Wikipedia:Administrators' noticeboard/Incidents/Ehud Lesar

Ehud Lesar
User:Ehud Lesar was blocked, then unblocked, and then reblocked for allegations of being a sock of temporarily banned User:AdilBaguirov. The block was made on arbitrary basis, without a single proof supporting such allegations, just because some admins believe that the 2 users might be related. However checkuser showed no relation between these 2 users: I don't think that permanently blocking people without any reliable evidence is appropriate. I would like to ask for independent investigation of this situation. I believe that before blocking people some sort of an official investigation should be conducted to verify any connections between the two accounts. However this was not done, and this block is highly questionable. Thanks. Grandmaster (talk) 07:29, 10 January 2008 (UTC)
 * Checkuser cannot prove a negative. This report is worth a look.  (I speak this neutrally).  Durova Charge! 11:03, 10 January 2008 (UTC)


 * But that report cannot be a proof of anything. It is just a collection of unrelated diffs, put together with an obvious purpose. Has anyone tried contacting Ehud and verifying his actual personality? I just received a communication from Ehud, he told me that he is willing to provide any information that admins may require to ascertain that he is a real person, not related to Adil in any way. Grandmaster (talk) 11:10, 10 January 2008 (UTC)
 * Also note that Fedayee's accusations were rejected by the admins at WP:AE board: Grandmaster (talk) 11:24, 10 January 2008 (UTC)


 * I handled the unblock request in this case. I did not see any evidence linking the two, so I accepted the request. It has sense been overturned after a conversation on my talk page. As I stated there, I do not agree with this method of blocking and did not endorse the reblocking of this user.  Lara  ❤  Love  15:25, 10 January 2008 (UTC)

I think it would be much easier if blocking, unblocking or independent administrators simply contact each of the blocked users to verify their identity. I have asked for this earlier at WP:AE as well. After all, the verification of physical identity to determine that Adil Baguirov is not Ehud Lesar is more legitimate than a wholesale assumption, based on nothing but User:Fedayee's speculations, often including simply harassment and attacks on the identity of User:Ehud Lesar. I mean look at this ,, what does the proclaimed Jewish identity of Ehud Lesar have to do with this? Or does it really mater in Wiki what ethnicity the contributor is? Or should any Jew from Azerbaijan editing in Wikipedia be assumed and blocked now as a sock of Adil Baguirov, just because User:Fedayee believes so?

But there is more, which has to do with AdilBaguirov than with Ehud Lesar, because User:Khoikhoi was inactive, for several months. Then he suddenly shows up and blocks User:Ehud Lesar, as a sock of User:AdilBaguirov. Checkuser denies any connection, and I would also like to remind that right before getting blocked after the first ArbCom, User:AdilBaguirov attempted to file an RfC - on User:Khoikhoi conduct, which, however, didn't gather enough support. So perhaps, sudden reappearance of User:Khoikhoi and blocking of just anyone as a sock of Adil, based User:Fedayee's speculations, has something to do with their conflict.

As far as User:Alex Bakharev's conclusions go, I shall remind him that previously, he also mistakenly blocked User:Londium on a conviction that it was a sock of User:AdilBaguirov -, an allegation which turned out to be untrue later. On another instance User:Alex Bakharev unblocked the reported and even confirmed by RFCU as a sock User:Pam55 of User:Behmod, against the protests from admin User:Allison -. Yet later User:Behmod was again caught with another sock. So perhaps, assuming good faith, Alex Bakharev's conclusion is mistaken in Ehud Lesar case as well, and needs another review. Regards. Atabek (talk) 20:04, 10 January 2008 (UTC)


 * Alex and Khoikoi are the two admins who know Adil Baguirov’s way of using socks the best, there is Francis Tyers who comes next and who was an Admin, Francis_Tyers was the first to submit a checkuser because he thought it was Adil and this much before the evidence was accumulated. Then there is Golbez to ask, but since you have ousted him, I doubt you will listen to anything he says.


 * The evidence provided is not the only one I have. The Church of Kish alone is a giveaway. The Church of Kish doesn’t even qualify as very notable. Less than 5 people have studied it and published anything about the church. One of those who 'studied' it was Adil Baguirov. (from his zerbeijan website he initiated the Albanian nature of the Church) scroll and you will see his picture with the church, and his 'research.' The person who created the church article was a throw away account  who created an article on Adil’s OR. That account was created at the beginning of March (the period in which Adil created his other Jewish account  ) and was obviously Adil. Ehud was engaged on that article and another which both were also edited by Adil socks in the same period of time. Another giveaway: You're free to be either obsessed with or pretty much obviously impressed by him, but please stop dragging me into "being" someone I am not just NOT.  Here, Ehud Lesar, who claims to be a Jew and uses this to make himself sound neutral, is claiming that another member is obviously impressed by Adil who thinks a lobbyist who acts as an ambassador of Azerbaijan in the United States is someone to be impressed about. He repeats this more recently:  I must say that it's rather positive that you're so impressed by Adil Bagirov; so impressed that you happen to follow his life cycle, but I think you should free your mind from the name Ehud Lesar.  Ehud knows that we know he is Adil, this comment is the same sort of sarcasm Adil was using or his other socks were using.


 * Also, all of Ehud’s theories are identical to Adil’s, here in his defence he provides himself more evidence, In the part that starts with secondly you will see the subject of the speeches Adil Baguirov gives whilst his lobbying outside Wiki and at large Azerbaijani-American gatherings. And it was according to him that Wikipedia should be edited to balance this myth he believes in.


 * Putting the emphasis on checkuser when the rest of the evidence is screaming I’m Adil is irresponsible. It would take one user registering an account to proxy for him, and this fixes the issue of open proxy and IP address, checkuser will fail. This was why Vartan and I brought Elsanaturk and from Ehud’s answer it seemed that there was something true in there. The reason we suspect Elsanaturk is that there is evidence that he already proxied for him, but this is another issue and unless it could change anything on the blocking of Adil, I don’t think at this point it is necessary to post the evidences. When we brought the issue, Ehud’s reply was this Neither I or Vartan said this explicitly anything such, we only said that we believe that Elsanaturk might be involved. Not that he was Ehud, Ehud expanded this and insinuated and blew it out of proportion to discredit us.


 * I am ready to furnish more evidence upon the demand of the administrators.


 * And BTW, Londium was a sock of Adil, Alex was right; checkuser should not be run to catch Adil, many of the socks of Adil, which were registered the same days as other confirmed socks, failed the checkuser test when they were obviously Adil. Ehud is one example. - Fedayee (talk) 21:31, 10 January 2008 (UTC)


 * Fedayee, you're going to furnish evidence that Ehud Lesar is a person Adil Baguirov? Or in statements like "We have Ehud, who we all know is Adil", who is "we", are you claiming you have a group "working on Adil/Ehud case"? Will you also please produce physical evidence that user Ehud Lesar is the identity of Adil?


 * Your evidence here does not establish such link, it only makes allegations about Adil having used socks. The fact that both users referred to the fact of Zangezur and Geycha republic is not an evidence of sock- or even meatpuppetry. And let me remind you of evidence you did not include in your report, while reciting various usernames in your assumptions of bad faith:
 * I, Atabek, was once blocked at Yeprem Khan -,  reported for reverting the edit of one of those sock accounts attributed to User:AdilBaguirov -.


 * And again, what does the ethnicity of Ehud Lesar or your conclusions about them have to do with Wikipedia? I believe pursuing someone's identity or attempting to expose their ethnicity, especially when you're not an administrator in Wikipedia authorized to do so, is considered falling under WP:HARASS policy. I recall there was another user "blocked indefinitely" for doing so, see first block comment.Atabek (talk) 23:23, 10 January 2008 (UTC)

http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Wikipedia:Administrators%27_noticeboard/Incidents&action=edit&section=62#copyright


 * ibe leive that this issue is a simple makstake, but i must cuation all the admins involved to avoid any esemalance of impropriety. when problems go wrong its easy to just round up and get rid of all the jews but history should so now that its the wrong decison to make. ethnic claims sould not be used solely as a deicsion whether or not to blok or unlblock a user, since even if the block was otherwise justified sit makes it seem like itwas an expression of racial hatred REGARDLESS of the admins' intent. i would recomend having this case looked over by a panel of admins to make surethat there were no mistakes or fualty assumptiosn makes on the behalf of any of hte usurers hereon this bebopard. Smith Jones (talk) 23:29, 10 January 2008 (UTC)
 * Read Fedayee's evidence carefully. There was no ethnic motive behind the block at all. Nishkid64 (talk) 23:36, 10 January 2008 (UTC)

Hi all, just my 2 cents, I don't know Ehud or Adil, just general thoughts. The checkuser uses IP address, so once changed it doesn't work. Now to detect user by his behaviour can only humans that knew him for some time and his style of communication, and humans are pretty good at it. So Fadayee and Vartan, who knew Adil confirm Ehud to be Adil based on the little clues lie type of communication etc. And they are pretty confident that he is Adil. They didn't accuse any other user, like Grandmaster or Atabek or me to ne Adil, the specifically targeted Ehud, so there is a reason why. Now what are the reasons for anybody else to believe that he is not Adil other then failed checkuser? I didn't find any. It looks like evrybody knows that he is Adil and Azeri side is interested to keep this user Adil even under different name... Steelmate (talk) 23:38, 10 January 2008 (UTC)

Also this Adil is blocked in "Wikipedia for a period ending August 23, 2008" so only 8 more month and he is free? Shouldn't there be more harsh mathods applied to this user who is using sockpuppets? Steelmate (talk) 23:41, 10 January 2008 (UTC)


 * Steelmate, your question is very illogical. How can anyone accuse me of being Adil’s sock, if I was here long before Adil joined? I’ve been editing for more than 2 years and have more than 10,000 edits, accusing a long time editor will not work. Same with Atabek, he is a long time user and he is well known to everyone involved in editing region related articles. Ehud was targeted for a simple reason that he is a relatively new user with a very limited number of contribs. So it is relatively easy to link him to a banned user and get him banned. This happened despite no real evidence being presented and cu returning negative results. Grandmaster (talk) 06:09, 11 January 2008 (UTC)


 * Nishkid, in such cases a questioning admin may contact individual contributors and ask them to identify themselves instead of blocking contributors based solely on the report of the individual from another side of conflict. Fedayee's evidence as well as list of users he cites in his report is based on ethnic motive, which is already known and defined in two relevant ArbCom cases, to which he was a participant. I believe if there is continuous assumption on behalf of some admins that Ehud is Adil based on Fedayee's report only, while others ask for additional review, then it may be expedient to perhaps request User:Jimbo Wales to investigate the issue and identify whether Ehud is Adil or not. Atabek (talk) 23:45, 10 January 2008 (UTC)


 * Evidence was posted by an individual on the other side of the conflict. Three neutral administrators familiar with the AA situation evaluated Fedayee's evidence. Furthermore, Jimbo is human, so asking him is just the same as asking any other administrator. They have their own take on the evidence, which means they have no real way of knowing the truth. Also, I contacted Ehud and asked him what proof of identity he was willing to give (Grandmaster mentioned above that Ehud could confirm his identity). Nishkid64 (talk) 00:13, 11 January 2008 (UTC)
 * Nishkid, at least 3 other admins, including those handling reports at WP:AE on a regular basis did not find Fedayee's evidence compelling. Clearly, there's no consensus among the admins that this user is a sock and that Fedayee's evidence can be taken seriously. And Khoikhoi's sudden appearance looks very strange. Have you personally tried contacting Ehud and verify his real life identity? If not, why haven’t you done so? Grandmaster (talk) 05:53, 11 January 2008 (UTC)


