contributed a single line, be that the articles themselves or their talks.

Azerbaijani: [6] [7]

Same for Mardavich: [8] [9] [10] [11] [12]

In addition, these 2 have been edit warring on such articles as Atabeg, Azerbaijan, Arran (Azerbaijan), Musavat, Safavid dynasty and many others.

Please see [13] [14] [15] [16]

Also, User:ROOB323 belongs to the list too. Because of his edit warring History of Nagorno-Karabakh article has recently got protected too: [17] [18] He is well aware of 3RR rule, as he was warned by an admin. [19]

I still think that arbcom will not resolve the problem, the only way out of this situation is more active involvement of wiki community in resolution of the disputes. Grandmaster 12:27, 23 February 2007 (UTC)

Some more about edit warring. There was definitely some meatpuptery involved. While User:Mardavich was revering edits by Azerbaijani editors to Azerbaijan-Armenia related articles, User:Artaxiad/Nareklm and his sock User:Mikara were reverting pages to support Iranian editors. Mikara being sock of Artaxiad/Nareklm was officially proved by checkuser: Wikipedia:Requests_for_checkuser/Case/Nareklm Moreover, banned User:Ararat arev was also reverting the contribs of Azerbaijani users to Azerbaijan-Armenia and Iran related articles using socks (for example, User:ArenM and User:Tutmoses8) and countless anonymous IPs. Of course, this led to edit wars becoming more and more intense. In addition, Mardavich and Narek supported each other in voting on various pages. Mardavich voted: [20] [21] Narek voted too: [22] While I can understand Fadix voting here, because he contributed to discussions previously and after voting, Narek never neither edited nor discussed this article, so it cannot be considered a good faith vote. This activity was definitely coordinated outside of wiki, and reverts by Ararat aren strangely coincided with those of some of the aforementioned users. Grandmaster 12:02, 24 February 2007 (UTC)

It is also interesting to see the way Artaxiad tries to clean up Wikipedia of images related to Azerbaijan. Check his contribs: [23] He tagged for deletion every single image uploaded by Azerbaijani users, and many of them have been deleted. It would not be a problem if he was so critical with regard to images uploaded by users of other ethnic backgrounds, including Armenians, but such selectiveness makes me think that this user tries to make a certain point. Grandmaster 16:16, 24 February 2007 (UTC)

Another point I would like to mention is that Armenian users try to blame the problems on new Azerbaijani editors. Indeed, the number of Azeri editors has recently increased, and so did the number of Armenian users. It is a natural process, which will continue as many more people become aware of Wikipedia. So the number of contributors from both sides is now almost equal. This changed the situation, because previously due to numeral superiority it was much easier for Armenian users to remove edits they did not like, as they did on Paytakaran, for example. When 3 users make reverts in turn, they do not risk violating 3RR, so they took advantage of that. But now it is more difficult to do that, and their attempt to remove the info they don’t like results in an edit war with involvement of a larger number of editors. So it is not the behavior of newer Azerbaijani users, but rather the fact that Armenian users lost numerical superiority, which resulted in more edit wars. I do not think that punishing certain people will resolve the situation, because there will be more and more contributors from both sides joining Wikipedia, and this situation will repeat. I think there should be some sort of a commission or board of respected and experienced editors, who would monitor Armenia-Azerbaijan related articles and help resolve the disputes. Usually it was only Francis Tyers, who tried to mediate and resolve the disputes, but since disputes erupt on almost every article that concerns both sides, it is beyond the capacity of one person to resolve all the disputes. I think this is something that arbcom might consider, as only repressive measures will not resolve the problem. Grandmaster 16:42, 24 February 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Statement by Francis Tyers

If it isn't too presumptuous, I'd like to add that I have sucessfully, and unsuccessfully mediated cases involving these articles and users in the past (notably Khojaly massacre and Nagorno Karabakh). I would agree that arbitration would be a good step. - Francis Tyers · 10:57, 22 February 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Statement by AdilBaguirov

The case has become complicated, in part due to so many editors involved, and in part due to shortcomings of the legal and procedural rules governing such disputes. As the rules and spirit of Wikipedia clearly states, anything that is verifiable, from authoritative source(s), and has been presented and discussed on the appropriate Talk page, has the right to be featured in an article (in this case, for example, Tigranes the Great article [24]. If someone has legitimate counter-arguments from authoritative sources, they too can go through the same procedure, present and discuss it on the Talk page, then either remove or most likely, modify/add their information to complement the other information. However, under no circumstances, should the properly cited, verifiable, truthful and properly presented and discussed information simply be constantly removed, sometimes without any explanation, and at other times, simple "because" someone just feels like it -- in contravening of all scholarly and historical sources.

This is unfortunately what happened on this particular page (for editing of which I got blocked), and despite my edits being fully presented and discussed, and using a URL reference to Encyclopedia Iranica, provided by a third-party user on the Talk page, my edit were reverted by two editors (who later also got blocked), and neither the edits were re-instated by the administrators, nor have the participants of the article's edits been warned about unacceptability of removing discussed, verifiable and authoritative information. In addition to being blocked for reinstating 3 times in a row such crucial edits (and thus, admittedly, potentially breaking the 3RR rule, at least in its loose interpretation), I also received the block first (at least 10 minutes before the other editor), and received it for a significantly longer time (72 hours versus 48 for the other editor). In justification of the block, admin Dmcdevit claimed that I didn't discuss the changes -- which means he clearly overlooked the Talk page or otherwise didn't dwell into the issue at all, as I have been presenting pages of sources since last year. In fact, admin Dmcdevit makes the same statement in regards to other pages [25], such as Stepanakert and Mamed Emin Rasulzade, despite the fact that there are pages of sources presented by users like myself, whilst the other side often doesn't present anything.

I'd like to also emphasize the following: I've been active on Wikipedia since early summer of last year, and never been blocked, despite editing the very same pages, with the very same editors involved. Often, the discussions would be heated, but nevertheless not result in blocks for anyone -- perhaps because several administrators, such as Khoikhoi, Golbez, etc., were actively participating in the discussions and thus dwelled into issues. However, in case of Dmcdevit, it is very different -- not only does he appear not to have done full research into the matter, but not having much of prior exposure to the Armenia-Azerbaijan issues, he jumped on the matter just recently, since about mid-January 2007.

So then why did I, who has been on Wikipedia long enough and has done tons of writing on many Talk pages and many edits of articles, never been blocked until last week? And suddenly, in the course of a week, I am blocked twice by Dmcdevit, in both cases for 3 days? Why? How did I suddenly become an "edit-warrior" now? Perhaps it's not me, and other editors, who have suddenly all become offenders, but a hasty decision was made?

Additionally, Dmcdevit made a coment in our private e-mail exchange (in which, I naturally appealed to him to take another, deeper, look, and unblock me) that is troublesome and threatening: "You're just going to have to sit it out. And if you're more combative afterwards, you're going to be sitting it out much more in the future." (date Feb 20, 2007 10:14 PM)

I hope Dmcdevit understands that this is not about him or me or anyone else in particular, but about the quality of the articles, which are underserved when radical decisions on blocking active editors is made in haste. Things get heated sometimes, but that doesn't mean we should all be trigger-happy. I look forward to working with Dominic in the future, but hopefully, he will use his blocking privileges only as a last resort, and instead, warn those who violate the rules and spirit of this encyclopedia and remove properly discussed and sourced verifiable facts.

Also, in my exchange of opinions with Khoikhoi, I've suggested to place a permanent semi-protection on all Azerbaijani and Armenian pages, to forever prevent IP vandals and socks from reverting and vandalizing pages -- it would help enormously, I think. --AdilBaguirov 18:44, 22 February 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Statement by Atabek

I am glad to see that Dmcdevit-t has taken the initiative of pursuing this problem through a dispute resolution. Though some of the blocks, whether by Dmcdevit-t or else seem to be applied rather in arbitrary or summarizing manner, it's quite understandable that administrators cannot always concentrate on a particular edit conflict on such a broad scale and cannot always be even handed.

