Wikipedia:Mediation Cabal/Cases/2006-06-07 Polish Cabal and myself as its leader

Mediation Case: 2006-06-07 Polish Cabal and myself as its leader
Please observe Etiquette and Talk Page Etiquette in disputes. If you submit complaints or insults your edits are likely to be removed by the mediator, any other refactoring of the mediation case by anybody but the mediator is likely to be reverted. If you are not satisfied with the mediation procedure please submit your complaints to Wikipedia talk:Mediation Cabal.

Request Information

 * Request made by: Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus Talk 00:13, 7 June 2006 (UTC)


 * Where is the issue taking place?
 * Examples where the issue was brought up on the community discussion pages: WP:RM, WP:VP(P}, WP:NM(NaT) and PP:PrWnb. Further, examples of recent article's talk pages where the issue was brought up: PSB, W2J, Z1O, Z2A. This selection can be expanded if needed (unfortunately).--Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus Talk 00:46, 7 June 2006 (UTC)


 * Who's involved?
 * On one side, myself filling this request, Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus Talk 00:46, 7 June 2006 (UTC). Possibly some other members of the Portal talk:Poland/Poland-related Wikipedia notice board who feel unhappy by being accused of ulterior motives and disrupting Wikipedia, I will not list them myself as I don't want to presume that they share my feelings (perhaps I *am* the cabal leader and they are afraid of me? :> or perhaps they will add their comments later).
 * On the other sides, users who seem to believe (or at least use the term) Polish Cabal (in a derogative meanining) and/or accusing me of being the leader/most active of the cabalist, bent on 'polonizing' Wikipedia. Specifically the person who 'convinced' me of the need for mediation is User:Elonka who has recently been repeating the above accusations in various public forums. User:Calgacus (This page is the subject of a Polish cabal) and User:Francis Schonken (I get the creepy feeling this is a test case for the Polish Cabal how far they can go in bending wikipedia their way) seem to me that they strongly share her concerns. Possible other users who will want to comment later.--Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus Talk 00:46, 7 June 2006 (UTC)


 * What's going on?
 * 1) The group of Wikipedians interested in Poland-related issues (mostly but not limited to Poles) have created the Portal talk:Poland/Poland-related Wikipedia notice board, which serves as a substitute to Wikiproject:Poland (in spirit if not a name) and where information about various Poland-related articles and editing issue is posted. Recently some users have seen this as a negative behaviour, as the information sharing allows us to take such terrible action as share an information about a vote or related discussion, which according to them skews the vote/discussion which - as far as I understand their logic - would be more NPOVed if fewer members of the 'Polish Cabal' were involved in it. This has lead to the increasing amount of cases where our noticeboard is portrayed as a Polish POV pushing group, whose seemingly only contribution to Wikipedia is to introduce Polish POV to articles and/or insist of 'polonizing' Wikipedia (i.e. renaming the articles to Polish names). I quoted 2 examples above, many more can be found throught the above and other pages, I'll just one list general complaint against our board: I have been treated with great antagonism by some of the "official" members of this board. I was basically pounced upon within hours of my first posting on a Poland-related topic, and have occasionally felt stalked ever since, with nearly every Poland-related edit I've ever made, scrutinized (and often criticized)
 * 2) In relation to the above, I, as one of the most active particiapnts of en-Wikipedia of Polish origin (=a Pole) have been subject to increasing number of accusations (mostly from Elonka) putting my editor's integrity and the right to be an admin into question. Selected examples: 1) Piotrus...here is growing evidence that you have been involved in a nationalistic campaign to move many articles around Wikipedia from English names to Polish titles , one of the members here is an Admin (Piotrus), but (my apologies if this sounds like a personal attack) in my opinion, some of his actions have not been setting good examples of Wikipedian behavior. He engages in name-calling of other users,[22] belittles other people's criticism, frequently makes changes to Poland-related articles without consensus, or, he starts a discussion on a confrontational topic, and then declares his own "consensus" on it, when in reality, the only consensus is from those users that he knows and trusts via this noticeboard (again, other Poles). I've attempted to address this with him on various talk pages, but this generally just results in an escalation of the behavior (for example, when I asked him to stop name-calling, he left a message on my talk-page where he continued to use the name several times), Further exacerbation of the problem occurred via a series of abusive actions on Piotrus' part, such as engaging in name-calling [14] and deceptive statements about anyone challenging his conclusions. He also frequently uses the Poland notice board to make "calls to action" to other Poles to engage in Talk page disputes or attack other Wikipedia users [15]. . One individual who raised questions about the Polish issue was accused by Piotrus of a "racist attack" [16]. Another clear example of hypocrisy is when Piotrus threw out an accusation and demand for an apology about any statements that "put in doubt the integrity of other editors [...] I do not believe that Piotrus' statements about any Poland-related "consensus" are to be trusted, and it may even be worth examining his fitness to maintain status as an admin . As far as I am concerned this looks like a combination of personal attacks, slander and character assasination, especially as I believe all of the above accusations are false. On the other hand I would like to stress that I believe that those editors are acting in good faith and for reasons that escape me believe that persecuting the board and my person is 'for the good of Wikipedia'.--Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus Talk 00:46, 7 June 2006 (UTC)
 * I would like to add that my request for mediation has already been seen as an argument that I should be desysoped, especially as I supposedly intend to use the Cabal to influence this mediation...--Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus Talk 18:50, 8 June 2006 (UTC)


