Wikipedia:Arbitration/Requests/Case/Mzajac/Evidence

Mzajac used their status as an admin to intimidate another editor in a content dispute
In Special:Diff/1193469606, during an argument which seems to be partly about a content dispute and partly about behavior, Mzajac wrote "Maybe you could try to accept the idea that I will keep editing Wikipedia and that I will remain an admin". To be fair, this was in response to a statement by User:Mellk that "you should not have sysop privileges". Still, it seems like an inappropriate thing to say. Admins need to be very careful to keep their content editing and admin actions distinct and avoid even the appearance that they are using their status as an admin to prevail in a content dispute. In this edit, Mzajac appears to have gone out of their way to connect them. RoySmith (talk) 18:17, 16 January 2024 (UTC)

Mzajac move warred at Battle of Kyiv, has a history of other Kyiv-related issues, and continued his move war following the expiration of a topic ban
As correctly noted in the preliminary statements, Mzajac very rarely uses the administrative toolset. I also note that Mzajac was, in December 2020, topic banned from Kyiv, broadly construed, for one year. That the user took administrative actions at Battle of Kyiv, therefore, warrants close examination.

In September 2020, Mzajac engaged in move-warring in an attempt to move the then-Battle of Kiev page to Battle of Kyiv. This involved twice moving the former to the latter (1, 2), each time overwriting an existing redirect, and even after a user had reverted the admin's bold move. After the admin boldly moved the page a second time, a user reverted the admin's move-over-redirect again, telling the admin to use RM. A few months later, the user was topic banned from Kyiv, broadly construed, after an AE discussion in which evidence was presented related to the administrator's general warring over the name of the Ukrainian capital.

One might think that all of this would be enough to change behavior, and to get the administrator to uphold the heightened standards of behavior that are expected of administrators. Alas, one would be wrong.

In February 2022, a mere three months after Mzajac's topic ban from Kyiv timed out, the user used his deletion tool in order to free up the page for a page move, despite knowing that the page move would be contested. And, even though the page move was contested, and the result was no consensus, the administrator did not so much as lift a finger to self-revert their third bold move of the page. Rather than attempting to gain consensus at any point during this multi-year process, the administrator has used advanced permissions to get a Kyiv-related page renamed to his preferred version as a fait accompli. — Red-tailed hawk  (nest) 03:50, 17 January 2024 (UTC)

Mzajac was unresponsive to AE in 2020 and was TBANned
All users are expected to respond in a timely fashion to inquiries at WP:AE, and administrators are expected to respond in a timely fashion to any concerns about their conduct. Mzajac fell short of both of these expectations in. Ymblanter initiated the thread on 1 December. After 15 days of Mzajac evading scrutiny, El_C closed the thread with a topic ban, writing -- Tamzin  &#91;cetacean needed&#93; (they&#124;xe&#124;she) 04:09, 18 January 2024 (UTC)

Mzajac was unresponsive to AE in 2022 and was strongly criticized
When Ymblanter brought Mzajac back to AE in 2022, Paul Siebert explicitly requested Mzajac's participation, in addition to the baseline expectation. Mzajac replied He said nothing further in the remaining five days of the thread's pendency. Dennis Brown, in closing the thread, wrote -- Tamzin  &#91;cetacean needed&#93; (they&#124;xe&#124;she) 04:09, 18 January 2024 (UTC)

Mzajac was dismissive of ADMINCOND concerns in this case, even while acknowledging unfamiliarity with admin policies
Mzajac's response to being told they had improperly reversed another admin's deletion of their own redirect was to complain that and to describe the arbitration proceedings as. In a subsequent comment he wrote that he, a fundamental misunderstanding of both WP:RAAA and WP:INVOLVED. He then protested that the basic policies at play were too complicated:

-- Tamzin  &#91;cetacean needed&#93; (they&#124;xe&#124;she) 04:52, 18 January 2024 (UTC)

Failure to be accountable
During the AE discussion brought up earlier by that was closed by me, the singular statement made by Mzajac was: "" and I closed it almost 5 days later in the only way I could. Between the time that he made that statement and when I closed the discussion, Mzajac made a number of edits elsewhere on the English wiki, (59. I believe ) to such pages as Minsk agreements, Talk:Russia–Ukraine relations, and others in the same topic area. This isn't cleaning up a few loose ends because he is busy in RL, this is willful disregarding ADMINACCT at a board set up to review Arbitration matters.