I likewise think that both sides shall be encouraged to discuss their differences on Talk page prior to making any edits. This is effectively done by myself at Talk:March Days, Talk:Qazakh, Talk:Safavid dynasty, Talk:Musavat,Talk:Armenian Revolutionary Federation and Talk:Azerbaijan Democratic Republic. I have had encountered problems trying to invite other users to do so:

1. On March Days page, User:Aivazovsky has completely removed the entire content of the site and refused to contribute to Talk:March Days. Please, note, that this was the same content which was mediated between User:Tengri and User:Nareklm/Artaxiad, with participation of third party User:Srose. My request to provide comment and discuss the removal of several paragraphs of well referenced and balanaced material was left unanswered by User:Aivazovsky. The removal was further supported by User:Artaxiad, who earlier agreed to the same mediated version, ignoring an appeal by User:Srose regarding March Days content [[26]].
2. On Qazakh page User:Aivazovsky has published material which lacks any scholarly basis and persistently referenced a blogger, claiming him to be a Canadian scholar, and PhD. Yet he was unable to provide a single reference to journal, book or conference publication of the named reference "scholar". Sufficient evidence was presented on Talk:Qazakh by myself and several other users, yet User:Aivazovsky not only persistently disagreed, but also did not provide any strong argument thus bringing to deadlock.
3. On Azerbaijan Democratic Republic,Azerbaijan pages, User:Azerbaijani has been persistently edit warring, replacing scholarly publication references with links to freelance websites or fragments of POV opinions. He was often joined in revert wars by User:Mardavich and User:Nareklm in a coordinated fashion on this and several other pages. All three users again refused to discuss their edits on Talk:Azerbaijan Democratic Republic and Talk:Azerbaijan.
4. User:Nareklm, who was caught with a sock recently changed his username to Artaxiad, however, if we look here [[27]], we can see that User:Nareklm has used Artaxiad sock before switching, along with Nareklm username. He also had another sock called HayasaArmen.

This is while on all pages, I edited, I participated extensively in talk pages, often attacked and accused baselessly of puppetry. It's difficult to blame either Armenians or Azeris in this case, and it's immaterial who does the first revert. Actually in many times, Persian editors arbitrarily join/coordinate with the Armenian side and vice versa, but all of this is a content detail. It shall be understood, that both Armenian and Azeri people have suffered a long and bloody conflict taking thousands of lives, and with thousands of refugees on one of the sides still continuing to suffer in refugee camps. As long as this conflict is not resolved in reality, the effect of emotions on activity of a particular editor associated with either side is difficult to avoid. But arbitrary blockage, such as that applied by Dmcdevit, will not solve this problem either. Arbitrary blockage of one or the other side's contributors gives more leverage to other warriors to gain or do further reverts often expressing a gratitude to administrator for blocking "the enemy". This is the case in particular with Safavid Dynasty and March Days pages and only embitters the conflicting sides. It shall be kept in mind, that some of the editors mentioned above on either side are also valuable contributors to Wikipedia in any case, and indefinite and deliberate blockage of those will not establish peace, there will be always other new users, who may be even less qualified, joining from both ranks and having the same conflicts.

Suggestions:

1. I think the first and foremost step to solve this conflict in Wikipedia is to have an independent administrator or an arbiter who is knowledgable in contents of the disputed articles. Administrator Dmcdevit has openly stated in private correspondence that he does not claim to be "any more qualified to address the content concerns than the parties" and that the "area is not his area of expertise" (February 21, 16:43). But that's the root of the problem, that if the administrator is unfamiliar with content dispute (which is a source of the conflict), it's difficult for him/her to come up with a fair judgement instead of blocking. Administrator Khoikhoi has demonstrated some of this knowledge. But in any case, whoever that one chosen administrator is, he or she shall be the judge independent of yet agreed by both parties as more or less of a balanced expert. Both parties should have sufficient trust and ability to rely on this administrator in any administrative concern.

2. Both contributors and administrators shall stick tightly to the Wikipedia 3RR rule, which has been recently violated very often. It's important for the administrator, who is a subject matter expert, to carefully review every request and make a fair and balanced judgement.

3. Both sides should establish a committee of even number of people, with equal representation from both sides. This committee of balanced experts will be consulted with for any kind edit by other users and shall support/coordinate with the actions of the appointed independent administrator. This shall be done on any of the national or ethnic-based editing conflicts.

Thanks and I hope we will be able to achieve a fair and just resolution as well as permanent peace. Atabek 19:53, 22 February 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Statement by Dacy69

Well, I have reported my view about my blocking by user:Dmcdevit. Since it is another topic I will write only about it. But I am happy to provide explanation and furthet info why I believe that user:Dmcdevit blocking was unfair and double standards.

I'd like to start that it is apparant that Armenia and Azerbaijan related pages are vandalized and sometimes modified without justifications. Or there is attempt to present strict POV and to clean up pages from negative information. As for me, in most cases I have discussed my edits, supplied well-referenced information. My opponents usually deleted it. I have participated exstensively on talk pages. I have created several non-disputable (thus far) pages. Three times I made mediation offer which was not accepted by Armenian opponents - Urartu, Monte Melkonian, Armenian Revolutionary Federation and plus another on page Iranian Azerbaijan to Persian editor --User:Ali doostzadeh. Two times I filed request for assistance - [28], one is still open[29].

I'd like to touch to certain pages just to produce examples.

On page Urartu I requested Assistance, got it and resolved my dispute. (We argued about a section of Ethnic Composition) But then my opponents made another attempt to reintroduce their arguments and created another chapter (Urartu and Armenian Ethnogenesis) and for that purpose continued deleting my edits there.

On page Armenian Revolutionary Federation I made edit based on the referenced information. I wanted add more sources and more information but the page got protected. Without much discussion user Fadix insulted me 2 times [30] and threatened with edit revenge on other Wiki pages [31]. User Fedayee also insulted me, in supporting Fadix claim [32]. I filed 2 complaints about personal attacks but no measure has been taken except warning for 1st insults after which Fadix insulted a second time.

My edit on page Monte Melkonian is well-referenced. I proposed mediation offer for that page which is not accepted. I wonder why opponents, if they believe that I am wrong, don't accept mediation offer. I made explicit and informative edit summary on page Armenians.

In the course of other disputes I was insulted too (e.g. by user:Eupator. Armenian editor user:Fedayee on page ARF and Persian editor user:Ali doostzadeh on page Iranian Azerbaijan made open threat to launch edit revenge on other Wiki pages.

It is clear that such heated discussions should be mediated and managed by third impartial party. I found dmcdevit administrating is superficial and unjust.

I second Atabek proposals. Moreover, I believe that it will be useful if 2-3 admins will form a kind of board and monitor situation on Armenia and Azerbaijani related pages, will make judgements about references and facilitate dispute resolution, and definitely will block vandalism and punish insults.--Dacy69 21:48, 22 February 2007 (UTC)

I also suggest to add some other Armenian users to that discussion user:ROOB323, User:Augustgrahl and user:Vartanm as they are deleting and reverting edits or involved in disputes.

I see that our opponents make cooments on contributors rather on the content of arbitration (pages, editing, behavior, pesonal attacks). I believe that it was checked several times - I mean accusation of sockpupetting.
I see also that admins try to disengage from the dispute. Here we are not requesting to resolve Armenian-Azerbaijani conflict but make, monitor and facilitate proper editing. And I think solution can be find in order to put an end the desruptive activity of certain editors and insults. As I mentioned 2-3 admin might facilitate the dispute resolution process in Wiki editing.

[edit] Statement by Fadix

If the Arbcom decide to hear this cases and this RfAr is accepted, the evidences I will be providing will be concentrated on user:AdilBaguirov, user:Dacy69 and user:Atabek disruption. I will be documenting that Dacy69 and Atabek are acting as meat puppets. I also request all the members involved here to be checkused, and I want to include also user:Tabib.

A little historic of the situation, so that the committee understand my position.

user:AdilBaguirov for a great amount of time has left Wikipedia. He left Wikipedia, with his last edit on July 25, 2006[33]. After months out of Wikipedia he came back on December 10 of the same year. One day after user:Dacy69 has registered and first edited Wikipedia, which was on December 9. Adil first contribution after his long vacation was on the Urartu article [34] which was basically reverts and supports of user:Dacy69 edits (done the same day, a day after he registered) on the same article. Also the same day user:Dacy69 had edited Armenia article [35], and the same day user:AdilBaguirov has edited the Armenia page in support of Dacy69 [36]. Basically, Dacy69 registers an account, a day later makes edits, when he is reverted he has been backed by Adil who for months hasn’t edited Wikipedia comes in support of him.