 * Nishkid, returning to Wikipedia after a two-month break to block a contributor based on Fedayee's report or attributing several socks to a banned user, when they're found later not to be such, is not quite neutral. And especially this past mistake shows that evidence needs to be reviewed again by another administrator. Thanks. Atabek (talk) 01:49, 11 January 2008 (UTC)
 * Khoikhoi was asked to review this user's edits a while ago. He took his time, but he finally reached a conclusion and then issued a block. As a neutral administrator, I reviewed the evidence posted by Fedayee and other stuff brought to my attention. I re-blocked because I believe the evidence shows that Ehud Lesar is a sockpuppet of AdilBaguirov. Nishkid64 (talk) 04:26, 11 January 2008 (UTC)

Smith Jones, I apologize, I did realise that an element of the evidence seems just that. It was perhaps my fault since I did not develop about the relevancy of that bit about Jews. What is questioned here is that Ehud is a Jew to begin with. If you browse the evidence you will see that Adil pretended to be several ethnic groups with several names. The evidence about the ethnicity was that Lesar is Sephardic, even the thesis that he was from Azerbaijan does not make sense, most Jews in Azerbaijan are not Sephardic, and most names are Russianized, Lesar can not be an Azerbaijani Jewish name (which would have been the only escape route). The point here is that he falsified an identity like he did previously and even after he created that account.

The other evidence about the Algerians and Jews also is not meant to have any ethnic motive. The claim of Algerian Genocide is mostly defended in the international arena by lobbyists of the Turkish republic, one of the most active ones on the web run a journal in which Adil contributes in.

Atabek’s request on the identity of Lesar should be considered as invalid given that in the past an obvious sock and throw away account has requested such and was unbanned. Adil has relations across the globe and would have anyone proxy for him giving fake identity, he is not just some user. The Lesar family (David Lesar at its head) runs Halliburton which has a major contract in the Baku-Tbilisi Ceyhan main oil export pipeline project, Adil work for those projects too. The sock created the name by association (the Israeli prime ministers name, and the president of the Halliburton familly name).

Also Atabek, unlike what you write, Zangezur and Geycha claim was in fact specific to Adil, there is no published material anywhere which claims a republic such as Geycha. Ehud dismissing it qualifies as evidence and on several occasion when this was brought he failed to provide any source. Having failed to do such, this remains specific to Adil Baguirov.

One more thing which fails comprehension. Grandmaster, how in the world did Ehud contact you when it is impossible to email him, because he did not provide an email address. He could not have emailed you unless both of you communicate elsewhere and he would have known your email address off wiki. Please provide some explanations here as someone can not contact if that person does not have an email address set. - Fedayee (talk) 01:19, 11 January 2008 (UTC)


 * Fedayee, I don't believe Wikipedia registration anywhere says that new user needs to ask approval of Fedayee to register a certain name. Ehud has a right for his name as well as his claimed identity. I don't know what makes you believe that you're granted a right to question someone's ethnicity and use that as a justification for blocking him. There are thousands of Jews and mixed people living in Azerbaijan, often under Azerbaijani, Jewish, Russian, or mixture of names. And I believe you need to one more time review WP:HARASS. Adil Baguirov has a publicly available profile, major webpage, publications, which everyone can view, read and interpret, and already have been discussed across various articles in Wikipedia, such as Azerbaijan for example. Where is your proof that everyone reciting his writing is just him? Atabek (talk) 01:49, 11 January 2008 (UTC)

And Fedayee, per your claim from your report that "Zangezur and Geycha claim was in fact specific to Adil Baguirov" - here. Is this also Adil Baguirov? Again, I believe administrators need to be seriously familiar with the topic of the conflict, before reading your report and making conclusions over it to block people. Atabek (talk) 02:05, 11 January 2008 (UTC)


 * It’s not his claimed identity which is given justification, but the fact that he created sockpuppets to sound as neutral non-Azeri or non-Armenian contributors. There are thousands of Jews living in Azerbaijan, but Lesar is not an Azerbaijani Jew name and Fedayee proved that in his evidence.


 * This is becoming ridiculous, do you really think that the claim that Ehud might be reciting Adil publications hold water? No one bothered reading or reciting his work on Geycha alleged republic here on Wikipedia, but Ehud Lesar, who happens to have registered hours after it was a confirmed that Adil will be banned. This same person who happens to have read something which was not used by any other contributor, also was the only one who was missing when Adil's sockpuppets were at their pick, and the sockpuppets only stopped when Ehud reappeared. There was a clear correlation between Ehud's presence and the end of the sockpuppetry issue. Also the Church of Kish, which was again obviously created using Adil’s OR and you guys continued editing it. Then when it was questioned, Ehud came in and defended using Adil’s OR or the other socks which were at the time just recently blocked.


 * Also Atabek, you misunderstood Ehud's claims. The link you provide relates to 1992, where few Azeris near Sevan and Zangezur created a flag claiming independence as opposition to the declaration of the NKR. Adil Baguirov's claim has nothing to do with that flag, his claims are pre Soviet Union. In fact, the only claim on the web coming close to it, is from Adil’s website. VartanM (talk) 03:25, 11 January 2008 (UTC)


 * VartanM, there was a South-West Caucasus Republic in 1918, an unrecognized Muslim Turkic state created for few months on the territory of Erivan governorate, what's now called Armenia. There is a reference and as far as I remember a whole paragraph or two about it in Firuz Kazemzadeh, Struggle for Transcaucasia: 1917-1921, New York Philosophical Library, 1951. Also, there were 200,000 Azeris prior to final exodus from Armenia in 1988, and the historical name of "Sevan" is Lake Goycha (Gokcha), that's how it's recorded on maps in references of that period. What Adil was doing with Zangezur and Goycha, and whether Ehud was reading his material online or not, is the separate business. But you can't claim that this was Adil also. Atabek (talk) 13:27, 11 January 2008 (UTC)


 * This case can be easily resolved. One of the admins needs to contact Ehud and verify that he is a real person, and not a sock. This can be done by phone call, chat or even a webcam chat. There are many ways of doing it. So far none of the admins even attempted to do that, and this shows that no serious investigation has been conducted. Strange appearance of Khoikhoi after many months of absence also shows that he was apparently contacted off wiki and given misleading info. There were too many arbitration cases covering Armenia - Azerbaijan issues, do we really need another one? Why this issue cannot be resolved without the need to get involved in a lengthy litigation? Grandmaster (talk) 05:46, 11 January 2008 (UTC)
 * Khoikhoi independently reviewed the contributions of this user over a long period of time. I was informed that Khoikhoi was reading through this user's contributions more than a month ago. This tells me that he did not make some quick decision. He examined the user's contributions, and found evidence of a connection to AdilBaguirov. I contacted Ehud about confirming his identity. He suggested a webcam chat. A webcam chat or a phone call would not prove anything. How would I know from a webcam chat or a phone call that I am talking to the real "Ehud Lesar"? Also, put aside the AA differences (doubt this will happen, but it's worth the suggestion). It seems this whole issue has escalated to mudslinging from both sides. I will ask some other uninvoled administrators to review the evidence and make their judgments. Nishkid64 (talk) 05:56, 11 January 2008 (UTC)
 * Actually, this is what I'm asking for, a real investigation, and not a block based on personal assumptions. Webcam is not the only way of proof, Ehud can give you more personal details proving that he is a real person. Just ask him for whatever proof you need. It is no good that you don't even attempt to make any real check. Also, I find it very strange how some admins handle this sort of issues. Just a few days ago a compelling evidence of disruptive activity of User:Andranikpasha across multiple wikimedia projects, English wikipedia included, was presented, but no action has been taken against that user. At the same time Ehud was blocked without any real evidence or investigation. Is this a proper way of dealing with this sort of issues? Grandmaster (talk) 06:22, 11 January 2008 (UTC)

Evidence

 * Ehud account was created the same day it was confirmed that AdilBaguriov will be blocked for a year by AA1
 * Ehud Lesar claims to be Askeranzi Jew from Azerbaijan, but the last name is not Azkeranzi and neither it is Azerbaijani Jewish
 * Ehud edited the same articles and supported the position of Atabek and Grandmaster, just like Adil used to do
 * Ehud edit warred in the Church of Kish article which is hardly notable both in wiki and realife. Adil has a webpage devoted to the topic and has writen about it extensivly.
 * Ehud had the same exact claims as Adil about Geycha republic, which no other Azeri user claimed. And the only thing is even remotely written about this is again Adil's website.
 * Ehud never contributed when there were other Adil socks and only came back when others were blocked.
 * Adil's socks so far impersonated Armenians, Jews, Russians and English.

There are way to many coincidences to AGF and think otehrwise. VartanM (talk) 06:39, 11 January 2008 (UTC)


 * None of the above is a proof that Ehud is a sock and does not exist in real life. Admins need to verify his personality, and Ehud is willing to cooperate. Grandmaster (talk) 08:22, 11 January 2008 (UTC)

Here is another non-confirmed, blocked as a SPA, then unblocked, most likely Adil account, Batabat also claimed that his not an Azerbaijani, voted in support of Atabek and Grandmaster and pressured administrators that he wanted to call them and that he can prove it on webcam. We've been habituated with Adil's tricks long enough. There should be limits to all of this. VartanM (talk) 08:31, 11 January 2008 (UTC)


 * Just look at you arguments.


 * Ehud edited the same articles and supported the position of Atabek and Grandmaster, just like Adil used to do


 * And you and Andranikpasha edited the same articles, to which most of other Armenian users did not contribute, does it mean that you two are socks? Of course not.


 * Ehud edit warred in the Church of Kish article which is hardly notable both in wiki and realife. Adil has a webpage devoted to the topic and has writen about it extensivly.
 * Ehud had the same exact claims as Adil about Geycha republic, which no other Azeri user claimed. And the only thing is even remotely written about this is again Adil's website.