On a more personal note, I am puzzled why we have admins that have topic bans to begin with. Dennis Brown 2&cent; 12:40, 18 January 2024 (UTC)

RoySmith's evidence unfairly misrepresents Mzajac
I am uninvolved with the topic area and the editors in the dispute. I find that 's evidence above uses unfairly misrepresents Mzajac by saying their invocation of their admin status was a statement of power. clearly shows that Mellk first brought up Mzajac's mop in a discussion on Talk:Russia:. Six minutes later, Mellk posted on Mzajac's talk page with a diff from that conversation. The Mellk-initiated discussion about Mzajac's sysop status then continues on that page. I fail to see how Mzajac could have "gone out of their way to connect [content editing and admin actions]" when they were, at most, responding to the connections of others.

Like above, I am also confused on why admins can have topic bans. AirshipJungleman29 (talk) 17:14, 20 January 2024 (UTC)
 * If this better goes somewhere else, I apologise, and ask that it be moved. This area of WP is a little unfamiliar to me. AirshipJungleman29 (talk) 17:16, 20 January 2024 (UTC)

Mzajac misrepresented evidence at ANI
Mzajac opened reported Paul Siebert at ANI, accusing him of sharing their personal theories on the existence of national groups, in particular “Clearly, no Ukrainian [...] nation existed in XIX century” (ellipsis in the original), stressing that it’s particularly unacceptable to voice personal conspiracy theories about the non-existence of a nation precisely when such conspiracy theories are being used to incite genocide in Ukraine. This was accompanied by articles on Putin and the following: Analysis: Saying ‘another nation doesn’t exist is something we need to pay attention to because it usually precedes atrocious actions,’ one historian said. Siebert's actual comment was a general argument against Primordialism, and a recognition of the multiethnic character of the Russian Empire. Mzajac intentionally omitted part of the quotation: Clearly, no Ukrainian (as well as Russian) nation existed in XIX century (bolding mine). Far from anti-Ukrainian bias this indicates a historical perspective on the development of modern nations. This dishonest framing was noted by Ealdgyth. 

Suboptimal behaviour at RSN
Mzajac opened a discussion at RSN on the use of the Great Russian Encyclopedia as a source, stating that it is linked in over 100 en.Wikipedia articles. The source appears to be repeating blatant non-WP:NPOV Russian propaganda and should be deprecated as an independent neutral WP:RS. He cited as examples GRE articles on Russia, Ukraine and Zaporizhzhia, which show Russia’s borders as claimed by the Russian government and not as internationally recognised, concluding that [GRE] is not reliable and should not be used for any citations. It would seem like a clear-cut case, but the source is not used for anything of this sort, instead being used in articles about rocks, mountains, sportsmen and other uncontroversial historical figures and topics.

Mzajac then bludgeoned the discussion, replying to virtually every comment. When told that his own evidence did not support his claims, he stopped responding to a user and moved on to the next. At least two editors complained about the bludgeoning.

At RSN Boynamedsue accidentally referred to Ukraine as “the Ukraine”. Mzajac challenged this, and Boynamedsue rectified immediately, commenting that “the Ukraine” had been standard for most of his life and old habits die hard. Mzajac responded with do you also write “Eskimo” and “Negro” when you’re not being condescending to national and racial groups, with the excuse that you’re old enough that casual prejudice feels normal? Wake up. It’s the 2020s now. 

Mzajac also argued that [a]ll Russian sources on Russian history […] are potentially problematic (ellipsis mine) and Russian-language writing has a pervasive bias in refusing to acknowledge that Rus and Russia are different things. He concluded this without knowing Russian. I don't think any of this is acceptable.

Problems with POV
Debating how to reflect Kuindzhi’s nationality, Mzajac’s posited that [a]lthough known by several names, Ukraine has always been a definable country, region, and territory during historical times. This is not true of any nation and goes against policy/MOS. He further claimed that Ukraine is the homeland of Pontic Greeks. Pontic Greeks as an ethno-cultural group existed for millennia before Ukraine came to be. 

After I argued for using historical placenames in historical articles (MOS:PLACE), and mentioned that the listed POB of a person is not only geographical coordinates but the legal/political entity where that person was born, Mzajac accused me of using this argument to justify ignoring reliable sources and wiping out Ukrainian identity and posting offensive colonial nonsense, echoing Putin’s essay and speeches inciting genocide in Ukraine. I don't think I "echoed" anything inciting genocide and resent this accusation.