This doesn’t stop here; there are evidences of cohesion between members. user:Tabib after over two months of absence made his first edit on the Match Days article [37]. Reverted, 9 days later a new member has registered, user:Tengri, prepared, has started extending the March Days article with controversial materials as documentations to the previous user:Tabib edit, without any discussions. [38], [39] , [40] and so on. And has been later found that user:Tengri was a sock of user:Atabek [41] who registered on January 21, 2007, about 4 days after Tabib has reappeared.

More evidences of cohesion could be found on the Request for deletion of the Ottoman Muslim casualties of World War I. As far as I could remember, Azeri editors have never been involved on that article. First Grandmaster vote, a little more than 2 hours later user:Ulvi I. another Azeri member vote, just 6 minutes after user:AdilBaguirov vote, less than an hour later Dacy69, user:Tabib less than a day later vote. [42] There is nothing wrong in voting, my evidence here is regarding the cohesion between members.

Also, what is suspicious is that user:Tabib who was the most active Azeri user in the past, and who does seem to follow what is happening here on Wikipedia has refrained himself on the last 2 edits on voting only. [43] [44]

Another evidence of cohesion can be found on the deletion of Genocide deniers’ category. Again, the point is not about them having voted, but the fact that they will be voting in Armenian related articles which they weren’t even ever related in, and the time frame in which those votes were submitted. About two hours after user:Grandmaster has voted user:Dacy69 has voted under his IP address 66.46.197.50, less than 2 hours later user:Atabek, and less than half hour later user:AdilBaguirov. [45]

In some instance cohesion has not only shown an organization in the action of various users, but also in attempting to reverse a legitimate request for deletion which would even qualify as a speedy delete. The cases I want to present is the one on Albanian-Udi which was submitted for deletion. user:Dacy69 and the rest of the members involved have opposed to the deletion of this article, even if there is already an article on Udi people and that the entirety of the article was coming from another Wikipedia article. It was deleted even though no consensus was achieved by the administrator, because it was an obvious delete material. [46]

Not to say, that user:AdilBaguirov has broken a hard reached consensus after months of negotiations, between members and two administrators on the Nagorno Karabakh article, as a result the article was locked two consecutive times and probably had user:AdilBaguirov not been blocked it would have been locked again. [47]

With those repeated cohesions and mass ganging, and being exhausted I have answered with rude comments, but have on the other hand not revert warred. But all the members with whom I have been rude have disrespected Wikipedia, disrespected various members and have engaged in disruptive actions. I won’t justify my rude comments, at times very rude comments and am ready to pay the price. On the other hand, I will maintain that being rude has given more positive result than any attempted way.

What I present in the above is just few examples of various other instances. Before concluding, I will make a last comment on what has been happening on the Armenian Revolutionary Federation article. user:Dacy69 actions there were against a general consensus on the uses of the term “terrorist” and “terrorism” in a wide range of articles such as the article about PKK. user:Dacy69 and the meat puppets have made various edits on various Armenian related articles, always in one direction, always negative materials, with dubious wording and without further discussion. Had they been done in good faith, we could have expected those same members working on Azeri related articles which are much more biased. For instance, there is no reference to Heydar Aliev article about his mafia and the organized crime in which he was involved in. In short, when user:AdilBaguirov came back after his vacation, he has brought with him other members who would go on meat puppeting and vilifying Armenian related articles, this is what brought all the edit warrings, there was some relative peace before that. user:Parishan, he isn’t involved, user:Grandmaster isn’t more than the Armenian members involved, but definitely user:Atabek, who by now I am starting to suspect being user:Tabib. user:Dacy69 and user:AdilBaguirov have done not much good here, they have in their account various articles which they were able to successfully lock. user:Artaxiad uses of a sock haven’t helped either, neither his request to change his name on the middle of a conflict. (ix) 03:33, 23 February 2007 (UTC)

Additional Comment and important note to the Clerk and the Arbitrators: Others here have no experience with arbitration it seems, and think that the Arbitration would decide on content. I know this is beyond the mandate of the administration committee, I already have experience with a previous cases involving user:Cool_Cat and others I have read. The only arbitration material there is here, is if whatever or not user:AdilBaguirov is using meat puppets and is responsible of very serious disruptive behaviours which could not be handled without an arbitration cases. The administrator who brought this cases here, has it right in one major aspect, this conflict has become out of proportion. Not because of some content issues, which Grandmaster in his update report (which concerns me), and doesn’t say all what need to be said about it. I know what qualify as arbitration cases and what does not and if I am requesting the Arbcom to decide to hear this case, is not because I want to drag it in hearing some intestine war of words. user:AdilBaguirov is really being disruptive, and has really brought with him meat puppets, and one of the many results of their actions really resulted in the locking of various, various articles. I will be for now waiting the comment of the Clerk, on what need to be done, what sort of evidences should be brought here for the arbitration committee to hear this case. I have also in mind past rulings and Wikipedian Jurisprudences in that regard for comparaison purpouses if that needs to be developped. Like I said, I wait Clerk comments.

Some members here don't even bother reading about Wikipedia arbitration since two members have answered other members in their own section.

Update: I thank Newyorkbrad for his helpful comment. And from it, I assumed that maybe more clarification is needed to what for I think this RfAr should be accepted. My thesis does not revolve only on three users meatpuppeting, POV pushing, disruption. But as well as their stigmatisation of the members, this apply more to Adil. Classifying members as two opposit sides, adversaries. I will be adding more evidence if it fits depending on the arbitrators who have yet to make their point. Just one example of the sort of things I have to deal with, is here an example in which Adil purpously modified the name of a scholar by adding an i [48] to make it sound as an Armenian and to later discredit him on that basis. Fad (ix) 05:23, 24 February 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Statement by Artaxiad

I personally hope this ends its getting old and annoying, I can see why Adil, Dacy and Atabek follow these certain patters they all follow adils theories online, possibly all of them are his accomplices or they obviously revert together, please see [49] these users are trying to poison Wikipedia with false nationalist theories. Scan through the news article, that is why this edit war is happening for most of these theories they have published on the site. Another thing for example on Monte Melkonian Dacy keeps on want to add that he was a terrorist why is this? to make him look bad he was a great commander in the Nagorno-Karabakh War leading 3,000 men against them and he succeed, which he wants to make that person look as bad as possible, because regarding the situation in Karabakh Adil is highly disruptive in that stage so obviously Dacy is here to help Adil revert, Adil is in Turkish news alot with his theories regarding Karabakh possible a government worker. Not to mention identical additions on Urartu, please see, [50] and [51] Artaxiad 08:01, 23 February 2007 (UTC)

  • "Armenian claims of alleged genocide and its constant campaign around the world (this is despite the fact that Armenians massacred an estimated up to 2.5 million Turks" Possible Anti-Armenian, [52]
  • This may seem content-related but I just wanted to outline a detail. User Artaxiad above said "Dacy keeps on want to add that he (Monte Melkonian) was a terrorist, why is this?" -- The answer: Monte Melkonian was a member and one of the main leaders of ASALA - Armenian Secret Army for Liberation of Armenia, which was considered as a terrorist organization by the U.S. State Department. Below are some links in reference.
* [U.S. State Department Patterns of Global Terrorism: 1997]
* [U.S. Department of State Daily Press Briefing October 8, 1997]
* [US Department of State Daily Press Briefing #190, Monday, December 23, 1991]
Thanks. Atabek 17:06, 23 February 2007 (UTC), P.S. The comment itemized right above this is not from me.
  • Umm dude you don't get it do you, whats the talk page for?! this is my section. Not to mention all these Azeri editors listed here cause trouble on Russian Wikipedia also, edit wars. Artaxiad 23:50, 23 February 2007 (UTC)

Dacys battle
I think these users have mistaken the purpose of Wiki as Dominic said this is not a battle ground.

http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Wikipedia%3ARequests_for_arbitration&diff=110348748&oldid=110323000

Dacy69: I see that our opponents make comments on contributors rather on the content of arbitration (pages, editing, behavior, pesonal attacks). I believe that it was checked several times - I mean accusation of sockpupetting.