 * ''What would you like to change about that?
 * At the very least I would like to see the above users stop using this type of arguments to show the board and my person in the negative light. At best I'd like to receive an apology that the board and myself were wrongly accused of those actions. Considering that the accusations seem to persist for the number of weeks now and the involved users show no sign of remorse, I am perfectly willing to take this as far as necessary, through formal mediation and RfC to RfA (I have already suggested to the accusers that if they really feel they have been wronged they should do this themselves; as they did nothing but continue to accuse us on the various public forums I decided to bring this case here myself). I hope that an investigation by one or more neutral members of the Mediation Cabal and their arguments will be enough to show the accusers that they have erred. I would also like to note that I am perfectly willing to issue an apology myself if the mediators decide that indeed it is the board or myself and fault and all the accusations are justified.--Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus Talk 00:46, 7 June 2006 (UTC)

Of course.--Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus Talk 00:46, 7 June 2006 (UTC)
 * Would you be willing to be a mediator yourself, and accept a mediation assignment in a different case?


 * This is, following the Categorical Imperative, the idea that you might want to do
 * what you expect others to do. You don't have to, of course, that's why it's a question.



Mediator response
It appears to me that everyone is on the same page; Piotrus thinks that others think he is acting in bad faith; the others think he is acting in bad faith. The only thing I can do is help the discussion continue without namecalling or the like. I don't know what you want to discuss, but whatever it is, please go ahead. --Keitei (talk) 23:00, 12 June 2006 (UTC)

Incivility will not be tolerated. Do not say that so-and-so should be blocked, banned, desysopped, or what have you. Do not accuse others of having agendas or wanting to "Polonize" Wikipedia. Do not dismiss opinions as being part of their "nationalist" POV, or whatever it is you're doing. Address the arguments and leave the personal attacks and namecalling out of it. Thank you. --Keitei (talk) 00:13, 14 June 2006 (UTC)

Evidence
Please report evidence in this section with for misconduct and  for 3RR violations. If you need help ask a mediator or an advocate. Evidence is of limited use in mediation as the mediator has no authority. Providing some evidence may, however, be useful in making both sides act more civil. Etiquette: Although it's understandably difficult in a heated argument, if the other party is not as civil as you'd like them to be, make sure to be more civil than him or her, not less.

Compromise offers
This section is for listing and discussing compromise offers.

Comments by others

 * Copied from the talk page

Comment
As a possible member of the alleged Polish Cabal™ I'm definitely not impartial in this case, but wanted to add my 2 eurocents here. In the theory of communication the basic problem with any kind of compromise solution (and mediation in particular) is that both sides should be left with some sort of a possible and acceptable exit. In this very conflict Elonka leaves us (I mean me and Piotrus, can't speak for others) with no acceptable outcome at all.

She continues to spread her campaign aimed at all wikipedians even distantly related to Poland on a variety of pages. She calls us names (nationalism is a grave offence to me), suggests our bad will, some sort of a conspiracy, suggests that wikipedia would be better off without us, and so on - yet without providing any evidence and without even attempting at mediation. As we say here in Poland it's hard to prove one is not a camel. It would be really great if we could find some solution acceptable to both sides. So far all attempts at reaching terms with Elonka were unsuccessful, as can be seen at our notice board. There even a small favour Piotrus has done to Elonka (translation of some page) was treated as an evidence against him. this discussion is particularly instructing as it seems all attempts at shaking hands with Elonka were met with more and more slander, accusations and suggestions of conspiracy (I never thought starting an RfC could be an argument to prove some alleged guilts). Definitely not the way to go - though I can think of no better way to settle the apparent problem Elonka has with us as a group (informal and disorganised as it is).  // Halibutt 07:41, 13 June 2006 (UTC)
 * Elonka raised some valid points, while I think the case is overblown by both sides' dealing with it emotionally rather than addressing the real problems we have here. OTOH, if only the cabal or whatever took it upon itself to deal with trolls that put the entire Polish wiki-community in bad light, that would have helped a mile. On a side note, the hypocricy of the statement above is very unhlepful. --Irpen 16:13, 13 June 2006 (UTC)
 * What valid points? What trolls? It would be great if you would be more specific. The only unconstructive behaviour in the related discussion was already mentioned by Halibutt, and yes, it would be great if the respective community would deal with it - but I am afraid it is not the Polish community which encourages him.--Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus Talk 18:30, 13 June 2006 (UTC)

