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

Preamble
There is nothing in Wikipedia policy that prohibits groups of similar minded people to meet and discuss any issues in any venue, be it via email or meet-ups; nor can there be. To communicate is a fundamental human need and right. Nor can it be assumed that other groups do not maintain mailing lists or some other communication media of their own. The rational assumption must be that everyone communicates offline, whether it is via a maillist, forum, or other means. To crucify one particular group will not discourage such communication amongst others in the least, but will only ensure that one particular POV will dominate after the elimination of that group. There real question here is whether this is detrimental or beneficial to content quality.

Supporting the "Whistleblower" meme endorses WP:OUTING as okay
We all live under the rule of law, and current legislation prohibits third parties from reading emails. ArbCom had the opportunity to take a mature and principled approach when Alex Bakharev made sensational claims of a list that contains 1500 emails about "getting Russavia". They could have reminded people that under law, and ethically, it is unacceptable for third parties to read illicit copies of email lists and that the authenticity would be suspect in any case; therefore they have no interest or desire to view them. They could have over sighted the initial discussion before it got out of hand. Instead the equivocal stance on the issue may have been seen as an encouragement to the continued distribution. In opening this case, the ArbCom has ensured that this maillist would become the required reading by a wider group of people than would not normally have been the case. Even DonaldDuck apparently has a copy of this list.

This, in turn has effectively resulted in the OUTING of the personal identities of a number of people, including that of Russavia himself, apparently.

Many have promoted this "whistleblower" meme, perhaps partly to sooth their qualms over indulging in the mild pornographic delight of viewing peoples private affairs, perhaps partly in the belief that there is some kind of "whistleblower" provision in the Electronic Communications Privacy Act. But lets not kid ourselves, this is not the email of some foundation, corporation or governmental organization, but the personal correspondence and private property of a group of people. In real life, a "whislteblower" generally acknowledges their identify publicly, but this has not happened.

For those people who promote and applaud this "whistleblower" meme overlook one thing, this alleged person effectively OUTED the real life identities of many of the participants. I hope the ArbCom is not endorsing the notion that it is okay to OUT people's personal real life identities if it reveals the imagined "vote stacking" of some obscure AfD that the majority don't care about nor have interest in. One was already been threatened with possible prosecution if their identity would ever be revealed. I hope that this case is not seen as an endorsement or the encouragement to people to commit felony crime due to the resulting pay off.

Some quick responses
Hiberniantears initiated a serious content dispute on the article Occupation of the Baltic states that had been stable for over a year, taking unilateral action to split the article then using his admin tools to enforce the result by page protecting his preferred version, he even initiated an ANI report on himself knowing his actions was a serious breach of policy, which he neglects to post a link to. I regret now an RfC was not opened to examine his appalling misused of admin tools in a content dispute he was intimately involved in, but this ArbCom case will be a suitable venue I suppose. --Martintg (talk) 00:55, 25 September 2009 (UTC)

Attempt to inject ultra-Nationalist POV
There is a core group of two editors, Offliner and PasswordUsername, that seem to be intent on disrupting Estonian articles by inserting text that supports two Russian ultra-Nationalist memes: The intent of this meme appears to be to polarise Russian speaking editors against Estonian speaking editors, creating the illusion that there is some kind of wider Russian-Estonian battle going on. This has worked to some degree with editors like Shotlandiya, FeelSunny, Igny and Russavia incited to battle across a whole range of Estonia related articles.
 * 1) that Estonia as a country and its people are sympathetic with Nazism and as a result
 * 2) Estonia commits human rights abuses against Russian speakers with in that country.


 * Note that Petri Krohn was banned for a year in a previous ArbCom case for attempting to incite similar ethnic hatred using similar claims of Nazi sympathies, and has apparently created an anti-Estonian hate-speech site on the internet during his ban.

To see that this campaign is focused on Estonia, one has to look no further than the absence of activity in Latvian and Finnish articles. Latvia had not one, but two Waffen SS divisions, and its veterans march through downtown Riga every year[], while the Finnish President parades a "Nazi flag", yet these editors have never disrupted those articles as they are with Estonian related articles. Nor have they contributed anything of substance or value to the Estonian topic space, only continued and chronic aggravation.