It seems the guy is here to do battles and thus calls other users as opponents. http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Monte_Melkonian&action=history Artaxiad 11:37, 24 February 2007 (UTC)

Grandmaster
Grandmaster brings up useless accusations. Since him and Tabib are obviously socks basically all Tabibs reverts are back to Grandmaster.

  • rv to Grandmaster, his last edit was well-referenced. Nevertheless, putting totallydisputed tag, as the entry content is currently being disputed
  • rv POV to last version by Grandmaster
  • rv to last version by Grandmaster. The edit is well referenced, pls stop edit warrying. Also, as this version states, Sultanov was appointed by Azerbaijan gov't, not the British
  • rv to last version by Grandmaster. Eupator, pls, stop edit war, GM brought a well-referenced source, even Armenian MFA web-site (!) confirms these facts.
  • rv to last version by GM.Eupator STOP vandalism and personal attacks on me....
  • rv to GM. Stop edit warrying and deleting referenced material. ADMINS: pls consider locking the entry.
  • rv to last version by GM. The issues are not addressed as long as there are fundamental disagreements. Therefore, tag should remain [53]
  • Oppose The article is not up to the FA standards, and has not been much improved since the last nomination. The references for the most part are not academic, and there are problems with neutrality. Grandmaster 11:41, 12 February 2007 (UTC)
  • Oppose The content is biased and tendentious. Furthermore, the quotes have been deliberately chosen in a manner, which serve to manipulate the reader's opinion rather than provide insights. --Tabib 13:54, 12 February 2007 (UTC) [54]

Tabib logs in who hasn't been contributing lately Artaxiad 13:27, 24 February 2007 (UTC)

If this is not a Meat puppet I do not know what it is. Artaxiad 12:11, 24 February 2007 (UTC)

Atabek
These users bring up useless accusations again they accuse me of sock puppetry which I did once and than a admin closed it so I don't know what there whining about, Second Atabek has had Two sock puppets blocked with no blocking, Tengri and Batabak.

These users are teaming up.

Regarding March Days, the article is well written non-Pov atabek comes with Tengri and his other socks and starts adding very POV material from Russian sources in which Grandmaster, Atabek, Adil all speak in.

Dacy here, is reverting with tengri and grandmaster and anyomouse ips and other unusual people, [55] Artaxiad 12:16, 24 February 2007 (UTC)

  • The comment: "adding POV material from Russian sources from in which GM, Atabek, Adil all speak in". Interestingly, this comment of Artaxiad is also repeated by User:Mardavich in this revert [[56]], saying: "Russian-language sources are not verifiable either, this is the English wikipedia, please use English-language sources". So, while the latter claims that he is not involved in the dispute, he still repeats the exact wording of the former. Atabek 09:28, 25 February 2007 (UTC)
  • User:Batabat (ends with "t" not "k") was never proven as my sockpuppet. So this form of attack against myself does not have a basis. User:Nareklm and User:Aivazovsky, coordinating together in accusations and attacks, still do not understand that User:Batabat and User:Tabib, whom they groundlessly accuse of being my puppets, actually reside in a different hemisphere from me. Also, it's interesting that User:Nareklm/Artaxiad agreed with User:Tengri's edit and even made edits together with him at March Days, yet when Tengri was claimed as my sockpuppet simply because we were new to Wikipedia and used the same computer, Nareklm/Artaxiad suddenly became against the text of contribution :). This shows that Nareklm/Artaxiad tends to concentrate on personalities rather than on content of contributions. A number of times User:Nareklm/Artaxiad attempted to remove Russian references, yet most of the historical references dealing with the region and conflicts are in Russian. And the fact that User:Nareklm does not know the language is not really a justification in the argument against the reference or branding as POV. As far as we know, Russian side is neutral in this conflict and references thereof are quite valuable and not found in English-language books, simply because it's a remote region.Atabek 06:10, 25 February 2007 (UTC)
I never agreed with his edits, someone else reverted it be specific, it was obvious you guys were socks. Also Russians sources are not reliable read the requirements, you need to make it clear for us. Artaxiad 09:34, 25 February 2007 (UTC)
  • I am not sure what is meant by "making clear", when the precise text, title and page number of reference is provided. Just because some user claims not to know Russian, is not a reason for invalidating the reference. Regarding March Days, I highly recommend arbitrators to visit Talk:March Days, to see where discussion was even mediated with participation of User:Srose[[57]] to a successful version between User:Tengri and User:Nareklm (Artaxiad). So User:Aivazovsky's action of removing the whole mediated content was counter to that mediation effort, User:Artaxiad acceptance of User:Aivazovsky's action was also a violation of mediation effort, further lack of response from both users to explain the reason for removal of 25 references, also shows a clear path of violations and ethno-centric edit warring behaviour on this page. Atabek 09:53, 25 February 2007 (UTC)


Adil, grandmaster and the rest of his crew

All these users here are in this articles reverting together.

Again all these users, Grandmaster, Adil and Dacy are also on Russian Wikipedia which they have been spreading Edit wars like wild fire. Artaxiad 12:24, 24 February 2007 (UTC)

Voting

  • Keep. Interesting article with valuable information, verified sources and references. --Batabat 08:27, 12 February 2007 (UTC)
  • Keep - And following the logic of deletion supporters: Why then have Nagorno-Karabakh and Artsakh pages?-- Atabek 07:53, 12 February 2007 (UTC)
  • Also Adil and Grand master are here.

On Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Albanian-Udi and Batabak a confirmed sock. Artaxiad 12:32, 24 February 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Statement by uninvolved user:Irpen

I have no relation to this series of editing conflicts and saw this accidentally by scanning though an AtrbCom page which I normally avoid. I think accepting this case is a road to nowhere not because there is no Arbitrable behavior but because this is all too complex and there are so many parties involved that it is impossible to sort this out through an ArbCom decision. The whole case is basically a statement that says "Oh, this is a huge mess which does not seem to be solving itself! Let's throw this into an ArbCom grinding mill and see how it goes". Trouble is that this is the wrong kind of approach and the case will keep arbcom bogged down for months, turn the workshop and evidence pages into a mess where the content debates from articles' talk pages will move and no possible working remedies may be given except "hang them all", which I doubt would help the project since most involved editors contribute in good faith.

Yes, some POV conflicts are hard to solve and the only way is to wait, invite more participants and if this does not help, repeat the cycle. Some POV conflicts are irreconcilable and it is not the business of ArbCom to reconcile them. With time and gradually increased inflow of users even Israeli-Palestinian Conflict, Soviet-Polish War and 2006 Georgian-Russian espionage controversy were all ridden of POV tags. Same here, we just have to wait and let the process rather than ArbCom work its way. If there are clearly disruptive users, this would be ArbCom's purview, but none of the statements above makes it clear that this is really the case. Some very complex content disputes become huge due to, what I would call, irreconcilable worldviews. They still remain content disputes. Mediation, third, fith, twentieth opinion and lots of talking is the way to go combined with elimination of truly disruptive editors if there are any. This case presented thus far does not demonstrate the latter and most truly disruptive users can be eliminated by the community blocks these days anyway.

To summarize, if no one knows what to do, let the time and normal development sort it out rather than ArbCom. --Irpen 07:48, 23 February 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Statement by uninvolved Alex Bakharev

I am second to Irpen. There was a war there: tens of thousands displaced, thousands killed. I think every editor has a relative strongly affected by the war. The underlying ethnic conflict lasted centuries, there are historic narratives from the both sides. It is unrealistic to expect that there will be no editorial conflicts there. I do not think any arbcom decision would solve the problem. We can ban a couple of the most trouble-making editors from each side, but I am not sure there are clear candidates. On the other hand banning all prominent editors from a side would make the articles hopelessly biased and banning both sides would completely arrest the development.