Re. RoySmith’s comment
Continuing the previous discussion, Mzajac repeated that I was using offensive statements about Ukrainian nationality as guidance, and stated that I was definitely unlikely to continue getting away with such public speech for much longer. I cannot know what he meant, but coming from an administrator I took this as a threat of sanctions. I think my position was justified and did not feel anything would happen, but I still disengaged from the article later that day. Ostalgia (talk) 20:13, 26 January 2024 (UTC)

Evidence presented by Guerillero
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Mzajac uses his tools while INVOLVED
Between 2022 and 2024 he used his tools in non-move contexts within the Ukraine-Russia topic area, broadly construed several times:
 * 8 January 2024 undeleted New Orc Times
 * 8 November 2023 revdeleted on Yaroslav Hunka scandal (I don't think the BLP issue here to be huge enough to be covered by the exception)
 * 24 September 2023 deleted Category:Russian and Soviet military radars (Mzajac was the nom at CfD)
 * 16:05, 15 May 2022 undeleted Ukronazism
 * 16:03, 15 May 2022 undeleted Kyiv junta

Additionally, all of his moves, many of them needing a G6 deletion, are within the topic area.

Mzajac consistently bludgeoned discussions related to the Russian-Ukrainian conflict
This behavior in fact was ongoing for years. I am not willing to dig up all of the discussions they bludgeoned, here is a partial list of what occurred in the last few months: Talk:Sergei Bortkiewicz, Talk:Allegations of genocide of Ukrainians in the Russian invasion of Ukraine/Archive 1, Talk:Allegations of genocide of Ukrainians in the Russian invasion of Ukraine — note two warnings for WP:BLUDGEON in this discussion, which had zero effect, as bludgeoning continued in Talk:Ukraine and Talk:Odessa Military District.--Ymblanter (talk) 14:36, 28 January 2024 (UTC)

Evidence presented by RadioactiveBoulevardier
If more diffs are desired for any assertion, a filtered search through his contribs would provide plenty of relevant ones. It would take a rather long time to gather every single problematic one.

Mzajac has frequently engaged in conduct toward other editors grossly inconsistent with WP:ADMINCOND
Mzajac's incivility, gaslighting, etc. have been an important component of his POV pushing.

The following are merely samples, given the sheer volume of his talk page presence: Special:Diff/1175567670Special:Diff/1171706885Special:Diff/1171003604Special:Diff/1171195514Special:Diff/1190218092 In context, the diffs speak for themselves.

Mzajac's activity in recent years has mainly consisted of tendentious editing practices
Simply viewing his detailed Edit Counter on XTools and other related analytics would support this, combined with the sheer frequency with which he initiated controversial actions (often challenging previous consensus).

Mzajac used his tools while INVOLVED to block an IP on insufficient grounds (and also to revdel something else)


In my view, given other instances, it's reasonable to assume that he took this action only because as it was an IP, he would be unlikely to face backlash. He also, in a different article, later made a revdel, as noted by others; revdels, being subject to relatively less accountability, are one of the archetypical examples of the trust the community places in admins.

Mzajac gave himself autopatrolled permissions without good cause and after being sanctioned


Note the date. This was after he had been TBANned, threatened with a block at AE over an edit war, and been engaged in other serious controversies.

While procedurally he was within his rights to do so, he was hardly a and his stated rationale was simply "as a longtime admin". This, in my view, is part of a pattern of behavior seemingly displaying contempt of his peers...

Mzajac engaged in habitual contempt of colleagues and formal processes
Sufficient evidence for this assertion has already been raised by others.

Even if one were to ascribe the best of motives to everything he did, the sum total of his actions would then indicate shockingly poor judgment inconsistent with adminship.

Mzajac ignored, reinterpreted, and subverted prior consensus on naming conventions and other matters
The evidence already submitted by myself and others, combined with his habitual bludgeoning of discussions, his behavior with regard to historical placenames following the expiration of his topic ban as well as, for instance, his insisting that Odessa Military District and Chernigov Governorate, inter alia, should be merged into their brief successors (essentially a workaround to rename them to his liking), would support this assertion.

Evidence presented by {your user name}
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{Write your assertion here}
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