Uncivility
It would appear that some people prefer "arguments" like this (see the last green edit) instead of engaging in civil debates. Perhaps such behaviour should be noted at Wikiquette alerts.--Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus Talk 18:33, 13 June 2006 (UTC)
 * I am very happy with that edit, and there is nothing wrong with it. Comments removed; see this diff if needed Keitei (talk) 00:08, 14 June 2006 (UTC) - Calgacus (ΚΑΛΓΑΚΟΣ) 21:33, 13 June 2006 (UTC)
 * Then why did you offend me there even though I agreed with you and disagreed with Piotrus there?  // Halibutt 22:21, 13 June 2006 (UTC)
 * Comment removed; see this diff if needed Keitei (talk) 00:08, 14 June 2006 (UTC)

Discussion

 * ''Copied from my talk page

Thank you for getting back to me. I have posted the information about the case on the Polish Noticeboard, which is watched by many users, including Elonka. I was not sure if I or the mediating cabalist should notify others so I decided to wait and see your reply, especially as it appears some users are treating anything I do as a sign of my bad faith - so I figured out not acting would generate as much heat and be less timeconsuming then the alternative :> If you can, perhaps you could ask the three users I mentioned on the mediation page (User:Elonka, User:Francis Schonken and User:Calgacus) if they would be willing to accept mediation. I am aware mediators can just 'advise', however I believe all of them are acting in good faith and have just by some evil twist of fate interpreted my actions as 'bad faith'. If you could convince them this is the case - or if they are right show me the error of my ways (I certainly accept that I am not perfect and although I don't believe this is the case I admit it is always possible I am mistaken) - I would be greatful. If this will not work, I will think whether it is worth it to bring this case any higher; I personally dislike such 'politics' as a time waste (I'd prefer to be writing aricle instead of this msg, for example) - but at some level the amount of 'personal attacks' and such is such that my wikistress makes working on wiki not fun. I can live with occasional attaks and such, but they managed to keep it high for several days; if they continue - something will have to give.--Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus Talk 02:07, 12 June 2006 (UTC)
 * Keitei, thank you for your post on my talk page. Yes, I am aware of the request that Piotrus filed, though I had to dig it up myself, as he did not bother informing any of the people involved about his request, which I found disappointing.  Ultimately, it is my opinion that the request was brought in bad faith by Piotrus.  He has made no attempt to follow other dispute resolution procedures or work out the perceived issue via the talk pages of the named users (myself included), and in general has just been posting highly emotional and sarcastic messages about the situation on various article and policy talk pages.  I found it of particular concern when he was resorting to name-calling, such as accusing me of slander (I replied here: ).


 * When I have attempted to talk to him at his talk page about his name-calling of other users, this has generally just resulted in an escalation of the behavior . I have also found multiple incidents of Piotrus abusing his admin powers, such as moving many Poland-related pages over the last few months without (non-Polish) community consensus . I have recently been challenging several of these page moves (a time-consuming process, chasing after each one of them, but see Talk:Zygmunt III Vasa for an example), and have also raised the question that perhaps Piotrus' admin status should be re-examined. When the discussion about page moves was escalated from the Polish community to a cross-cultural discussion page, multiple (non-Polish) editors agreed that the page moves had been improper, and I believe that Piotrus perceived these comments as "Piotrus-bashing", and launched the mediation request. See the discussion at Wikipedia_talk:Naming_conventions_%28names_and_titles%29 for details.