I do not see any other solutions other then to bite the bullet and let the painfully slow process of negotiations begin. The editors will edit and look for sources, admins will enforce 3RR, CIV, NOR, NPOV and all our famous policies, neutral people will try to mediate and propose compromise solution. Everything of this sort is on the article-by-articles basis. It is painfully slow but it usually works, repressions do not. Alex Bakharev 10:24, 23 February 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Statement by Fedayee

I would like to second the statement that user:Dacy69, user:Atabek and user:AdilBaguirov have been meatpuppeting. I would like to mention that there had been relative peace before the new year but since the return/membership of some users, the tensions have escalated, notably during the recent FAC of the article Nagorno-Karabakh war (which has been listed as FA now). User:Dacy69, user:Atabek and user:AdilBaguirov's negative editing has disrupted numerous Armenian related articles, from the 3000 year old Urartu to the Armenian Revolutionary Federation article which I have been working on with relative peace for a few months now. I have also asked for a peer review and 3rd person NPOV advice which has been responded to, but before I could work on it some more, the entire article became locked because of one sentence on Nagorno-Karabakh (which can now be taken care of) and constant attempts by user:Dacy69 and user:Atabek to add various statements about terrorism, not to mention user:AdilBaguirov who at one point participated in the revert war and tried to ignite a huge flame between Armenians and Azeris by saying the following during a revert: (actually Karabakh is an irrelevant topic on ARF page, it's a disputed territory, and there are several pages devoted to it.) [58] I see this statement as an attempt to completely enrage both sides and show to what extent this user will go to disrupt. user:Dacy69 also once tried to link Osama Bin Laden to Armenia which is a ridiculous attempt to vilify the Armenians [59]. It is hard to work and keep your cool knowing that Armenia and Azerbaijan went through a war just a few years ago. It is frustrating when comments by user:AdilBaguirov that generalize all Armenians as Turkic hating people are used as a possible attempt to ignite tensions between Turks and Armenians, which is already emotional due to the Armenian Genocide. [60]. - Fedayee 00:19, 24 February 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Statement by Aivazovsky

I haven't read all the statements listed here, but there are a few things that I wish to write about regarding the Armenian-Azeri dispute on Wikipedia. First, I am frustrated with the lack of attention that our problems get with Wikipedia administrators. Only a few admins have shown a willingness to become involved and help us. I don't believe that blocking most of the Armenian and Azeri users involved in this really helped anything. Second, although I can discuss issues with Azeri users such as User:Grandmaster and come to eventual compromises, I find it difficult to deal with User:Dacy69, User:Atabek and especially User:AdilBaguirov. All of these users do not wish to compromise unless all of their contributions are accepted, whether POV or not. They attempt to achieve this by tactics such as intimidation and pressuring other users to accept their points of view.

Like others have pointed out earlier, there was relative peace until the arrival (or rearrival) of these users. It seems that most conveniently began contributing after the Hrant Dink ordeal had settled. Seeing that, for once, Armenian and Turkish editors were beginning to have reasonably good relations, they decided to cause problems for us. They began making disruptive edits and revisions to several Armenian articles and attacked articles such as Nakhichevan where a delicate Armenian-Azeri compromise was in place. Since their arrival, tensions have escalated to the greatest height since the failure of the Rambouillet talks on Karabakh. Aside from causing these disruptions though, it became apparent that part of their goal was to re-ignite Turkish-Armenian tensions. This was could be seen when they generalized us as expansionist (claiming that Armenia had claims to Turkey and Georgia) and as Turkic-hating people.

My frustration with these three users and the lack of action by administrators against them nearly led me to leave Wikipedia earlier this week. -- Aivazovsky 00:54, 24 February 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Statement by Mardavich

User:Grandmaster has added me to list of parties, but I don't believe I am involved enough in the Armenia-Azerbaijan dispute to be a party to this ArbCom. I am an Azerbaijani myself, but I only made a handful of edits to a couple of Armenia-Azerbaijan-related pages against my own ethnic POV. Contrary to the claims of User:Grandmaster in his statement, I did contribute to the talk pages of the couple of Armenia-Azerbaijan-related pages I edited [61][62], and my edits were fully explained and compatible with Wikipedia policies such as WP:NPA [63] and WP:NPOV [64]. --Mardavich 03:15, 24 February 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Statement by ROOB323

Just for the record, first of all I want to say to User:Grandmaster that I was never warned by any admin in my talk page. Now getting to the main point, this edit war started a few weeks ago, but before it was peaceful and there were some understanding between different users on Armenian-Azerbaijani articles. This peace lasted until this two users came along User:Atabek and User:AdilBaguirov who kept adding their nationalist theories on many articles realting to Armenia and Azerbaijan. It is very difficult to deal with this two users User:Atabek and User:AdilBaguirov since they don't accpet anything that does not match with their views. Although there were some conflicts with User:Grandmaster, but eventually we were able to come a compromise because unlike User:Atabek and User:AdilBaguirov, it was easy to get involved in a discussions with Grandmaster. Those two users sometimes tried to force their views with telling lies that their version is "discussed version with compromise wording reverting it is not the option" [65], but if you look at the discussion page, there was still no compormoise. They try to achive their goals by pressuring other users to accept their points of view. Also User:AdilBaguirov in this page [66] violated the 3RR and accusing me of vandalising the page, just because his views did not match with the vies of mine and I was only reverting to an older version which was there before until a comprimise could be made. Unless this two users stop ignoring everything that an Armenian users add or say and only adding their nationalist theories, it will continue and reach nowehre. ROOB323 09:41, 24 February 2007 (UTC)

Additional comment: User:Grandmaster [67] thats not a warning, thats an advice just so you know. I am really starting to get tierd of your false claims on me. You need to stop because if it continues this way. When you keep presenting false information than its going to get more complicated. You also accused me of coordination with banned user by saying "coordination of your rv activty with banned user" [68] but you don't even have a prove of that.

Another point I want to make is that User:Grandmaster doesn't even read what he is reverting as long as he sees that an Armenian user has added information he blindly removes it without even examining and reading the content just like in this article History of Nagorno-Karabakh [69] I did some re-arrangements and spell checks and improved the article, but it was reverted back by User:Grandmaster without even reading. If you look at the differences you would notice that. Like you said Grandmaseter that it is very annoying when you put a lot of effort to it and contribute and someone comes and reverts it back to their own views, is not a good thing and you do the same kind of things. ROOB323 04:42, 25 February 2007 (UTC)


[edit] Statement by user:HyeProfile

I have been contributing to Wikipedia for almost a year now, mostly editing underdeveloped Armenians articles or wikifying them... However, being an Armenian, I have also been involved in "heated" articles that are now currently in Armenian-Azeri Arbcom... Naturally, you would think I would take sides (and I don't pretend not to), but I have made a truely sincere attempt at remaining neutral ever since I'm on wikipedia, and this can be proven by the fact that I have only participated in discussions on the talk pages of these articles and never engaged in revert wars or editing conflicts (until today that is, I'll explain myself below). I am proud to say that I have collaborated with editors of conflicting POVs and have always tried to arrive at a consensus, for the sake of moving forward...

However, I have recently been dragged in to this Armenian-Azeri ArbCom by Golbez & GM because I don't share their extremely pro-Azeri POV: In fact, I have participated in the discussions about the intro of the Nagorno Karabakh article and helped come up with a consensus version which both GM & Golbez have agreed to, but Golbez (an hardline Azeri POV-pushing admin) recently changed the intro and he refuses to explain himself on the talk page, despite my numerous posts asking for explanations [70] [71]. Not receiving any explanations, and after many fruitless attempts at getting other Admins to help, I have therefore been forced to actively revert these changes (something which I have never done before, as I explained above) and reestablish the previously agreed-upon consensus version to avoid further edit-wars until they both explain their actions and discuss their proposes changes, and we all come to an agreement. Isn't it logical for me to revert to consensus versions of the intro unless Golbez & GM make their point on the talk pages (which they refuse to do, probably because of a lack of valid arguments)... I understand how this can be perceived as edit warring, but I have fully justified my claims [72] [73] [74]. so you must understand that I am becoming frustrated at their consistent reverting and have no choice but to resort to reverting myself. Now I don't claim that I myself have not acted aggressively in the process, but that is not my nature and I do not wish to justify such actions. However, both Golbez & GM represent my latest series of edits as "unjustified reverts" when in fact I have fully justified both my series of edits of the intro [75] and that of the census table [76] [77], yet it is they that refuse to explain why they are reverting to non-consensus versions of both. I must remind you that the intro for the NK article was discussed about for months [78] [79] [80] and it was very hard to form a consensus because the Azeri-POV pushers were simply not willing to accept anything, yet even after the Armenians made many concessions and the version was approved, they still try to get away with more, which clearly shows their bad faith...