Russavia
In general I have no real issue with Russavia, apart from his disruptive editing, and note that I didn't participate in the recent ANI discussion that lead to his ban for wikilawyering and making legal threats, though I do support his topic ban in Soviet and Baltic states topics due to his past disruptive behaviour. Generally I applaud his efforts in building the encyclopedia. However it seems that he swallowed the "Russia vs. Estonia" meme after being drawn the circle of Offliner and PasswordUsername. Russavia's WP:POINTish creation of the article ESStonia was highly disruptive in addition to being extremely offensive to a great many editors, both Estonian and Russian, earning him the epithet RuSSavia from one Russian editor. Russavia has edited hundreds if not thousands of distinct articles, it is only a handful of articles where our edits have actually overlapped. He has long made claims of "stalking", but this is probably more a function of his ego than any thing else, given that he had openly invited people to inspect his contribution history via his signature. I think it was Alex who actually pointed this out to him and he has since changed his sig. It was a source of some mirth at the time, however it seems that a sarcastic comment is Russavia's "definitive proof" of an intent to "stalk". I guess when a third party reads the private correspondence of other people, misconstruing the meaning is inevitable.

In reply to Russavia's latest attempt to continue to push this harassment/stalking barrow, which is probably more a function of his inclination than anything else : In regard to Russavia's talk page, I had only left one single message before he asked me not to post any more messages, but I had missed it because the request was buried in subsequent threaded conversation. However did I see his second request and have not left any message ever since.
 * 1) I don't recall the articles Russavia cites were ever mentioned on the mail list, and if they were it would have been after the event
 * 2) They represent a tiny proportion of the articles Russavia was editing at the time, if it was true stalking his other articles would also be impacted
 * 3) The articles were all related to topics I have an interest in, Estonia and other selected topics like South Ossetia
 * 4) I found my way to most of these articles by a combination of methods including checking the contribution history of people other than Russavia
 * 5) There are a similar number of articles which I could list where Russavia arrived for the first time after I had edited it, which could just as easily be framed as "stalking" if I was so inclined, like Vladimir Hütt, Treaty of Tartu (Russian–Estonian), The Soviet Story, etc, etc.
 * 6) All this occurred around six months ago when Russavia were particularly disruptive, it is not ongoing
 * 7) I had sent emails to the maillist, twice, discouraging any who may have contemplated harassing Russavia

Neo-Nazism in Estonia
Shotlandiya recreates this previously deleted POVFORK on June 5, PasswordUsername expands the fork on June 6th, admin User:Chase me ladies, I'm the Cavalry, changes it into a redirect and salts it against disruptive recreation

ESStonia
More to come.

Discrimination against ethnic minorities in Estonia
Offliner creates this POVFORK on June 1, PasswordUsername, FeelSunny and Shotlandiya assist expand the fork over the next couple of days. POVFORK merged into Human Rights in Estonia after AfD discussion.

Discussion and planning of new POVFORKs
Offliner suggests to PasswordUsername creating a new article Criticism of Estonia's attitude towards nazism, PasswordUsername responds by suggesting a title like Rehabilitation of fascism or even Fascism in Estonia. This draft article, posted to Offliner's userspace but since deleted, containing text like "According to organization X, there is considerable glorification of the country's nazi past in Estonia, with parades of former SS-officers taking place in the capital Tallinn annually" which is total fabrication to the degree that it was seen as an offensive attack page by an Estonian editor

Jaak Aaviksoo
PasswordUsername inserts a BLP violation claiming Jaak Aaviksoo wears Nazi symbols on June 5, Inserts another BLP violation claiming Aaviksoo attended a Waffen SS event, PasswordUsername then COATRACKs material unrelated to Aaviksoo's biography and removal of sourced text related to his viewpoints and again, Shotlandiya comes out of the blue to assist UsernamePassword's reverts, again, then PasswordUsername steps in to revert, again and again, then Shotlandiya steps again, despite attempts to discuss on talk.

Neo-Nazism
June 9th, PasswordUsername inserts BLP violation claiming that a certain Ministry of Justice official was the leader of Estonian neo-Nazis. Reinserts Matter reported to BLP notice board on the same day. PU reinserts the BLP vio, again, and again Aug 10, Offliner reverts deletion of unsourced material and the same BLP violating material from the Jaak Aaviksoo article above, claiming in edit summary it was sourced. Oflliner COATRACKs material that has nothing to do with the article, reverts, and again, despite attempts to discuss on talk

Monument of Lihula
PasswordUsername inserts text contrary to what the actual monument states. More to come.