 * There are plenty of publications about both church and Geycha in Azerbaijani press, the fact that you are not aware of any is not a proof that Ehud is a sock. I mean how can anyone seriously consider such arguments as a basis for a permanent block? And Batabat was not a sock either, the allegations about him were proven false. Grandmaster (talk) 08:39, 11 January 2008 (UTC)


 * Oh good lord, where is this going to end. Grandmaster, if Batabat is not Adil, then he is some clone. These are his first four contributions on Wikipedia., , , . Very Adil (we can actually use his name as a verb now) of him to replace Persian with Turkic. Then the next thing he does is to go to Khoikhoi's talkpage to defend Adil, ehmmm…, I mean "Dr. Baguirov" from his words. , . Then the next thing he does, he votes to keep the FORK article , , which was deleted regardless after you guys voted en mass by coordination to keep it. Then he voted with you guys to oppose an FA article. He becomes member of the Azerbaijan Wikiproject.  Then he pushes Adil’s sarcasm to its end, with a 100% Adil comment on his userpage.  After that comment he is blocked as a sock. This obvious sock then wants to be unblocked. , he emails an Admin and wants the email to be posted here.  Check the similarities, he proposed to call him or webcam him to prove his identity. Batabat after being unblocked claims that he has to finish two books excusing his future absence.  This was on March 13, two days after the Church of Kish article was created. The logical explanation would be that the email to the Admin was made hours or a day or two later, which closes the gap for those two days. Fedayee’s assertions are without a doubt correct, such obvious cases with a mountain of evidence would nomrlaly not even require a checkuser. Also Gm, your claim as well as Atabeks on so called "Geycha" does not make sense. Firuz Kazamzadeh's reference was regarding the Ottoman backed territory, which was away from "Geycha", "Geycha" wasn’t even included in the maps of the Azeri representatives at the Paris Peace Conference. Only Adil came up with these bogus claims. --   Ευπάτωρ   Talk!! 21:09, 11 January 2008 (UTC)


 * Eupator, your speculations are not a proof of Ehud being a sock. The Geycha argument is simply ridiculous. Since when two different people cannot mention the same topic? How could that be considered a proof of sockpupputery? Then Hetoum and Meowy are socks, because they tried to use the same Armenian source on Church of Kish. Any independent and real investigation will prove that Ehud and Adil are not related, and I'm gonna get such investigation carried out. For the moment I'm just trying to work out some solution that could help us avoid lengthy litigations. Grandmaster (talk) 07:50, 12 January 2008 (UTC)


 * It's not two different people. It's the same person. Best case scenario a single purpose account and a meatpuppet but i'm still convinced it's just another one of his socks. Look how many socks Adil had and just like with this one, you used to claim that his other socks weren't socks either yet we saw how that turned out. The evidence against Adil's sock Ehud is a lot more than just both of them using the same source. You know Hetoum and Meowy have nothing to do with eachother so what's the point of your analogy? I find it odd that you are spending so much time on Adil and his socks instead of contributing to articles like you used to ages ago. No Azeri articles in need of improvement?--  Ευπάτωρ   Talk!! 17:22, 12 January 2008 (UTC)

"I just received a communication from Ehud" Ehud doesn't have an email address. How did he contact you? Where did he get your email address? VartanM (talk) 08:52, 11 January 2008 (UTC)
 * Ehud emailed me a couple of days ago, after this whole harassment campaign against him started. I did provide my email address, and I receive plenty of communication from wiki editors, Armenian users included, btw. Is this against the rules or what? Grandmaster (talk) 08:57, 11 January 2008 (UTC)

Ehud doesn't have an email in his account, he could not have emailed you, unless he knew your email address before hand. Do you have a diff where he asks you or you give him your email address? VartanM (talk) 09:01, 11 January 2008 (UTC)


 * Not true, he can email to anyone, who hasn't disabled receiving through Wikipedia, even if he disabled receiving email from Wikipedia to his email account. Once he emails someone, his address becomes available for reply through regular email interface of the respondent. Atabek (talk) 15:27, 11 January 2008 (UTC)


 * I don't know how he did it, but he emailed me. If he chose not to receive email from other users, it does not mean that he doesn't have an email in his account. He might have chosen not to receive mail from others, but in that case he can still email other users. And what does it matter? Does it somehow prove that Ehud does not exist in real life and is a sock? Grandmaster (talk) 13:50, 11 January 2008 (UTC)


 * He's been in communication via email with me as well. He first emailed me to thank him for unblocking, then again when he was confused about not being able to edit again (not realizing he had been reblocked). Since then, I've received several additional emails regarding his desire to prove his identity. Apparently, Adil lives in DC or NY. Ehud, according to himself, resides in TX. He has offered to do a webchat, log onto Wikipedia and post whatever I request on his talk page while on cam. If that's not enough, he seems willing to do what's necessary to prove his identity.  Lara  ❤  Love  14:20, 11 January 2008 (UTC)


 * VartanM and others, you can email any contributor while being blocked, by using "E-mail this User" feature, on the left hand side of the menu. This can be done as long as both sender and recipient have email address added to their Wikipedia account. It's frankly a waste of time to question these technical features.


 * Per your comment above, VartanM, what's really ridiculous is that a group of 3-4 people attributes one person to another without having any physical evidence of identity, having checkuser turned down, with a clear purpose, of eliminating the contributor, just because he claims to be Jewish and supports "the other party". I am not sure how far does Wikipedia go in terms of "presumption of innocence" or what's known here as WP:AGF. But I don't see it as normal that user gets blocked first based on obviously dubious report, no checkuser evidence, and supported by some admins and rejected by others, and only then, while blocked, is being asked to help prove that he is himself, and not someone else. Moreover, he is being charged that his username is inappropriate and he should call himself something else just because other party wants so. How does username Ehud Lesar violate any Wikipedia rule?


 * And Nishkid64, per your comment that Khoikhoi was reviewing evidence for several months, are you claiming that Khoikhoi was absent from Wikipedia for 2 months just to review claims against Ehud Lesar vs. Adil Baguirov? Interesting, I wonder what would be a reason for such a strong interest on behalf of what you perceive as a neutral admin, so as to take a time off Wikipedia for that. And I wonder why far more serious and checkuser confirmed allegations like this [] and with relevant discussion on ANI are simply ignored, while all concentrate on fact-lacking report of Fedayee. Atabek (talk) 13:27, 11 January 2008 (UTC)

VartanM and Fedayee, apart from this comment of Fedayee: The evidence about the ethnicity was that Lesar is Sephardic, even the thesis that he was from Azerbaijan does not make sense, most Jews in Azerbaijan are not Sephardic, falling simply under WP:HARASS policy, what do you mean by most Jews in Azerbaijan, how about those who are not most? I shall remind you that President of Armenia, Robert Kocharian's last name, comes from Turkish word "kochari", which translates as nomad/migrant. So do many other Armenian last names have Turkic roots. Does it mean that he is not from Armenia but something else? Such form of claims are simply baseless. Atabek (talk) 13:52, 11 January 2008 (UTC)


 * This is a really strange situation. A couple of admins blocked a guy for no good reason, claming that he was a sock despite the lack of any evidence, now the guy who was blocked says that he is willing to prove that he is not a sock, but whatever he suggests is being rejected. Webcam is no good, it might be someone else sitting there, phone call is no good for the same reason, well then, Nishkid64, you propose something. We know that you are a good admin with plenty of knowledge about Wikipedia system. What does it take to prove that one is a real person and not a sock? What kind of proof do you want? Name it, Ehud said that he is willing to cooperate and provide any evidence that is necessary, he just wants to know what exactly he needs to do to prove that he exists in real life. We are all human begins, we all make mistakes, and admins make mistakes too. But if a mistake is made, there should be some way of correcting it. What is it in a situation like this? Any useful advice will be appreciated. Grandmaster (talk) 16:52, 11 January 2008 (UTC)
 * So, Ehud claims to be from Texas. Coincidentally, Adil Baguirov works for an energy consulting firm based out of Houston, Texas and Washington, D.C. Grandmaster, I would like to see some sort of documentation (passport, for example; he can blank out sensitive info with a screenshot), but I'm not even sure if Ehud's willing to consent to that. Nishkid64 (talk) 17:32, 11 January 2008 (UTC)
 * I'm sure you know how many people live in Texas. It's not a small village, is it? If Ehud presents you the proof that you want, will you lift his block? Grandmaster (talk) 17:47, 11 January 2008 (UTC)

Nishkid, mind WP:PRIVACY? To be honest, this is a first time I see an administrator publicly asking for someone's passport number at ANI. Perhaps, it would be more appropriate for you to contact Ehud directly and discuss with him what you need, just like Lara says she did above, instead of reposting sensitive information here. And nice comment about Texas :), and George Bush is from Crawford, Texas and lives in Washington D.C. too, he could be Adil's sock. Hope someone still has a sense of humor in this whole ordeal. Atabek (talk) 18:13, 11 January 2008 (UTC)
 * Atabek, it was only a suggestion. I'm fully aware of WP:PRIVACY, and I know that he can refuse if he wants to. There is no sensitive information (how could talk about a passport be sensitive???) posted here. Ehud suggested the same thing (webcam chat) to Lara as he did to me. I argued that it wouldn't prove any identity. If you have ideas for a definite ID confirmation that would not violate Ehud's privacy, let me know. Nishkid64 (talk) 19:48, 11 January 2008 (UTC)


 * I've advised Ehud to send an image of his identification showing photo and name through WP:OFFICE. So let's allow this time to happen.  Lara  ❤  Love  20:17, 11 January 2008 (UTC)


 * Lara, as VartanM said, he can send you id of his friend, that is not going to prove his identity. I think the only reliable way is to verify that IP address used is not registered for person under name Adil. This way we can find out if he is Adil (in case his name is registered as user of the IP address) but he might have been using public places for internet, so it might not work as well. Steelmate (talk) 20:48, 11 January 2008 (UTC)

Also I think this guy is Adil, as many people have identified, otherwise why would they? I am a new user as well but nobody identified me to be a sockpuppet of anybody else, be it Adil or Artaxaid or other "smart" people... Grandmaster could have been sockpuppet of Adil that he is running for more then 2 years, but also no claims regarding him being sockpuppet of Adil. Unfortunately the Wikipedia has no technical measures to establish identity of the user. So people remain it's main force that can bring forward evidences of his activity. Steelmate (talk) 21:08, 11 January 2008 (UTC)

The Lesar family lives indeed in Texas, like Ehud Lesar (because he's Adil Baguirov) as Ehud confirmed himself. Adil works as an energy consultant in Houston Texas from where the Lesar family runs its Halliburton:

Lesar family and Adil Baguirov work together for the construction of pipelines to export oil from Azerbaijan. I wonder how further Atabek wants this to be pushed, I didn't want to post this piece of evidence but you guys have pushed me to do it. I have more involving more users. I am done with this. So Lara, they will furnish you any evidence you want, they have all the resources they want, they could have one of the members of the Lesar family furnish their ID to have Adil here if they wanted. We're dealing with more than just innocent members. You don't know the situation, some Admins like Khoikhoi are aware of it. - Fedayee (talk) 21:39, 11 January 2008 (UTC)


 * Fedayee, none of your speculations is a proof that Ehud is a sock. It is a pity that people in Wikipedia can be banned on the basis of speculations, without any real proof of being socks. Grandmaster (talk) 06:45, 12 January 2008 (UTC)


 * Your way of dismissing evidence and then claiming no evidence has been provided is starting to be fishy. Grandmaster, don't you realise that you are accusing a couple of Admins to have blocked someone without evidence when they said the evidence is compelling? Do you mean to say that they are lying? The house is on fire and you dismiss it claiming that the claim of fire is speculation. Adil has used the name of the Lesar family one of his clients to post here; I think the gravity of the situation would require an indefinite block on Adil's account as such actions are unacceptable. - Fedayee (talk) 18:13, 12 January 2008 (UTC)
 * There's simply no evidence to address. Admins are human being and can make mistakes. What you call "evidence" is simply a collection of unrelated diffs which prove nothing. i addressed some of Vartan's claims above. Compelling evidence would be something like this:, which for some strange reason resulted in no action. This particular issue can be resolved very simply by verifying the existence of Ehud in real life. So far we have not received any clear instructions on how to do that. From what I see, no matter what Ehud does to prove his existence, it will be rejected by certain people, who are unwilling to accept that they made a mistake accusing this user. The gravity of the situation actually requires immediate investigation of all circumstances that resulted in this block and how certain users were lobbying for it. But I hope the issue will be resolved without the need to take it to other authorities. Grandmaster (talk) 19:30, 12 January 2008 (UTC)