Anyhow, I believe they are just using Fred Bauder's blanket approval [81] to add others to the Armenian-Azeri Arbcom to effectively silence and get rid of people who don't share their POV... In fact, it was wrong to put my name on the list in the first place since I had made only 2 edits on the NK article since August 2006, and that barely qualifies as "aggressively editing", and that's the argument I made when I removed myself [82], although I now realize I should have left that to the Arbitrators discretion... However, my argument was never refuted, which proves my point. Also, to respond to their allegations about my absence: I was relatively inactive in the NK article between August and January since the consensus version of the intro was in place and I therefore had nothing to discuss about and was content with the content (pun intended)... However, that doesn't change the fact that I was brought into this through false accusations...Furthermore, I clearly stated that I would abide by the 1RR in good faith [83], yet that hasn't even been acknowledged and is being used against me [84]. Also, Golbez has used his admin authority to ban me and therefore stop me from posting on talk pages and explaining myself on the ArbCom pages despite my peaceful behavior. In fact, there has been a whole discussion about me where I am presented as an "agitator" and I can't even defend myself because I am banned from editing. You have to realize that I'm at a point of exasperation here, and >> being educated enough to resort to peaceful means [http://e! >> n.wikipe >>dia.org/w/index.php?title=Wikipedia:Requests_for_arbitration/Armenia-Azerbaijan/Workshop&diff=117349020&oldid=117237906] [85], I am lately having doubts about whether my pacific methods are truly the way to combat their guerrilla tactics... Your proposal to add any party to the list is being aggressively abused by Golbez, and he even managed to get his own name off the list despite his clear activity on many Azeri-Armenian conflict articles [86]... I am happy that the abuse has been put to an end by the temporary ban on adding names to the list [87], but I believe that if I am a party to the ArbCom, then Golbez should be as well (he has been editing a lot more Armenian-Azeri conflict articles than I have and is clearly more of an "aggressive editor" than I am). if he is not made a party, then it is unethical to list me as a party as well...

As you can see, I am really worried about my treatment on Wikipedia, and I seriously fear that unless Arbitrators do something to allow Armenians to get proper representations on articles about their lands and their ancestors, and massive editing war is unavoidable.

I know this was a long message, but I urge you to look at my claims and help at establishing order on the NK page... I hold that article close to my heart and I am deeply saddened by the repeated attempts by Azeri POV-pushers at completely eliminating any Armenian representation in the article when they themselves have no claim to suck (Nagorno Karabakh has neither ever been majoritarily inhabited by Azeris, or administratively under their jurisdiction, yet the intro makes it seams that the NK had been theirs all along and Armenians don't belong there...).

I have been a peaceful contributor here on Wikipedia: I always post and discuss proposed changes on the talk page beforehand, I am very reasonable & logical in my argumentation, I respect wiki rules like NPOV, 3RR, etc, but I still get trampled upon without explanation and I my pleas are being totally ignored by Arbitrators & Admins. In fact, I'm the one getting banned & blocked... This is absurd... Banning and blocking won't solve the problem, it will just aggravate it. I hope you really understand this, and I would appreciate all the efforts you can make to get these hardliner Azeri-POV pushers to stop distorting information...HyeProfile 16:05, 30 March 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Statement by Azerbaijani

Grandmaster claims that I have been involved in the Armenia-Azerbaijan conflict here on Wikipedia, however, my contributions show that I have stayed out of this whole dispute and have only edited Iran related articles. Grandmaster only brings up two articles as proof that I was involved in the conflict, yet both of those articles are Iran related as well and I had only made one edit on each. I do not know what this is all about, I did not want to get involved, and I made sure to stay out of it. I do not belong on this arbcom as I have not been involved in the dispute between the Armenians and Azerbaijani's. I have made sure to be involved in Iran related articles only, and not get myself into this whole dispute between the Armenians and Azerbaijani's. I do not belong on this arbcom. Thanks.Azerbaijani 16:22, 24 February 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Outside statement by Golbez

As some others here have stated, I've done my own bit of mediating the conflict, though on only a small handful of Nagorno-Karabakh-related articled (and once on Nakhichevan, which was not a grand success). I think that the existence of many of the statements above speak greatly for the need for arbitration, you can see all of the arguing going on. This is not simply an Armenian-Azerbaijan thing, there is a gross abuse of Wikipedia rules and privileges going on here. However, I am not really able to say *who*, apart from Adil whom I had some strong fights with. I usually just see the POV pushing and remove it; I try not to pay attention as to *whom* was doing the pushing, or necessarily what was being pushed. After working on the article for lo these many months, I can sniff POV pushing pretty much the moment an edit is made. I'm not entirely sure what is going to be arbitrated, but it does seem like arbitration is necessary. Perhaps the case should be shaved down to one or two individuals, otherwise the evidence page will be overwhelming. Then again, maybe this form of "class action" is just what is needed.

I do not envy the arbitrators on this one. Good luck. --Golbez 16:56, 24 February 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Statement by uninvolved editor user:jd2718

Articles involoving national disputes (both current, and lingering) generate a disproportionate share of heated editing on Wikipedia. Editors who are attached to one side of the real-life dispute often edit those same articles. Members of an ethnic group, nationality, or even a -- WikiProject -- edit based on similar interests and outlooks in understandably similar ways - there are no meat puppets here. There is little genuine collaboration across lines; rather each side marshalls sources, challenges the other side's sources, attempts to trick the other side into violating one or another Wiki policy... AGF is replaced nearly universally by "Don't publically display an assumption of bad faith." All the same, the talk pages and edit summaries show nothing but (thinly veiled) assumptions of bad faith. The articles represent far less NPOV than a compromise between warring parties. Instead of reliable sources we often have sources(?), but lots of them. The most successful groups have larger numbers of editors, have more editors who engage outside their individual Projects, have more editors with native English skills, and are cleverer about finding obscure sources, cleverer about staying "within the lines" of Wiki policies.

The articles produced, they do not lean all one way or all the other. With opposing groups pushing back against each other, they end up somewhere in the middle, though never perfectly so. And the process that gets them there is more rough and tumble than in most of Wikipedia. This is Wikipedia:Wild West. This is Wikipedia:Chinatown.

ArbCom, by all rights should get involved in each of these as they flare out of control. But at the core of each dispute, even when behavior crosses lines that might not be tolerated elsewhere, are deeply committed and deeply dug in editors. These are content disputes with bad behavior, but the core is content. What will ArbCom do, other than admonish the editors to be nice? The Occupation of Latvia Arbitration is almost done. Will it have accomplished something worthwhile? And should you one day come down hard on one side (in this, that, or another nationalist dispute), the other side, unchecked, will proceed to write awful POV articles.

If one or two editors are out of control, then ArbCom should step in. But in these cases, in brawls? The question should not be whether the case meets your standards to accept. It should be: "Will ArbCom taking this case benefit the community?" But in order to ask that question, in order to consider passing on this RfArb, you'd need to concede looser rules on national conflict articles, which you may be loathe to do. ArbCom may be stuck with this one. It shouldn't have to be. Jd2718 04:21, 25 February 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Statement by uninvolved editor user:Bobak

First of all, I agree with previous statements by arbitrator-User:Kirill Lokshin and user:jd2718's statements. When I saw this listed on the Signpost, I was not in the least bit surprised --but at the same time I do not pity anyone who has to sort through it because I honestly believe that virtually any decision on areas of substance (as opposed to pure procedure) is going to be inherently flawed and biased no matter what the good intention. I don't think a bona fide, NPOV third-person work of substance has been created yet on many issues related to the ongoing conflict between these two groups (frankly that's a statement/indictment of international ignorance, but that's another story...); even news articles in respected sources walk a thin line between the subjects (particularly issues related to the last 50 years). I think most editors who try to come in with a purely neutral opinion are quickly biased by personality conflicts with one side or another, further disintegrating any chance of unearthing useful information. I fear that inherently, any decision made here is going to somehow taken to legitimize/galvanize the side that was (likely to be) the least punished. I honestly don't think any solution here will do more than merely bandage a much larger problem, and I am frustrated with myself for not having a better suggestion (maybe it's like Winston Churchill's famous quote: "It has been said that democracy is the worst form of government except all the others that have been tried."). As a user (American-Persian) who has tried to stay out of this, I've still read through some of the messy disputes involved; maybe longterm semi-protection would at least focus some of these articles on more discussion oriented members (there are numerous flaws with that, I realize). If I could make magic happen, I would restrict editing of all those articles to people from a completely separate area (i.e. Wikipedians from Uganda or somewhere unrelated) to sort out and try and obtain a balance of views. Anyway, good luck sorting this out; just don't expect lasting, useful or meaningful success. --Bobak 17:06, 6 March 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Late additions of the parties