Kaitsepolitsei
Offliner adds the WP:UNDUE opinion of a neo-Nazi Risto Teinonen in regard to the Estonian Police service, reverts, Russavia (never having edited the article before) reverts, Offliner reverts again, Russavia reverts and again and again. Offliner reverts and again and again and again. PasswordUsername steps in to revert, and Russavia, and so it goes, on and on, despite attempts to discuss on talk

Crime in Estonia
PasswordUsername inserts of undue and out of scope material (coatracking),. An edit war ensures despite attempts to discuss on talk, culminating in the insertion of the text "Children are often molested" and resulting in an ANI report and 72 hour block.

Ethnocracy
PasswordUsername WP:POINTishly inserts totally irrelevant link in "See also" (Estonia isn't even mentioned in the article) Shotlandiya arrives out of the blue and reverts, again, again, again, and again, and so on, and on, and on, and on, and on, and on.....

In the meanwhile an attempt at discussion on talk, goes unanswered.

The madness only stops when Shotlandiya is reported to AE and topic banned

Accidental forwarding of one of William Connelly's emails
I've received a number of emails from William, as well as the dozens emails from many other admins and users, none of these other emails have been forwarded to the maillist. Rather, I forward these and other emails of interest to my regular off-web mail account (which also has "wikipedia" prepended to the name), annotating them with notes, before deleting them from my gmail account.

This one single particular email from early February was accidentally forwarded to the maillist, most likely due to gmail's predictive text feature when typing the first few letters of an address. Given the relative newness of the maillist back in February and the address appearing at the top of the predictive text selection drop down box when typing "w", the wrong address was inadvertently selected. Since I don't receive emails back from the maillist server that I send, it went undetected. It was an honest mistake of inattentiveness.

As I am sure William would have corresponded with the handful of people who were members back in February, many of them would have been aware of his phone number in any case. That it became public is the responsibility of the hacker/leaker. I don't think this particular accident, which I apologise for, falsifies Biophy's assertion No any private information was disclosed in emails, except information about the participants themselves and information that was openly posted by others in wikimedia space., since he and eight others joined the list later and would not have received it and thus not have been aware of it.

Offliner's claims that I "continued to be disruptive after his 1RR sanction was lifted"
I don't know what relevance this has, since it was never discussed on the list, but since Offliner brought it up, I will reply in relation to article Kuril Islands dispute that he discusses. Offliner was also subject to the same 1RR, Based on this investigation, Offliner was placed on 1RR on 22 June, 2009.

Later, while I didn't object to the 1RR restriction as it an acceptable price to pay to stop Offliner, Russavia and PasswordUsername (who were similarly restricted) disrupting the project, several other editors objected, and the sanction was later vacated by Thatcher.

After his sanctions were lifted, Offliner has continued to be disruptive.

I had previously edited the article Kuril Islands dispute back in 2007 and had it on my watchlist. I noticed Offliner was editing the article for the first time on 9 July, 2009:, attempting to remove all other viewpoints from the lead with the exception of the Russian nationalist viewpoint, claiming it was all anti-Russian POV. In the mean time I engage in discussion on the article talk page, and a third party on July 15 concludes that my attempt to balance the lead looks goods

A week later Offliner returns and begins edit warring again on July 23, attempting to remove all POVs except for the Russian POV, this time with regular User:Kintetsubuffalo, who reverts Offliner's removal of sourced material and undue duplication. Tag team member Russavia wades in and makes blind reverts in support of Offliner

I attempted to discuss the issue on talk again, which Offliner disingenuously portrayed as an "Outing" in an ANI report. I was subsequently indef-blocked, but it was overturned for reasons given in the block log and the ANI report, all before I even woke up the following morning and aware of what was happening, btw. This episode illustrates the methods with which Offliner, Russavia and PasswordUsername attempt deal with content disputes, by attempting to get their opponents blocked or banned.

Vexatious claims of "WP:OUTING"
PasswordUsername has attempted to emulate the antics of Offliner in submitting vexatious ANI reports in an attempt to WP:GAME ANI in order to WP:HARASS me and gain the upper hand in a content dispute, by claiming that I had attempted to "out him" by mentioning his name, even though he had his name clearly displayed in bold text on his original userpage for almost the entire time of its existance from May 11 until September 19, when he claimed lost his password and created his new identity. Given the seriousness of WP:OUTING generally, and the fact that PasswordUsername admits being a regular editor of Encyclopedia Dramatica, I find this behaviour absolutely unconscionable and illustrates the extreme tactics adopted by some.

More disruption over Estonian public figures
PasswordUsername is edit warring over offensively framed comments on the Lia Looveer article talk page which serves no purpose related to improving the article but rather seems to be intended as a disruptive provocation,,