 * Grandmaster, putting our national conflict aside, I am saying this as someone who has contributed alongside you for a long time. Disengage yourself from this; you will say things which you may regret. Claiming no evidence and so energetically pushing this makes this whole affair sound even fishier. And your comparison with Andranikpasha’s case can under the circumstance sound as you are attempting the change the subject. Grandmaster the evidence provided on Andranikpasha was not denied; we questioned its validity in regards to Andranikpasha’s contribution here on English Wikipedia, where he is behaving. So under no circumstances can it be called dismissal of evidence. - Fedayee (talk) 20:10, 12 January 2008 (UTC)
 * Why should I disengage myself from this and let the innocent person remained blocked for no reason at all? On the contrary, I will be actively engaged in this until the problem is resolved, and I always stand by whatever I say. I don’t see that I said something that needs regretting. As for the rest, were these edits not made in en wiki? Grandmaster (talk) 08:54, 13 January 2008 (UTC)


 * Grandmaster, given the possible relations between Atabek and Adil off-wiki, how strong would that make Atabek’s case if the Arbitration committee concludes it is Adil? You claim innocent person but you didn’t have any problem with Azizbekov being banned even though he was not a sock of a banned user. I didn’t see you do anything anywhere else like you do here. In fact, your persistence is unusual; this is why I asked you to disengage. The evidence for you would not look as one, but they do for others and your way to claim there was no evidence sounds only fishier. - Fedayee (talk) 19:36, 13 January 2008 (UTC)

Whoa, wait a minute: "given the possible relations between Atabek and Adil off-wiki", Fedayee would you be so kind to enlighten us on the details and evidence of your allegation? I am not quite sure what you meant. Thanks. Atabek (talk) 17:45, 14 January 2008 (UTC)


 * How do you know that Azizbekov was not a sock? He never protested his block, he never asked me to help him. So why would I be helping him? There's nothing unusual in my persistence, I will not tolerate this injustice with regard to an innocent person. And I looked at your evidence, and it is not convincing. In fact, there's not a single proof that Ehud is a sock, that Geycha and Zangezur stuff is simply absurd. Grandmaster (talk) 05:41, 14 January 2008 (UTC)

Response from blocking admin
Hi all. Before I explain my reasons for my block, I would like to request that people assume good faith on my part. Although I have been inactive, I still check up on these kind of things from time to time. I have known Adil for years, and this type of behavior matches that of all his other socks in addition to Adil himself. It was very typical of Adil to come out of nowhere and jump into edit wars. In addition, compare some of his comments to Adil's messages. Dmcdevit said on his talk page, "this will need an admin to make a judgment call based on behavior", and that's exactly what I did. Khoikhoi 07:58, 12 January 2008 (UTC)


 * Hi Khoikhoi. I'm glad that you joined this discussion. No one is assuming bad faith here with regard to your intentions, but people make mistakes, and this clearly is the case here. Ehud is a real person in real life, and not anyone's sock. He is willing to prove that, and I hope you will make some time to talk to him. Grandmaster (talk) 08:29, 12 January 2008 (UTC)


 * Btw, I fail to see any similarity in the diffs that you posted. Maybe it is just me and you could explain us which line or part you believe is similar? You are making a mistake, and it is not too late to correct it. Just give Ehud a chance, talk to him in person.


 * And the argument that coming out of nowhere and jumping into edit wars was very typical of Adil does not make much sense to me either. If we use it as a basis for a permanent block, I can recommend analyzing behavior of a number of other people here. Fresh example, almost every Armenian editor turned up to vote for deletion of the category of Azerbaijani khanates:


 * Some of those users turned up after quite a prolonged absence for the sole purpose of voting there. See for example User:Davo88, who has not contributed since 11 December 2007, but somehow became aware of the voting on 5 January. Before voting he made only one edit in December, one edit in November, and no edits in October. Is Davo a sock? Using the same logic, he must be. I mean, we need to be reasonable here and give Ehud a fair chance to prove his existence. He has a right to keep his real life identity secret, plus, even presenting a scan of ID is not considered a sufficient proof by some people here. Ok then, what is the way for a blocked user to prove that he is not a sock? Is there any at all? I know Khoikhoi for many years as a fair admin, and I'm sure he will help us to find a way of resolving this issue. Grandmaster (talk) 09:43, 12 January 2008 (UTC)

Khoikhoi, assuming good faith with regards to your actions, can you please, provide a list of conditions/requirements that must be met in order to confirm Ehud Lesar's identity is not that of Adil. It seems like Nishkid laid out some conditions, but then whatever is done does not work for him, and seems like the objective is simply to keep Ehud Lesar blocked and off the Wikipedia and permanently accuse Adil of socks without any real proof. It's really disturbing that a contributor on Wikipedia can be just accused and blocked without any real proof of identity, moreover, accused by Fedayee of not being truly Jewish. Are you supportive of such line of argument? Users Fedayee, VartanM, Andranikpasha always show up on various pages in order or simultaneously and revert, etc. often bringing similar positions as say banned Artaxiad (with 34 checkuser confirmed sock accounts) and Fadix. But this does not establish a ground to assume summarily, without proof of identity, that they're socks of each other. So, I simply ask for some reasonable approach, perhaps, contacting both Adil (whom you know for years) and Ehud, and confirming their separate identity, by defining your conditions. Moreover, this kind of summary block of checkuser unrelated users establishes a dangerous precedent. Who can guarantee that tomorrow one of the conflicting sides will not try to establish a sock account posing as the user from the opposite side, making similar edits, just to get that long-time user blocked? Thanks. Atabek (talk) 10:12, 12 January 2008 (UTC)


 * I'm not sure that there is an effective way to prove real-life identity in this case without having Ehud edit with a trusted user looking over his shoulder (literally) while the banned user (who is actually willing to cooperate here) edits at the same time (even then, some may argue that the password for the latter was given to a proxy). Short of a polygraph test, what can he do? El_C 10:36, 12 January 2008 (UTC)
 * Good question. Is there some sort of an established procedure that needs to be followed in situations like this? Grandmaster (talk) 15:54, 12 January 2008 (UTC)
 * Ehud refused to provide identification to me. However, I told him he could send the picture of his passport through WP:OFFICE. He said he would do this. We'll see what happens now. Nishkid64 (talk) 17:50, 12 January 2008 (UTC)


 * A picture is hardly any evidence... - Fedayee (talk) 18:26, 12 January 2008 (UTC)

I don't understand why the burden of proof is being placed on the accused. If you can't prove he is a sock, I don't see how you have a right to block him. If there is only speculation and assumption regarding possible sockpuppetry, he should be treated as an individual editor and any action should be based on his editing patterns as opposed to those of another, in this case Adil. If he's edit-warring, having civility or NPA issues, then block accordingly. Otherwise, leave him to his editing.  Lara  ❤  Love  17:54, 12 January 2008 (UTC)
 * There is contribution evidence linking Ehud to Adil. There are certain things that Adil did in his edits. These things have also been found in Ehud Lesar's editing. I don't see how that's speculation or assumptions. The people who say he is not a sock are the ones who Ehud sides with - the Azeris (Grandmaster and Atabek). They are just dismissing Fedayee's evidence and Khoikhoi's analysis of the contributions because they do not want to lose one of "their" editors and they think this is some ethnically-motivated block (apparently, they think that because an Armenian provided the bulk of the evidence in the case, then it must be clearly biased). So far, they argue that Ehud's innocence can be proven by his real-life identity. I haven't seen any of the Azeris show on-wiki evidence, showing that Ehud is not AdilBaguirov. Lara, there's another thing you should know about the AA case. Most of these editors (both Azeris and Armenians) spend their time edit warring and making Wikipedia a battleground. This is why the dispute has gone to ArbCom twice. Adil was banned until February 2008 (later extended to August) because he was one of the worst offenders. Since then, Adil has resurfaced under a number of socks, some of which were never detected by CheckUser. When you see evidence that a new editor, who just happened to start editing at the same time it was determined that Adil would be banned from Wikipedia, makes contributions similar to those of AdilBaguirov, then you naturally will suspect that there might be something going on. Fedayee provided a comprehensive list of similarities in the contributions of these two editors. Khoikhoi, an admin on Wikipedia who has spent more than 2 years in the midst of the AA situation, examined the contributions of Ehud Lesar, and found that he was definitely a sockpuppet of AdilBaguirov. Nishkid64 (talk) 18:18, 12 January 2008 (UTC)
 * Also note that there are four (possibly 5, if you include Daniel Case, who declined the unblock request) neutral administrators (FrancisTyers, Khoikhoi, Alex Bakharev and myself) who independently determined that Ehud was a sockpuppet, by looking through the user's contributions and/or through Fedayee's evidence. Nishkid64 (talk) 18:21, 12 January 2008 (UTC)


 * Are you serious? Lara, Adil has used countless socks and many are not on the list right now. Did you take a look at Batabat, the same claim, the same request… he wanted to call and webchat. We aren’t even talking about any evidence. We are not dealing with a user who was banned then is using another sock, we are dealing with a user who runs this account in parallel to several others to disrupt. Then let’s invite other banned users and say as you say. Adil is living in Houston Texas and Washington DC. I guess he didn’t mention you this important piece about Texas. Even the location points to him, neither that one of his major client is the Lesar family (and that he usurped their name). And we aren’t even at the beginning there as we aren’t even discussing about the conflict of interest and Adil’s involvement off wiki, including meatpuppeting off wiki to bring people to fight Armenian propaganda. - Fedayee (talk) 18:26, 12 January 2008 (UTC)

Grandmaster, Davo has been a member of Wikipedia for nearly two years, and you know why he does not contribute much on English Wikipedia and you kow that he still checks it. Stop using analogies which you know aren’t accurate.