I have [reverted later additions of the parties by User:Atabek and User:Grandmaster. I do not think it is appropriate for a party to add more people to the case with an injunction without agreement of Arbcom or at least an Arbcom clerk. Alex Bakharev 06:38, 13 March 2007 (UTC)

Ok, we are not well familiar with the procedure, so sorry if we did anything wrong. What do we have to do now to add more parties to his case? Thanks. Grandmaster 06:47, 13 March 2007 (UTC)
You shouldn't revert if you did not know in the first place, second they don't edit war and push POV like alot of users involved in the ArbCom in general, all I can think of is you want them to be added because of the 1R injunction to effect them. Artaxiad 19:03, 14 March 2007 (UTC)

I've only seen HyeProfile make two reverts so far to Nagorno-Karabakh. Does this mean he should be added? By those standards, anyone making more than one revert on Armenia-Azerbaijan (total) should be added. Khoikhoi 01:46, 23 March 2007 (UTC)

He disappeared for many months then came back immediately reverting the article like he'd be lurking all along. Is this arbitration solely for the people involved when it was created, or is it supposed to resolve the conduct of the entire war? Thatcher said, quote, "Golbez you can add him to the list of parties but also inform him on his talk page and inform him of the injunction. If he has any questions he can contact a clerk or an arbitrator" "ultimately ArbCom will sort it out (hopefully)". There's nothing that sets HyeProfile apart from the others other than him being idle for months - which just makes him seem like a sockpuppet, though of whom it'd be impossible to propose.
If this arbitration proceeds successfully but does not include edit warriors that came along after it started, there will only be an inevitable second arbitration created soon after the conclusion, and that helps nothing. --Golbez 01:58, 23 March 2007 (UTC)
Ok, I see your point now. I had forgotten that he used to disrupt the article awhile back. I've re-added him, but not the others for now because I don't think all of them should be added. Khoikhoi 02:16, 23 March 2007 (UTC)
I strongly disagree with your assertion that I use to "disrupt the article a while back"... I've never even reverted anything since I first started contributing to the Nagorno-Karabakh article in August 2006 until only recently... In fact, I've been a constructive participant in the talk pages and have actively helped come up with the consensus version of the intro for that specific article. Actually, it is Golbez & GM who are disruptively trying to change the consensus version without discussing it on the talk pages (see my full statement http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Wikipedia_talk:Requests_for_arbitration/Armenia-Azerbaijan&diff=119061590&oldid=119059157), and I am trying to avoid another war here... Admins will surely realize this if they read through the talk page for the Nagorno-Karabakh article... I do not belong here but have been abiding to the 1RR in good faith, yet I am still portrayed as the aggressive party... This is absurd and highly disturbing for any editor who is simply trying to have a constructive input on Wikipedia... I hope the admins will realise that some forces are simply trying to abuse their powers and disrupt Armenian editors...HyeProfile
Per Fred Bauder Anyone aggressively editing these articles should assume they are a party. Add their names and give them notice. If they have questions they can contact a clerk or arbitrator. Thatcher131 02:08, 23 March 2007 (UTC)
Thank you for clarifying. --Golbez 02:11, 23 March 2007 (UTC)
Yeah, but if you see Davo88 and Augustgrahl's contributions, they've haven't really made that many reverts when it comes to Armenia-Azerbaijan articles. Khoikhoi 02:16, 23 March 2007 (UTC)
Well, one way to look at that is no one should revert anyway, so one per day is a generous allowance. If they really want permission to revert more than once per day they should probably contact Fred or another arbitrator. The temporary injunction will be lifted at the end of the case and replaced with the final decision; anyone whose behavior has generally been good has a good chance of not being named in the final decision even if they were added to the list of parties during the case. Thatcher131 02:37, 23 March 2007 (UTC)

Khoikhoi, we are all tired of the sudden appearance of meat- and sock-puppets like Zurbagan, Pulu-Pughi and now HyeProfile, not to mention others (like Rovoam 2[88]). Why should they have the right to revert 3 times per day whilst others once per day? This is not right. As of Davo88, he was specifically petitioned by me, and Fred Bauder responded with the quote above: "Anyone aggressively editing these articles should assume they are a party. Add their names and give them notice." That's why I added him to the list. It is true he ceased his reverts and receeded since, but that probably has to do more with the possibility of being included into the ArbCom. And while I could agree that adding user:Augustgrahl might be premature, at the same time, how many days do we need to give them to determine whether they should be included or not?

Meanwhile, I cannot believe that user MarshallBagramyan was not included into the ArbCom! This is a major oversight, as MarshallBagramyan has been a VERY active editor -- and he admitted this on March 1, 2007 in this very same ArbCom[89]: "As a person who is not a part of this arbitration hearing but very much involved in the debates ongoing in many of the articles, I would just like state my comments in regards to contributions by Users User:Atabek, User:Dacy69, and User:AdilBaguirov." This is a very convenient position he adopts -- being outside of ArbCom whilst blasting his opponents any chance he gets. Today he actively reverted many NK related pages, such as:

Interestingly, that he complained to Khoikhoi about me, as if I am the one who inserts POV: [96]

Users MarshallBagramyan, Davo88 along with socks Pulu Pughi, HyeProfile should be added for sure. Augustgrahl is up to third-party observers, but if he interferes again on behalf of his ArbCom-included comrades, he should become part of ArbCom for sure. And this should be the case with anyone who suddenly appears while ArbCom is going on -- it is unbearable to see how these socks and meats pop up. And they should know, that they can't bypass the injunctions just by creating (or reactivating) socks. --adil 03:22, 23 March 2007 (UTC)

Please remain civil and do not accuse others of Sock puppetry the Checkuser revealed they were not socks, so accusing others of socks is uncivil and may be harassment. Artaxiad 04:13, 23 March 2007 (UTC)
Tell those things to Fadix, for one, and specify which users have CheckUser shown not to be sockpuppets. --adil 05:59, 23 March 2007 (UTC)

I added HyeProfile back. If anyone objects to being added to the list of parties, he should contact the arbitrators and ask for removal of his name. No one can remove his name from the list just because he does not want to be involved here. Grandmaster 11:40, 23 March 2007 (UTC)

I apologize for getting into a minor revert war over the list but I would appreciate a swift arbitrator or clerk statement on this. --Golbez 00:02, 24 March 2007 (UTC)

The listing of parties is a formality intended to ensure that everyone affected by the proceeding is notified about it. Since HyeProfile is now clearly aware of it, there's no real point to edit-warring to keep him on the list. (If we find it necessary to sanction him, we will do so regardless of the current state of the listing, in any case.) Kirill Lokshin 00:50, 24 March 2007 (UTC)
And as for me? The main issue here is that parties to this arbitration are under a one revert limit on the relevant articles. --Golbez 00:58, 24 March 2007 (UTC)
I don't see you as a party here; but, broadly speaking, I would suggest that nobody should be getting into a revert war on these articles at this point. Kirill Lokshin 01:08, 24 March 2007 (UTC)
Indeed, but someone has to patrol them if, say, two people join their single reverts together. Thank you. --Golbez 01:31, 24 March 2007 (UTC)
Kiril, if you believe that my 2 edits in the Nagorno-Karabakh article the last 6 months makes me a party, yet Golbez's active involvement doesn't make him a party, then so be it, but you must realize how ridiculous it is from my POV to be found "guilty without a trial"... Now I understand you made your decision before I was allowed to post my own full statement (I was blocked by Golbez from editing, another ploy I presume), but I would sincerely appreciate if you at least read my statement and commented after [97]...
On the note of Golbez's so-called non-involvement, I am tempted to cry "double standard", but it seams to me it would be best to conserve my breath... I unfortunately think that WP Arbitrators are not clearly seeing how the REAL parties in this conflict are inciting even more people to join the "war" when such people are simple neutral contributors... There is a serious escalation taking place, and most of the people that can do something about it don't seem to be aware of it. Wikipedia is not a battleground, but if nothing is done, it will sadly become one very soon...HyeProfile 16:15, 30 March 2007 (UTC)