 * In short, though I will freely admit that I am not entirely familiar with the Wikipedia mediation process, it is my opinion that Piotrus has jumped the gun on this, and is filing an emotional request for "mediation", when no one else seems to think that that is the appropriate course at this point. If you feel that mediation would help, I am open to discussing the matter, though I guess my first question would be, "What are we mediating?" Are we trying to analyze someone's behavior, make a determination of whether or not the page moves were appropriate, determine whether or not Piotrus should resign his admin-ship, decide whether or not somebody needs to apologize for name-calling, or what exactly?  --Elonka 14:43, 12 June 2006 (UTC)


 * What can I say more? When I try to talk to you on your talk page, you accuse me of name-calling, stop replying or bring the issue at some more public forum. When I ask for mediation, you assume I am acting in bad faith (above). How else would you like me to pursue the dispute resolution process?
 * Plus as I have wrote above I perceive your attempts to generalize from few exceptions (or more often, misinterpretations), like citing pages without a clear consensus which presumably show some major support for you disappointing. Nowhere did "multiple (non-Polish) editors" (non-Polish? curious...because Polish obviously would be biased?) agree with you that "my moves have been improper". Certainly nobody but a small minoroty (if not only you) considers my actions a "multiple incidents of Piotrus abusing his admin powers", as any examination of my admin action log which you linked above would show that the long series of moves of the Polish monarchs is simply a series of reverts of moves which created many double redirects and loops and which where not discussed at talk at all.
 * As for what I want with this mediation, I stated above. I believe we need a third party that would analyze both of our behaviours and advise us who is right and who is wrong, and then the party which was mistaken should apologize. I don't believe any of us will change their opinion or behaviour otherwise.--Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus Talk 23:54, 12 June 2006 (UTC)

Comments by Olessi
As an outside viewer I have found these disputes between respected editors frustrating and disappointing. None of the participating parties are blamefree, so I don't think there is just a single party who should apologize. I think Piotrus was a tad unprofessional with his "n00bies" comments and that he jumped the gun with some of the page moves. Elonka had a bad experience with some Polish editors a while ago, but I think it would be ideal if she could forgive (and hopefully forget); she is certainly an intelligent and rationale person, as seen here. I have not seen any evidence of the Polish cabal suggested by Francis Schonken and Calgacus. I have seen Polish editors posting Poland-related topics on a Poland-related noticeboard, but the same thing is done on other noticeboards. Some posters do consistently support the "Polish POV" in disputes, while others do not; it is not a uniform collaborating group. The suggestion that Piotrus should be desysoped was overkill to begin with, and he understands now the value of sending controversial moves to RM and will do so in the future. Aside from Piotrus' "n00bies" comment, I have not seen any personal attacks by him, and feel that Francis and Calgacus should cease their suggestions that Piotrus is a cabal leader. It would be ideal if all parties involved could start tabula rasa with each other and focus on adding content to this project. Olessi 16:39, 14 June 2006 (UTC)

Dr Dan
As this matter is finally winding down, I want to ask if the word "cabal" was the ultimate matter of contention. Just to be clear, this perception was created by a constant involvement by certain editors over and over again, whenever a matter concerning Poland was being debated. It got to the point where if "A talked to B", "T, U, V, W, X, Y, Z" would each swoop down and proceed to argue from the same POV. If "C made an edit that B" somehow didn't like, "Z and W followed by U, followed by V, X, Y, T", who would again dive in (each letter representing one person, but each letter is a different person). When "D" was on a talk page with "E", "W" or "X and "U" would have to get their two cents in. In some cases this was natural because we all have our watch pages, lot's of us (after many discussions) feel we know the other parties and casually chime in. Others, had an almost stalking quality to their imput. So the "cabal" impression began to take root. user:Molobo was particularly noticed by many by his erratic and disruptive behavior. It was not unsual for him to solict help from Polish editors (in Polish, no less) e.g.,Ciągle and then some would dutifully "go to war" with him and for him. Many more moderate, and IMO more intelligent Polish contributors, would not. The perception of the "cabal" grew. Coupled with the fact that you, Piotrus, would unblock him regularly and help him out during some pretty sticky "flame wars", added more fuel to the "cabal" perception. Frankly, you might have put that perception to bed if you had publically chastised him, instead of constantly helped him out. If you did, I honestly missed it. In fact, if you did, it might have kept him off of a year's "vacation". All of this, plus the voting en masse, and the solicitation to others to vote the same way, created this perception, and it grew. This is an over simplification in a nutshell, of what many saw as a clique working in tandem. I don't subscribe to all of it, but there are elements of truth in some of it. One of the most confusing aspects of this issue, Piotrus, is where you came up with your self annointed "Leadership" of a "non-existant cabal". Who ever accused you specifically of being it's "leader". Certainly not the fact that you are an administator? Where did that concept come from? Dr. Dan 17:42, 16 July 2006 (UTC)