You never have you addressed all the evidence posted here, on my evidence page and the arbitration enforcement. Singling some of them and answering to them with obviously wrong analogies is far from dismissing the evidence provided. When taking all the evidence together and treated together, there can be no resonable doubt. - Fedayee (talk) 18:43, 12 January 2008 (UTC)


 * Nishkid64 is providing inaccurate info by saying that only Azeris dismiss Fedayee's info. Fedayee's allegations were rejected at WP:AE board by at least 3 admins: If the evidence was so compelling, why do you think it was rejected before? I think Nishkid64's persistence to have Ehud blocked is simply gonna result in another arbcom case on this topic. We still haven't received any explanation what a blocked person needs to do to prove that he is not a sock and why someone actually needs to prove that he is not sock, when there's no proof that he is a sock? Nishkid64 is simply siding with one of the sides of the dispute, i.e. with Armenian users, who want to get rid of one of Azerbaijani editors, blindly accepting their "evidences" and not giving the unfairly blocked user any chance to defend himself. Such approach is not acceptable, and will lead only to further escalation of the conflict in this part of Wikipedia, which as we know usually result in another arbcom case. Grandmaster (talk) 19:17, 12 January 2008 (UTC)
 * You are escalting things unnecessarily. You are also exaggerating Ehud as an editor and misleading everyone else by polarizing this case as "us vs them". What does it mean: Armenian users, who want to get rid of one of Azerbaijani editors? That's quite strong language there. Ehud is by no means just another Azeri editor as Grandmaster is trying to portray him. Some might even read your last few comments as borderline threats. Again, any neutral party reading the mountain of evidence compiled against Ehud can tell that it's a single purpose account and a sock of Adil. --  Ευπάτωρ   Talk!! 19:27, 12 January 2008 (UTC)
 * It was a response to Nishkid, who actually introduced this us vs them terminology in this thread. He said in his above post: The people who say he is not a sock are the ones who Ehud sides with - the Azeris (Grandmaster and Atabek). Somehow he failed to mention that neither Lara, no admins at AE board are Azeris. Using Nishkid's language, people who were lobbying for Ehud's block belong to another national group. I don't see any necessity to stress national affiliation here, but since Nishkid started doing it, I have to address it. Grandmaster (talk) 19:34, 12 January 2008 (UTC)
 * Fedayee's original claims were unfounded, because uninvolved admins at AE did not have any specifics of sockpuppetry. Much of the admin involvement came before Fedayee had organized his evidence and posted it on a user subpage. Picaroon commented that he wanted more behavioral similarities and that he was a bit confused about the whole Geycha thing. Jayvdb read it, but never commented on its merits, as far as I know. Thatcher closed the discussion because there was "no confirmation of sockpuppetry" and placed Ehud Lesar on revert parole. Judging from this, I don't even think Thatcher read the evidence. He made his judgment based on the discussion of AE. So, Fedayee's allegations were not rejected or dismissed at AE by at least 3 administrators, as Grandmaster claims. In fact, it appears only one user actually commented on Fedayee's evidence - Picaroon. Apparently, he wanted some sort of behavioral analysis of the two users' editing patterns. I don't take sides in the AA dispute. I just enforce policy. I did not blindly accept their evidence. I also told Ehud Lesar last night on Google Talk (read above) to send a picture of his passport through WP:OFFICE. I've been more than cooperative in these dealings. As for the "us vs. them" thing, I only brought it up because of your numerous references to AA ArbCom cases and Armenia vs. Azerbaijan. Also, my previous response was directed to LaraLove. Why would I would refer to her if I'm talking directly to her? Nishkid64 (talk) 19:44, 12 January 2008 (UTC)
 * So you are saying that threads at WP:AE are being closed without actually being read? If not, what in your opinion "no confirmation of sockpuppetry" supposed to mean? Grandmaster (talk) 20:43, 12 January 2008 (UTC)
 * See the diff I posted of Thatcher's contributions. He closed the Eupator section on AE at 03:06, 31 December 2007, and the Ehud Lesar section two minutes later. The time differences for his previous contributions show that he was editing every few minutes. I don't think you could grasp all the evidence posted by Fedayee in just a few minutes. Nishkid64 (talk) 23:31, 12 January 2008 (UTC)
 * This does not mean that he did not read the page before, while discussion was in progress. Grandmaster (talk) 07:58, 13 January 2008 (UTC)

Outside view
Here is my take on this situation. I know that I am as qualified as the other side, but I think my insides should be considered. First of all guys, the evidence posted here alone should be enough not even needing to read what is on Fedayee's page. The relation between Adil and the Lesar family should not have been exposed here. It is obvious that Adil made a mistake by choosing this name without the knowledge of the Lesar family. So it is understandable that he will try to do everything to prove he is not Adil. We are dealing with a potential usurpation from Adil’s part of the family name of one of his clients. I acknowledge that by saying this: I am not making things more simpler because now Adil will be attempting with more energy to prove that he is not Adil, but given the evidence, this leaves no doubt anymore. It is Adil’s interest to bring this to arbitration because he has nothing to lose. So all the administrators involved here should prepare more evidence (I don’t believe more is needed though). If the block becomes definitive, it is also maybe a good idea to contact the Lesar family to report Adil's abuse. It’s their family name which is used to post this nationalistic bombast and nonsense anyways. Regards, --Marshal Bagramyan (talk) 23:03, 12 January 2008 (UTC)


 * Will I be not assuming good faith if I point out that Grandmaster wrote above: with Armenian users, who want to get rid of one of Azerbaijani editors,... Correct me if I am wrong, but did I miss something? Was Ehud Lesar not claiming to be Ashkenazi Jew? If Grandmaster is admitting that he is an Azerbaijani editor he is basically admitting that Ehud Lesar was a fake name. I wonder what are the chances that there is an Azerbaijani Jew with a Sephardic name (Sephardics are a very small minority of the Jews from Azerbaijan) living in Texas mysteriously just like Adil, and where the Lesar family lives. Whitepages don't have any records about Ehud Lesar, and most if not all Lesar’s from Texas are from the Lesar family. One way is to contact David J. Lesar, he probably knows all the Lesar's from his hometown. But what I suggest is for Adil to drop this and leave it at that, because I personally will not accept some pictures which can easily be forged as valid evidence. I am just fed up with this, Armenian and Azerbaijani editors have enough problems to coexist on Wikipedia without Adil's disruptions. VartanM (talk) 03:03, 13 January 2008 (UTC)

VartanM, your argument about Ehud Lesar's username has absolutely no relevance to the question whether he is Adil or not. There is no Wikipedia rule that says a contributor is not allowed to register a username of his choice. Just because MarshallBagramyan has a username does not mean he is Marshall Bagramyan. In fact, such arguments as questioning contributor's ethnic identity based on his username or to claim that person being a sockpuppet of another is simply a violation of WP:NPA, WP:CIVIL, WP:HARASS and WP:PRIVACY.

Nishkid, your argument that only Azeri contributors are in support of Ehud not being Adil is an accusation without basis and an assumption of bad faith as:


 * 1) You have so far produced no legible proof that Ehud is Adil, but only trying to justify the block after fact;
 * 2) Just about every Armenian (that's opposite party) contributor above has been commenting claiming Ehud is Adil's sock, having no proofs either.

So there is an obvious interest to get rid of a contributor along national lines. And now you're essentially accusing myself or Grandmaster of lying that Ehud is not Adil, pouring accusation on a banned User:AdilBaguirov, who can't even defend himself here, and blocking another contributor User:Ehud Lesar based on VartanM or Fedayee's ethnic claim that "he is not a Jew" (as if that disqualifies someone from editing Wikipedia). This does not seem to be quite neutral administration, especially when you have no proofs for your accusation.

And it does not matter if 4 or 104 administrators support you, this is about finding the truth, clearing people of false charges, and preventing from future dangerous precedents of frivolous blocking. Ehud Lesar case should be pursued further, and if necessary, with the involvement of ArbCom and User:Jimbo Wales, until his identity and baseless charges against him are cleared. I personally will seek no further interest in editing Wikipedia, if people are just being blocked frivolously just because someone else accuses the person of not being Ashkenazi or Sephardic Jew. Supporting such reports by an administrative action, in my opinion, is a gross violation of any form of civility let it alone the definition of the term free encyclopedia. Atabek (talk) 05:20, 13 January 2008 (UTC)


 * I will be definitely be pursuing this further until the issue is resolved. But at the moment I'm trying to get the problem resolved by consensus with the blocking admins. If it does not work, we will have to take further steps prescribed by Wikipedia rules for the dispute resolution. Grandmaster (talk) 08:35, 13 January 2008 (UTC)
 * Are the diffs provided by Fedayee, Khoikhoi, VartanM and others not evidence? I have provided evidence. You claim it's all ethnically motivated (what does Geycha have to do with Judaism?). Also, am I not allowed to defend my own block? I've been more than willing to listen to people who debate the sockpuppetry claim. However, none of you have provided any sufficient evidence arguing otherwise. You have now resorted to accusations of ethnic discrimination and you claim that there is no evidence at all. Provide diffs or other proof. If you can't do so, then leave the matter alone. Your intimidation techniques are not going to scare me into unblocking Ehud Lesar without any proof showing that he's not a sockpuppet. Nishkid64 (talk) 19:12, 13 January 2008 (UTC)


 * I don't find that evidence to be compelling, and neither did the admins at WP:AE board. And I don't understand, since when people have to prove that they are not socks, if it's never been proved that they are socks? The burden of proof is on the accuser, and not vice versa. And please mind WP:AGF, I never tried to scare you. How good is accusing other people of employing "intimidation techniques", when they are simply trying to discuss the matter with you? Grandmaster (talk) 05:53, 14 January 2008 (UTC)
 * Discuss the matter? Yes, discussion includes repeatedly accusing the other reviewing administrators and me of making bad judgments just because you're dissatisfied with the block. I found Fedayee's diffs and other evidence demonstrative of sockpuppetry. You and Atabek have dismissed the evidence, and maintained that Ehud Lesar was really "Ehud Lesar". Apparently, now you have retracted that statement, only because, as I can imagine, "Ehud Lesar" was not Ehud Lesar's real identity. I wasn't the one who brought up ID confirmation. Ehud first suggested that course of action in an e-mail to me. As for your "intimidation techniques", I am referring to your numerous statements in which you said you would go to Jimbo Wales or ArbCom regarding this matter. You should think about the final DR step when it's needed, not when it can still be resolved. Nishkid64 (talk) 16:52, 14 January 2008 (UTC)
 * Nishkid, the only evidence that Ehud Lesar is Adil would be establishing that they have the same identity in real world. THe diffs that you bring do not establish an identity. Example of what you're doing would be executing someone then figuring out if the executed was a criminal or not. The fact is Adil was blocked before Ehud, and his edits and arguments may have been just read/studied by Ehud. So what? These edits of Adil are publicly available, so why would you assume that just because someone is claiming Zangezur Geycha Republic, he must be Adil. Take this for website for example, is this Adil also?? Or is it Ehud?
 * Of course, you're allowed to defend your block, preferrably without accusing me or Gradmaster like you did above. But before asking for my evidence, let me remind you that I am not the one who took action to block Ehud Lesar. Hence the burden of proof remains with the accuser and not the accused. All I can tell you with confidence is that Ehud is not Adil, because, as you have been explained above, Adil lives in Washington, Ehud is in Texas. And if you're going to now accuse everyone travelling from DC to Texas as sockpuppets, then I doubt that would still justify your block of Ehud. You have no checkuser results and your block is based on a report of Fedayee, who has a vested interest in the conflict identified through his participation in two ArbComs.
 * And I am obvioulsy not capable of "scaring you", that was never my intent. I have only stated that the matter shall be pursued until Ehud's name is clear of these false charges. Thanks. Atabek (talk) 00:55, 14 January 2008 (UTC)

Atabek, please stop with your baseless accusations to begin with. If you have any further accusations I would like to read it before the arbitration committee. You confirmed what Grandmaster has been saying about Ehud Lesar being Azerbaijani and not Jewish. Your claim that someone can choose any username means the name may not be an accurate one. So how can we accept any evidence beside proving an Ehud Lesar exist. He pretended to be Jewish, so it wasn’t only a choice of username, but he also tried to find a background history with this name, which was inaccurate to begin with. If this is confirmed, it would mean he fabricated the name same way Adil did on various other occasions. Now he can claim to be anyone he wants, since he doesn’t need to prove he is an Ehud Lesar, he needs to prove that he is not an Adil Baguirov, with the several relations and people Adil Baguirov knows, neither a passport picture, webcam, phone call, legit ID or a driver license will ever document that he is not Adil.