I didn't understand - if anyone who edits the Armenia-Azerbaijan related pages is then reviewed by the ArbCom, then this list of parties is meaningless, and as such why does it exist? If this is not so, then why are MarshallBagramyan, Davo88 along with suspected socks Pulu Pughi and HyeProfile allowed to remove themselves from the list, despite the clear statement, on two occassions, by Fred, that anyone who aggressively edits, is part of Arbcom as long as notice is served to them. While the former 3 users have suddenly become active AFTER the ArbCom began, the first user, MarshallBagramyan, was active throughout the edit war that resulted in the ArbCom, was a part of the dispute from the very beginning and should certainly understand that he is part of this ArbCom, whether he expunges his name from the list or not. Please clarify this for us, as since the list exists, I'd rather re-add all those parties to it. --adil 20:56, 24 March 2007 (UTC)

Once again, why are Pulu-Pughi, Davo88 and especially MarshallBagramyan being removed from the list? They are aggressively reverting and editing pages. This is a very bad precedent -- then everyone can just create sockpuppets and call in meatpuppets to edit the pages, and thus defeat the very purpose of an ArbCom. There are constantly new users who pop up -- I don't mean socks like Zurbagan and others of banned Rovoam, but also user:Hakob who has resurfaced, but goes back to summer of last year with his insults [98] --adil 09:08, 27 March 2007 (UTC)
I have not resurfaced. I've still been editing since that date, but tried to avoid some contributors who alas have proven to be unavoidable. And I still stand by every word in my comment from last summer. Hakob 22:53, 3 April 2007 (UTC)

[edit] No more late additions without prior approval

I have protected the main page to prevent the addition of further parties. Fred's original comment about the list of parties being incomplete and that more parties could be added applied to the edit warring that is the reason for this case. New editors and editors with very few edits over the last few months are, by the very nature of their contributions, not involved in the edit war that brought this case, no matter what their politics or point of view. Editors who have not previously edit warred (either because of their innate temperment or because they have been mostly inactive) are very unlikely to be sanctioned at this point. The injunction is meant to stop further edit warring; it is not meant to chain every editor with an interest in this topic.

Since the proposed decision is in the voting phase, no additional parties will be added to the case except by an arbitrator. No additional editors will be placed under the 1RR injunction. Once the case is closed all editing restrictions will be lifted except for bans and paroles voted on by ArbCom, and it is not reasonable to put someone on parole for a week or so when they havn't previously been disruptive and likely won't be sanctioned. If you believe that someone is a sockpuppet of an existing editor, open an investigation at suspected sock puppets or Requests for checkuser. Verified sockpuppets will be blocked and do not need to be added to the case.

Editors who are banned as a result of this case will no longer be entitled to any say in how the article is edited. Editors who are placed on a 1 revert per week parole will have to follow the dispute resolution dispute resolution process in dealing with new editors who are interested in these topics. This generally means a request for comment, followed by mediation, with arbitration as a last resort. It is certainly possible that a second case will be required at some point if the remaining editors can't edit without being disruptive, but there is no basis for adding further editors with no prior history of disruptive editing. Thatcher131 14:26, 28 March 2007 (UTC)

OK, but users such as MarshallBagramyan and Davo88 have been involved for a long time and placed on the list some time ago. Indeed, MarshallBagramyan first commented on this page over a month ago.[99] I presented evidence of their respective aggressive editing, this is especially true of Marshall, who has been active on all of the same pages as myself and others involved since at least last year. User Pulu-Pughi, like Zurbagan before him, is clearly a sock, and it would have gotten confirmed soon had the CheckUser been performed. Meanwhile, Hakob and HyeProfile have just become active after a prolonged absence, and act, at the very least, as meatpuppets, but possibly socks. If we are not to make them party of ArbCom, then what prevents such users as Artaxiad, who recently decided to "leave" Wikipedia, not to come back under a new nick? After all, he has a rich experience in creating socks and anons like user:Mikara, and there is a string of unexplained other socks of user Robert599.

But returning to Davo88 and MarshallBagramyan, who have clearly been active, aggressive and disruptive:

Davo88

At the very least, these users should be restricted to 1RR per day per article, and be warned that they could be added to a new ArbCom if they persist. --adil 06:14, 3 April 2007 (UTC)

Yeah I have a real rich history of creating socks only ONE. Your friend Atabek has created socks, Tengri. Oh wait what is this? you evading your blocks? [106] [107] [108], thats what I thought. All you do is constantly harass users this is why we are even here. Artaxiad 02:21, 5 April 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Closure?

Can't close case with the page being protected (this helper isn't an admin) - Penwhale | Blast him / Follow his steps 00:16, 11 April 2007 (UTC)

Unprotected to allow the clerk assistant to close the case and because the protection rationale is moot. Proceed accordingly. Newyorkbrad 00:21, 11 April 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Sockpuppetry

An editor, possibly Atabek, is using these sock puppets (User:Zipirtich, User:Earthdream, User:Drastamat) to create edit wars on articles pertaining to Armenia. Compare edit made by Atabek[109] with edits made by User:Zipirtich[110], User:Earthdream[111], and User:Drastamat[112]. -- Augustgrahl 00:26, 16 May 2007 (UTC)

I've blocked them all, but I suppose it'd be nice to run a checkuser to confirm. Also, User:Shantinorashkar. --Golbez 04:13, 16 May 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Armenia-Azerbaijan

There seems to be a decent amount of activity. For the sake of convenience the logs of these two cases should be somehow merged, perhaps templatified so that same log is visible on both pages and when a new entry is added it shows on both pages. This is trivially easy to do. {{Wikipedia:Requests for arbitration/Armenia-Azerbaijan/Enforcement Log}} can be created and transcluded on both pages for this task.

-- Cat chi? 12:30, 25 November 2007 (UTC)

I have created the sub page per WP:BOLD. I have not transcluded it yet tho (I am not THAT bold). I'd like to do so per some sort of approval. -- Cat chi? 06:40, 26 November 2007 (UTC)
"For the sake of conveniece" Do you mean for your convenience? If so,why would it be convenient for you, and why should your convenience be a reason to merge two separate and extremely controversial RfC records? Meowy 03:12, 27 November 2007 (UTC)
Excuse me? My convenience? I am neither an admin nor an involved party. How does this make it "more convenient" for me? These are two closely RfAr cases and not RfCs at all. The record in question are copies of block logs. Same information is available in the form of block logs. Merge suggestion was to simplify an already complex case with a centralized list as both cases are very closely related. Frankly this opposition baffled me. Yes I am quite surprised. -- Cat chi? 15:25, 28 November 2007 (UTC)
I don't know how it would be "more convenient" for you. You made the "convenience" comment, so you are the one who should know! The case is complex because the second RfA case was exceptional in its outcome, especially in its draconian powers and in (what I believe to be) the unparallelled breadth of its scope which extended the remit of the original RfA far beyond reasonable and normal limits. There should be no move to minimise or disguise that situation. Meowy 01:56, 29 November 2007 (UTC)
How is that "draconian" argument relevant to the block log? This is merely merge the block logs, something available in machine generated logs...
It helps distinguish really disruptive users that got regular blocks from others. For example, we had several users that had engaged in disruptive sockpuppetary. Past blocks may be overlooked in a hypothetical situation if a user was blocked per RfAR case 1 and needs to be blocked again per RfAR case 2. The complicated nature of the cases as you pointed out makes review rather difficult which exactly why simplifying that process as much as possible is necessary. Some logs are relentless! Such a synchronized block log would minimize the confusion. Block logs are public data and this suggestion isn't even remotely controversial.
Does you opposition have a reason? If so please state it because I do not see the mention of such a reason so far.
-- Cat chi? 06:05, 29 November 2007 (UTC)
Will a single arbitrator or clerk comment on this? -- Cat chi? 12:41, 8 December 2007 (UTC)
Short answer: no. The two cases are distinct; merging the logs will merely confuse everyone regarding what exactly each case allows for. Kirill 17:03, 8 December 2007 (UTC)