So if both of you really want to take this one step further, you should start addressing the evidences provided fully and not discredit it by claiming that there is no evidence, because the arbitration committee won’t accept your "no evidence" argument. VartanM (talk) 22:00, 13 January 2008 (UTC)


 * VartanM, I have explained my points that your and Fedayee's accusation against Ehud Lesar are along national lines. And you have proven those again in the paragraph above. So I see no need to add anything further in response to you. Thanks. Atabek (talk) 00:55, 14 January 2008 (UTC)

Continue with your baseless accusations, you are hurting none, but yourself. The fact remains that Ehud Lesar was a falsified identity, typical of the various other socks used by Adil. So far you have done nothing, but directly attacking those who provide the wide range of evidences, without having to address the evidence.

For the admins who may join, this is what has been shown so far.


 * It was typical of Adil to create socks impersonating various nationalities
 * That Ehud claims to be residing in one of the two places Adil resides.
 * There is no Ehud Lesar living in Texas, and both Atabek and Grandmaster have indirectly admitted that the name itself is false.
 * Ehud Lesar promoted Adil, claiming that one has to be impressed by him, even calling this positive.
 * There is the wide range of contributing history, including Adil’s theory on Geycha, both Atabek and Grandmaster have attempted to address this, with one link which was actually incompatible with Ehud/Adil's claim. This again documented that the claim on Geycha was indeed specific to Adil.
 * Ehud Lesar registered a couple of hours after it was obvious that Adil Baguirov will be banned. This also was ever addressed.
 * There is the undeniable consideration that during the pick of Adil's sock creation, the sockpuppetry only stopped when Ehud Lesar appeared to edit. Just a coincidence?
 * There is also what Khoikhoi has reported, which both I and Fedayee missed. The way of reporting users by both users is nearly identical.
 * Batabat, yet another sock of Adil (see further on Fedayee's evidence page which was expended and will be expended more in the upcoming days) when blocked has used the same gimmicks by lobbying and pressurizing administrators that he wants to webchat or talk to them on the phone to prove that he is not a sock. Any administrator can view the evidence provided on that user. He too just like Ehud promoted Adil Baguirov, on Batabat case it was in the same post repeatedly calling him Dr. Baguirov.
 * There are many other specific "coincidences", such as Ehud Lesar's myth of available materials in English language and the Armenian Diaspora. This was something Adil Baguirov in real life has been propagating for years, including his article about Wikipedia here.
 * Various other evidences were provided here, in the arbcom noticeboard and Fedayee's subpage. All those will be added in the days to come.

Addressing those by making a WP:POINT based on Fundamental attribution error isn’t going to do it. Now you and Grandmaster can continue with the argumentum ad hominem but you will have to deal with the evidence by actually addressing it. VartanM (talk) 02:50, 14 January 2008 (UTC)


 * Atabek, you are manipulating the Geycha situation. At least two users have told you that this link does not represent the position which both Ehud and Adil adhere to (but regardless the information from there comes from Adil also, as will be seen). You know that and were reminded on various occasions. In fact, the reference from the Flag Bulletin was purposely manipulated by Adil, as it refers to a 1992 fabricated map for a declaration of independence in 1992 and those were not even from the Azeri residents in both of those territories. Also in the link you provide, the information is coming from Adil too, he prepared it back in 2001, he prepared it and included it in his website, the link does not work, but the material can still be retrieved from internet archive here. Check at the bottom: The Government-in-exile of the Republic of Zangezur and Goyce. This was a fabrication prepared by Adil Baguirov. You see, when you and Grandmaster write about interests of Armenian contributors to edit specific articles, you are making false analogies. The claim of the 1992 republic was brought forward by Adil on the net. The claim of Goycha for pre-Soviet Union period was also an invention by Adil on Wikipedia. This isn’t even claimed in the Azeri press, it is a creation of Adil. While Hetoum and Meowy or all the similarities you find come from works, which you can claim biased, the Geycha reference was a creation of Adil not coming from any works, including biased sites. Your claim about Ehud possibly having read Adil is hardly convincing in the consideration of the various other evidences.


 * Also, you have removed the fact that Adil does not live only in Washington; he splits his time both in Washington and Texas. Also this:  Nishkid, the only evidence that Ehud Lesar is Adil would be establishing that they have the same identity in real world is ridiculous... from this standard there is no way to prove sockpuppetry. - Fedayee (talk) 05:13, 14 January 2008 (UTC)


 * Again, information about Geycha is available on the internet, and in Azerbaijani media. This cannot be considered a proof of sockpuppetry, and Picaroon told you that on AE board. As for location, Ehud contributes from TX only, how is that possible if Adil splits his time between Washington and Texas? Grandmaster (talk) 05:35, 14 January 2008 (UTC)


 * Vartan, I see no need to address all of your "evidence" point by point, as most of it has already been commented. None of the above is a proof that Ehud is a sock. I can compile such "evidence" on any Wikipedia editor. For example, "Ehud claims to be residing in one of the two places Adil resides", but Texas is not a village, and there are millions of people living there. How is this a proof, considering that Adil does not permanently reside there, while Ehid does? "Ehud Lesar promoted Adil, claiming that one has to be impressed by him", and Fedayee promoted User:Fadix, claiming to be impressed by him and awarding him barnstars "posthumously" (in words of Fedayee),  does it mean that Fedayee is Fadix's sock? And Batabat is not a sock, that person lives in Hungary, where Adil never traveled as far as I know. This can be easily verified by Batabat's IP address. Geycha and Zangezur stuff was already addressed by me and admins at AE board, no need for repetition. “Ehud Lesar registered a couple of hours after it was obvious that Adil Baguirov will be banned”. Just a coincedence. New editors get registered here all the time, they don’t follow arbcom cases, as they have no idea that the registration moment can be a reason for their ban. The rest is pretty much the same, assumptions that cannot be considered a proof of sockpuppetry. I find it strange that some admins can rely on it and defend blocks made on the basis of such "evidence". Grandmaster (talk) 06:38, 14 January 2008 (UTC)


 * Also, the account of Ehud was created on 28 March 2007, and Adil was banned on 11 April 2007. Adil’s ban was proposed on 23 March, along with bans of a number of other users, including some of those who provide evidence on Ehud. In the end only 3 users were banned for the period of 1 year, i.e. Adil, Artaxiad and Fadix. Just some background for general information. It was not a few hours difference, as some claim. Grandmaster (talk) 07:00, 14 January 2008 (UTC)

VartanM re: You may want to remind Fedayee that user Batabat is in Hungary, this has been confirmed via lengthy check. And don't tell me now that Adil also divides his time between Hungary, Washington, and Texas... On the other hand, perhaps, it would be good if Fedayee makes up more stuff on this one, he will just further confirm the invalidity of his accusations against Ehud Lesar. Regarding your questioning why Batabat called him Dr Baguirov, it's because Adil Baguirov holds a PhD. I think this was already identified by banned Fadix and Artaxiad in the course of the first ArbCom. This website was created prior to being linked to Adil Baguirov's page, and it was obviously used by another flag source as well. So I am not sure what gives you a ground to assume that original page at Hypermart was created by Adil Baguirov. Isn't there any other person on Internet? Atabek (talk) 09:13, 14 January 2008 (UTC)
 * Batabat, yet another sock of Adil (see further on Fedayee's evidence page which was expended and will be expended more in the upcoming days)

Wanted to add one more point to the arguments. If Ehud Lesar isn't Adil Bagirov, then... where is Adil Bagirov? I have hard time to believe that user who was blocked from editing and was accused many many times of sockpuppeting, suddenly gave up and decided not to contribute to Wikipedia anymore. I just don't believe it! He didn't give up, and do you think all Azeri users would be so vigorously defending an innocent new Azeri user, who came to life less then a month ago, and didn't contribute anything to the importance of Wikipedia yet... Of course not! All Azeri know that their case is defending Adil Bagirov(who I also beleive has private messaging with those Azeri users) - mighty Azeri user with long history of Wikipedia violations pushing Azeri POV... Lara, Of course he is Adil it is obvious! Steelmate (talk) 15:52, 14 January 2008 (UTC)
 * Steelmate, I wonder how the user, who just started out on November 6th, would be so familiar with User:AdilBaguirov activity blocked back in April, so as to make conclusions: "mighty Azeri user with long history of Wikipedia violations pushing Azeri POV... Lara, Of course he is Adil it is obvious!"? Hmm. Atabek (talk) 16:26, 14 January 2008 (UTC)
 * Thanks, I do have an analytical mind. It is an Armenian thing, you wouldn't understand. Steelmate (talk) 16:35, 14 January 2008 (UTC)


 * Thank you for the great insight, Steelmate, and please accept my greetings about your analytical mind, part of expressed national pride. Though I am still not convinced how this is relevant to discussion, Wikipedia rules, and how a user established in November, 2007 knows so much about user banned in April, 2007, so as to make a definitive conclusion as "Lara, Of course he is Adil it is obvious!" :) Atabek (talk) 17:39, 14 January 2008 (UTC)


 * Indeed, it is very strange to see such a profound knowledge of Adil from someone who's in wiki only a couple of months. Thanks for your very analytical post, but it would be good to see at least one real proof of Ehud being Adil. We know that Adil happens to be in Texas from time to time, but since population of that state is over 20 million, Adil is hardly the only one interested in Azerbaijani affairs there, especially considering that he does not permanently reside there, unlike Ehud. Using that logic, we must ban all Armenian users from California as socks. Grandmaster (talk) 17:24, 14 January 2008 (UTC)


 * Grandmaster, your 1001-st post on this issue is the prove that Ehud is Adil. Why spend so much time and energy otherwise? Let's consider the opposite. Ehud is an innocent user, he is not Adil, and he was accused of being Adil based on everything he does - looks like Adil, smells like Adil and sounds like Adil. The simple solution would be to register a new account in Wikipedia, name it Frank Sonoma form Scottish ancestry (or something like that) and start doing edits on Azerbaijan that wouldn't look sound .. etc like Adil's, because if you are not Adil, then it would be very easy and natural thing to do, isn't? Instead of spending hundrends of hours trying to defend Adil's sockpuppet, uselessly by the way, as Adil cannot contribute as non Adil, it is just impossible. For him is better to wait until the ban is over and join Wikipedia legitimately, and for us is better to return editing Wikipedia instead of wasting everybodies precious time. Steelmate (talk) 18:33, 14 January 2008 (UTC)
 * Thanks for the advice, it looks like you know what you are talking about. However why a legitimate user should accept an unfair block and create himself a new account with the risk to be banned again as a sock of the banned user? There were precedents in the history of wiki when unfairly blocked users successfully contested their blocks and were rehabilitated. This is what we are trying to do in accordance with Wikipedia rules. However this thread has exhausted itself, it is time to move to the next step of dispute resolution. Grandmaster (talk) 18:49, 14 January 2008 (UTC)
 * There really is no dispute here. It's you and Atabek alone spending so much time and energy here trying to get Adil's oh so obvious sock unbanned. I don't see how that's useful.--  Ευπάτωρ   Talk!! 19:10, 14 January 2008 (UTC)

Eupator, perhaps, you could provide us with real proofs then that Ehud Lesar is Adil Baguirov? Atabek (talk) 19:51, 14 January 2008 (UTC)
 * Everyone seems to be satisfied with the plethora of evidence regarding this other than you and Grandmaster. I still can't fathom why. Do you know something that we don't?--  Ευπάτωρ   Talk!! 21:24, 14 January 2008 (UTC)


 * Perhaps, because those "everyone" seem to be very confident that Ehud is Adil without any identity or checkuser proofs. And "everyone" includes users of only one side in a conflict as well as blocking admins who are trying to justify their actions after fact. Thanks. Atabek (talk) 23:49, 14 January 2008 (UTC)
 * Such obvious cases don't really require anything else. You keep referring to sides in a conflict, Atabek it would be really good for everyone if you ceased for a moment looking at Wikipedia as a battlefield.--  Ευπάτωρ   Talk!! 00:26, 15 January 2008 (UTC)

You are confirming it’s Adil, aren’t you realising this? Grandmaster, Batabat was unbanned by an admin who didn’t know what he was doing. The initial admin who blocked him is a checkuser and an ex-arbitrator. Batabat was a single purpose account. And Atabak’s claim doesn’t make sense. He was calling him Dr. and has gone to defend him after his fifth ever edit on Wikipedia. And he was never proven to not be Adil, neither proven that he lived in Hungry or any of this sort of thing. This is what Batabat claimed, and he requested webchat and phone them. It was the same situation by an obviously single purpose account. That both of you deny it to be a SPA only minimises the validity of the counter-evidence provided. Batabat was created on February and it was February escalations mostly thanks to Adil which led to the first arbitration case. His contributions leave no doubt, as he registered his account to change Persian for Turkic, defend Adil Baguirov, vote in a FORK article which you wanted to be kept, votes on a Featured article candidate which you wanted to be rejected, added an infamous comment on his userpage with Adil’s rational about Armenia then he retired by supporting Dacy69. In fact, when he was unbanned Adil already found his permanent new login, Ehud Lesar, no need to keep Batabat. In fact, him leaving after fighting so energetically to be unblocked is what Adil would do.

Also, you both have confirmed indirectly that Ehud Lesar has acted in bad faith without realising it. You admitted Ehud Lesar is a fake name; the final confirmation was posted on Thatcher’s page. And you have admitted it is an Azeri user. By this you admit that the claim that Ehud Lesar was a Jew was a fabrication, and that his uses of a Jewish name while pretending to be a Jew was role playing. He has gone further by editing Jewish related articles and adding himself in the Jewish Wiki project…. an innocent user who would have nothing to hide and would have no reason to forge such an identity… in fact, this is exactly what we would expect from Adil to do as he has done on various occasions when he registered with several foreign names.

There is this entire thing with the Lesar name also. Ehud claims to live in Texas, and it was confirmed that he is not a Lesar. The choice of name implicates Adil as he works in Texas for a consulting firm which has several major contracts with the Lesar family for the construction of pipelines in Azerbaijan and they indeed live in Texas. An innocent member would have chosen a name like Cohen, Lesar is not a common Jewish name. For anyone living in Texas to even think of fabricating an identity with the name Lesar, they would have as reference the Lesar family. Adil is in the oil business and the Lesar family is his associate. So is the link.

Geycha, Atabek and Grandmater, if both of you had valid arguments you would not make up claims on this. The claim by both Adil and Ehud is not available on the internet; Atabek provided one link which does not include anything pre-Soviet as claimed by Ehud and Adil. The only thing on the web which contained anything on this was hosted in a free host which has discontinued its free hosting plan in 2004. This page as shown was added in Adil Baguirov’s database (from his website as shown). So the information isn’t available for over three years on the internet. If Ehud Lesar has read the page which was hardly ranked three years ago on Google, Adil’s website would be the first to show on Google. If this is the case, then it will still confirm an Adil/Ehud link. Besides, if that page which was shot in 2004 was not done by Adil, Adil surely helped them as the host used several hosted Azeri sites which mirrored materials provided by Adil, and also hosted the Azeri students page (1998-1999), I don’t think anyone would deny that Adil during those years is the one, alongside his recurring lobbyist friends, who built most of the student mailing lists, sites etc.

Grandmaster, while it is true that Adil’s ban was proposed on March 23, this remained a proposition until Paul August came with his propositions only agreeing with Adil’s and Artaxiad’s while opposing with the rest of the bans. There was lobbying from both sides to oppose the bannings, there wasn’t confirmation for the banning of Adil until Paul came with the new propositions. You claim co-incidence, the problem here is that you are singling evidence and treating them without consideration of others. Of course many members register here, but in this case not only the registration concords but mysteriously this same person happens to have all the other characteristics of Adil.

The promotion of Adil… Grandmaster your analogy is ridiculous, I was a member when Fadix was not yet banned, I knew his contributions. When he first came on Wikipedia he had to deal with many and various things and those barnstars were long overdue. During the arbitration none of us had any time to get involved, all of it was mostly left on his shoulders. There are many members who still think that he should not have been banned, including at the time some Admins and even Turkish members who were surprised by the decision. The barnstars were given with this in mind. How can this be compared with Ehud Lesar who had no contact with Adil on Wikipedia? - Fedayee (talk) 00:50, 15 January 2008 (UTC)


 * Fedayee, I am still awaiting your elaboration on the comment: "given the possible relations between Atabek and Adil off-wiki". Please, produce evidence to support your claim now.
 * Also provide proof for this claim of yours:
 * "The choice of name implicates Adil as he works in Texas for a consulting firm which has several major contracts with the Lesar family for the construction of pipelines in Azerbaijan and they indeed live in Texas".
 * And there is no need to make assumptions based on my message, claiming that I "confirm" Ehud Lesar being ethnic Azerbaijani. Azerbaijani in context of this conflict is a definition of nationality/citizenship, which also incorporates minorities, who in one way or the other live in Azerbaijan and express Azerbaijani point of view. Check Azerbaijani Jews article, if you need more clarification. Atabek (talk) 01:19, 15 January 2008 (UTC)


 * The Batabat question can be resolved easily. He provided his email, any admin can write him and check his location. He is located in Hungary, so he cannot be Adil’s sock. Adil is based in the US, and I’m not aware of him ever traveling to Hungary. What’s the point in bringing this up over and over and over again? This can be easily verified by Batabat’s IP address, just ask for another investigation. Linking Adil to every account that was ever blocked in wikipedia is not a proof that Ehud is a sock, you need to come up with something better than that.


 * Fedayee says: How can this be compared with Ehud Lesar who had no contact with Adil on Wikipedia?


 * And how about Steelmate who had no contact with Adil in Wikipedia, but knows very well who Adil is? Does it mean that Steelmate is a sock? Or he is the only one with "analytical mind", as he claims, due to certain circusmtances?


 * Geycha stuff, which was rejected by the admins at WP:AE as well, is not a serious argument either. The information about this is available in Azerbaijani media, I read about it a few years ago, and I’m not Adil. One could read about it in newspapers like Zerkalo, Echo, etc. How do you know that Ehud did not read about it in Azerbaijani media, which is published in many languages?


 * As for the registration date, on 28 March it was not clear whether Adil would be banned or not, this is the arbcom page as of 28 March 2007.


 * As you can see, Adil was almost in the same situation like Eupator and Fedayee, and it was not clear who would eventually get banned. Only half of arbitrators voted by that time. So it is clearly not like some claim “Ehud Lesar registered a couple of hours after it was obvious that Adil Baguirov will be banned”.


 * As for the name Lesar, I never said that it was not his real name, but it is possible that it is not. Not everyone contributes here under his real name. And that does not mean that Ehud is not of Jewish roots, as Atabek correctly noted, Azerbaijan has a large Jewish community, and many emigrants maintain close ties with Azerbaijan. Grandmaster (talk) 07:03, 15 January 2008 (UTC)


 * Atabek, there is much more preparation with evidence than the two other arbitrations. I will do that only during an arbitration case. You know I can not provide the evidence here so why are you bothering asking?


 * The evidence for your second question? Exxon, Chevron and Halliburton Energy Services are the three major companies in Texas implicated in the extraction in Azerbaijan. Halliburton had a major role in the so-called re-construction in Iraq and reconstruction of its oil infrastructure (and with all the controversies surrounding it). Adil Baguirov was both implicated with Iraq oil projects (he represented Angus during official US military meetings and press conferences still available in official military archives --do you want the evidence?) and in the new projects in Azerbaijan just like Halliburton. Adil Baguirov works for an energy consulting firm based in the same city (Houston) and is implicated in two major projects of the company. There is no energy consulting firm, at least those dealing with oil like Adil, and who are stationed in Texas who do not have Halliburton as one of their major associate for anything related to Azerbaijan or Iraq (And Adil is implicated in both). The evidence about Adil working in Texas has been already provided (energy consulting firm). So the rest is just a logical conclusion. But we are diverting the subject here, as those evidences were provided to explain the rational and why that name is implicated with Adil (to show why Adil would come with such a name). It is also of interest as to why Adil with all his energy will try to dissociate himself with Ehud Lesar. Not only did he usurped the family name (which would be an embarrassment for him if this is known) but also Dave Lesar is a member of the American Iranian Council and what would he think of Adil here since he posted, under several socks, anti-Iranian material. It is all for the interest of Adil, to push this over and over until being dissociated from that name. No other socks of Adil have gone that far to get unblocked and there is a reason why this one goes that far.


 * As for the information on Azerbaijan Jews, don't push this Atabek, it has been settled. Just re-check the evidences on the impossibility. Adil screwed it big time, and it is logical that if ever Ehud is [by a huge mistake] unbanned, he will probably for a fabricated reason stop posting altogether and Adil will be creating another sock. The reason for the unbanning is obviously to dissociate himself of a mistake he has done with that name.


 * Grandmaster, Batabat proving he is from Hungary incriminates Adil even more because it means that he can claim to be from anywhere. You claimed that Batabat is a genuine user, the fact is that he is not, he was a SPA he registered in February and his first ever edits were to replace Persian with Turkic and to go directly on Khoikhoi’s talkpage to defend Adil and vote with you. He did nothing else. It can’t be that you aren’t realising how obvious it is that Batabat was not a genuine user and that he too pressurised and requested to prove through webchat and by calling.


 * On Steelmate, yes it can be that he is a sock, if you want to prove that go ahead, but your comparison in this case does not support your position because it is true that Steelmate’s knowledge does sound suspicious (which incriminates Ehud, and you are attempting to find analogies which does the opposite). But on Ehud’s case there are many other suspicious things which when put together incriminates Ehud.


 * Geycha, Grandmaster why have you left off the internet now? Are you admitting finally that the information isn’t coming from the internet? Why don’t you provide a reference in Azerbaijani? Marshall will translate this for us. The fact remains that Ehud made a claim identical to Adil, which no user has ever made before other than Adil, and is not available neither is French, German, English, Russian on the internet. I’ve checked Turkish too. Do you have any Azerbaijani link? (We’re talking about pre-Soviet). The Admins on AE didn’t know how specific the Geycha stuff was, why don’t you ask them again now after what has been posted here?


 * March 28, it was clear that Adil will be banned, Grandmaster you are denying the obvious and trying to annoy me. Both sides expected the proposed decision to be changed, which Paul August did, but endorsed Adil’s ban, he was the fifth to vote for his ban (7 was majority) refusing to change this while he did for others (except Artaxiad). It wasn’t until Paul August’s changes and vote that it was confirmed that Adil will inevitably be banned.


 * Grandmaster, Lesar is not an Azerbaijani Jewish name, it is not Russianized, and it is Sephardic, most Jews in Azerbaijan aren’t even Sephardic. There is not a single Lesar in Texas who originates from Azerbaijan. If Ehud is an Azerbaijani Jew who fabricated a name, there are many incompatibilities with his theories. First he calls Khojaly a Genocide, second he calls Algeria a Genocide, when the Jews have nearly entirely been evacuated from Algeria because of crimes perpetrated against them during the same period (how do you expect most Jews to call what has been done against the perpetrators genocide, and when most do not call what happened in Algeria a genocide). The inclusion of Algeria gives away Adil who contributes for a journal that asks to compare Algeria with Armenians every time the Armenian Genocide was to be voted by the French. - Fedayee (talk) 20:05, 15 January 2008 (UTC)


 * Fedayee, here are your two statements:


 * "given the possible relations between Atabek and Adil off-wiki"
 * "You know I can not provide the evidence here so why are you bothering asking?"


 * Thank you, Fedayee. So you make a false accusation against me, in clear violation of WP:AGF and WP:HARASS on multiple counts, making statements without proofs, and then telling me that you cannot provide evidence for those. If so, perhaps, a gesture of good faith in this case would be for your to apologize for your baseless accusation.


 * And I guess your argument in case of identity of Ehud and Adil, and your accusations, would be the same, correct? Again your paragraphs of "evidence" above make claims about Adil's identity, yet produce no proof that Ehud is Adil. Atabek (talk) 21:55, 15 January 2008 (UTC)


 * Changing the subject neither attacking the person who provides the evidence would discredit the link between Adil and Ehud. You have enough English skills to understand that given the possible relations between Atabek and Adil off-wiki isn't a violation of anything. Your misuse of Wikipedia policies every time the occasion presents itself is disruptive. Also, please do not twist my words; I did not say I cannot provide evidence for that, but rather that I cannot provide the evidence for that here.


 * Your last line is intriguing, jumping from something which is unrelated to Ehud’s case to make a conclusion out of it. - Fedayee (talk) 22:27, 15 January 2008 (UTC)

No, Fedayee, your words are an allegation which you claim in your evidence. And what do you mean, you cannot provide it here? I don't know why, explain me... And since you cannot provide any proofs for your allegation about the possible relations between Atabek and Adil off-wiki, there is no other way but to deem it false. This in turn raises questions as to how your other such "evidence" can be true, especially against checkuser and lack of identity proof. Personally, I just can't wait to see the end of this Wikicomedy, in which you along with few others are trying to prove that one person is another :), when all know that they're not. But for now, regarding your false allegation against me, as I said, I am still waiting for a) an apology taking your words back; or b) proof that Adil and I have relations off-wiki. And I reserve the right to use your claims as evidence of your violations. Atabek (talk) 01:27, 16 January 2008 (UTC)

Fedayee, drop it, you are clearly being baited. The evidence cannot be dismissed as a result the topic is being derailed by certain users. One day some people might accept that Wikipedia is not a battleground. An administrator should just close this useless thread. If a party wishes to file an arbitration case regarding the banned user Ehud Laser they should proceed and do so as this is not yielding any results.--  Ευπάτωρ   Talk!! 05:50, 16 January 2008 (UTC)


 * Eupator, what's not yielding results is allegation that Ehud is Adil, which is why the thread remains open. And what do you mean by baiting? Was I the one who made the provocative allegation above about the the possible relations between Atabek and Adil off-wiki, clearly it was Fedayee, right? So I am only questioning if Fedayee has any proofs for that as well as for his other claim that Ehud is Adil. Let him present us that evidence or else acknowledge that his claims are baseless. Atabek (talk) 16:21, 16 January 2008 (UTC)
 * We can not rely on you or Grandmaster to evaluate the validity of the pile of evidence against Ehud, that can only be done by a neutral party. To this day you deny that you were User:Tengri even after checkuser has shown that it was your sockpuppet regardless of your contradictory justifications Tengri is still listed as your sockpuppet: Checkuser case:. This shows that you are not even happy with checkuser evidence when it comes to sockpuppets. Grandmaster has removed from blocked user's pages the tag saying they were the socks of Adil when checkuser had confirmed it already. Look how many are listed here: . Many more went untagged. Both of you also claim that Batabat was a genuine user when his contribution history shows he was certainly not. Also attacking Fedayee or repeating that those are baseless accusations when any administrator can have Ehud unbanned and none have yet is EXTREMELY disruptive. Fedayee's claim that you are being provocative is accurate, and he said this only once and told you he will be bring the evidence only within an arbitration case. Fedayee cannot reveal any information regarding a users real life (such as a real name) in public, that is against Wiki rules.  --   Ευπάτωρ   Talk!! 21:03, 16 January 2008 (UTC)

Eupator, since you seem to be confident, can you please, analyze Fedayee's:


 * "given the possible relations between Atabek and Adil off-wiki"
 * "You know I can not provide the evidence here so why are you bothering asking?"

and produce the evidence which he claims he can't. I will pursue the case further until either evidence is produced or allegations are acknowledged as false accusations. As far as Ehud goes, sooner or later it will set straight that he is not Adil. Atabek (talk) 06:32, 17 January 2008 (UTC)
 * Once again, revealing personal information about a Wikipedia user in public will result in negative consequences. As for proving that Ehud is an actual user, I await patiently until the day when that happens.--  Ευπάτωρ   Talk!! 00:31, 18 January 2008 (UTC)


 * Fedayee, I compiled some counterevidence here. For example, you say that If we search on talkpages, we find that only Adil has ever called Sevan, Geycha.


 * I would advise you to take a look at Talk:Lake Sevan. The name of Geycha was used there since 2005, long before Adil joined Wikipedia. Moreover, it is included in the article about the lake, and guess who included it there? Khoikhoi, the blocking admin:


 * Is Khoikhoi Adil's sock? And Atabek provided you with Internet links to Zangezur republic, plus, you can find that info outside of Internet. You are probably aware that many people use offline sources and that is not against the rules. Grandmaster (talk) 06:17, 16 January 2008 (UTC)


 * And Batabat is a genuine user from Hungary. It is a proven fact. You can ask for another investigation of this if you wish. Try contacting him via email, in fact, any admin can do that since he left his email in his account. Why making baseless allegations that you are unable to prove? As for his edits, I pointed you to User:Davo88, who turned up after many months of absence to vote for deletion of an obscure category. It is hardly a coincidence, but is it a proof that he is a sock? Grandmaster (talk) 06:25, 16 January 2008 (UTC)


 * Grandmaster, you are manipulating what I said; this was addressed by Vartan in your evidence talkpage. If he is intelligent enough to understand it, so can you. You left off an important piece of what I wrote which is:  Others raised it because it was raised by him, or another one discovering someone had made the change. The last piece refers to Beland (in 2006 not 2005) who brought it because of his edit here. He refers to another person and to the possible pronunciation (the third in a row) of Gökça. The other time by another user was by Golbez because Adil brought it. There are several ways to write the way Gökça is pronounced, and Geycha is a less popular one. While it is included as one of the ways to write it commonly, one will call it with the “k”. In this case this was used as evidence because 1) both Ehud and Adil have chosen Geycha (without the k), 2) because both of them have used it for an identical reason, which was to claim a said pre-Soviet independence. It is hard to assume good faith in this case when you are intelligent enough to process my evidence but are using some sophisticated tactics to change their nature to make it easier to produce counter-evidence. The fact is that point 1 and 2 should be dealt with in the same time, and the usage of Geycha by both should not be compared with the simple usage of the word, but the choice from several possible ways of writing it and in allusion to independence. Also, while you included Zankezur republic, you left off Geycha Republic, and no the link provided by Atabek does not support Ehud and Adil’s affirmation, it does say nothing about such republics that are pre-Soviet. Both of you have yet to provide any link for that information. The only thing which supports it was shot in 2004 and was on Adil’s database page.


 * You are also distorting Khoikhoi’s edit, it is true that he made this edit, but in this case what is more important is that he re-introduced Adil Baguirov’s edit of one day earlier. Khoikhoi’s edit was different, see Adil’s edit summery, he uses Geycha as the official name, and only Gokcha in parentheses while Khoikhoi inverted it.


 * Grandmaster, you have been unable to show where it has been proven that Batabat is not Adil. The same way you claim that Drastamat and his socks were not Adil, even though several of his socks re-appeared minutes after DrAlban, a confirmed sock of Adil, was banned with several others which were confirmed to be socks of DrAlban. Also, please refrain from making baseless accusations (from your words) such as your analogies of Batabat and Davo88. This is Batabat contributions and this is Davo88. One is a SPA the other a member for nearly 2 years. Ulvi has done the same as Davo88, while Davo88 did it twice… Ulvi did it on several occasions. Did we accuse him of being a sock?


 * I am not even going to answer Atabek’s baiting as the evidence is what he is expecting to then report me for harassment. We’re all used to such disruptions. If he wants evidence to be provided, he just has to fill an arbitration case. - Fedayee (talk) 21:24, 16 January 2008 (UTC)

Fedayee, this is YOUR statement, not mine. I only asked you for evidence of your false allegation, which you failed to produce so far, so why are you accusing me of "baiting" now. In light of such an eloquent example of false allegation of yours, I am not sure any of your other evidence should be taken seriously at all. But as I said, I am waiting to see how Ehud is to be proven as Adil, by those who claim to know about them more than perhaps Ehud and Adil themselves do :). Atabek (talk) 06:54, 17 January 2008 (UTC)


 * Fedayee, Adil and Ehud spelled it Geycha for a simple reason that that’s the way it is spelled in Azeri. Every Azerbaijani editor would spell it the same way. Gokcha as far as I know is the Turkish spelling. That cannot be a proof that Ehud is a sock. It is also strange that you are asking me to refrain from making baseless accusations, when you have a whole page of them. You say: Grandmaster, you have been unable to show where it has been proven that Batabat is not Adil. And you were unable to show me where it was proven that Batabat is Adil. The burden of proof is on you. The same with other accounts you claim to belong to Adil. When was it proven that those accounts belonged to Adil? It is just you personal belief, that cannot be considered a proof. As for Khoikhoi, he reintroduced Adil’s edit, i.e. “pushed the same POV”, basically the same thing you accuse Ehud of doing. However does Khoikhoi’s edit prove that he is a sock? Of course not. Grandmaster (talk) 05:37, 17 January 2008 (UTC)