Wikipedia:Requests for arbitration/AndriyK/Workshop

This is a page for working on Arbitration decisions. It provides for suggestions by Arbitrators and other users and for comment by arbitrators, the parties and others. After the analysis of /Evidence here and development of proposed principles, findings of fact, and remedies. Anyone who edits should sign all suggestions and comments. Arbitrators will place proposed items they have confidence in on /Proposed decision.

Something should be done to prevent messing up of comments on the Requests for arbitration page
1) User:Irpen moved a comment of Andrew Alexander to another place on the page (see Evidence). I admit that the page does not conform the prescribed format. If it make difficult the normal flow of the process, it would be resonable to ask all parties to rearange their own comments according to the format. If comments of one party is moved by another user, it falls out of context. Such cases should be avoided, in my opinion. (I am sorry, if I placed this request in a wrong place. My experience is not sufficient yet.)--AndriyK 19:40, 10 December 2005 (UTC)


 * Comment by Arbitrators:


 * Comment by parties:
 * Comment by Irpen
 * Arbcom guidelines as well as repeated reminders from ArbCom members did not change the behavior of some parties to interject their thoughts into the middle of other people's statements. I moved them away from the wrong place only to preserve them on one hand but to ensure the guidelines are followed on another side. If all interjections have to me deleted or moved to talk, I would welcome that.
 * The claim of AndriyK that he lacks experience in things and should be given some leeway as a newbie is just ridiculous. His knowing in details of the Wikisoftware features and using them to force his POV on the community obviously proves otherwise. --Irpen 09:18, 11 December 2005 (UTC)
 * Comment by Introvert
 * I would like to thank User Irpen for tidying up the section with my statement for me. The interfering comment by Andrew Alexander was certainly put awkwardly and against the guidelines. It seems that once the comment is moved out, it'd be easy enough to adjust it so that it falls back into the context — I see no need in any extra discussion over this simple matter. I am sorry about the added commotion, I recognize that I could have helped avoid it by clearing the inserted comment earlier.  -  Introvert   talk  01:26, 12 December 2005 (UTC)


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=Proposed final decision=

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Neutral point of view
1) Neutral point of view contemplates fair expression of all significant points of view regarding a topic.


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Locus of dispute
1) The locus of this dispute revolves around the independence of Ukraine and specifically around the development of Ukrainian Orthodox churches independent of the Russian Orthodox Church, see this example of strongly POV edit and archived talk at Talk:St Volodymyr's Cathedral ownership controversy.


 * Comment by Arbitrators:
 * This is a very poor summary which misses the point entirely. Fred Bauder 16:58, 11 December 2005 (UTC)


 * Comment by parties:


 * Comment by others:

Locus of dispute
1.1) The locus of this dispute is AndriyK's crusade regarding use of transliteration of Ukrainian language names and places for historical russian persons and places and the tactics he has used.


 * Comment by Arbitrators:
 * A better summary Fred Bauder 16:58, 11 December 2005 (UTC)


 * Comment by parties:
 * Comment by User:AndriyK:
 * It's not true. I did not change transliteration of Russian persons and places. All my spelling corrections were concerning Ukrainian persons and places.


 * Comment by others:

Ukrainian versus Russian names
2) A subtheme of the dispute is use of Ukrainian names such as St Volodymyr's Cathedral (Патріарший кафедральний собор св. Володимира as contrasted to Russian names such as St Vladimir's Cathedral, see. Mikhail of Chernihiv and Oleg of Chernihiv (as opposed to Chernigov) was another bone of contention. These historical figures are connected with the Kievan Rus'. The modern Ukrainian transliteration, Chernihiv, is somewhat anachronistic as applied to men who predate use of the language in its present form. There is also a history of use of Chernigov in English during Russian domination (This also involves the Ukrainian city of Halych which was styled Galich during Russian domination.)


 * Comment by Arbitrators:
 * While it is obvious to me that places in Ukraine (other than obvious exceptions like Kiev and Odessa) should be under a transliteration of their official Ukrainian name, I am not sure we have a policy or how historical figures and places associated with the Kievian Rus should be styled. Ideally this would be worked out among the parties, but a bad atmosphere seems to prevail. See Requests_for_arbitration/AndriyK.


 * Comment by parties:
 * Comment by AndriyK :
 * The Old East Slavic language used Cyrillic alphabet. Therefore one needs transliteration rules how the Old East Slavic "Чернигов" should be converted into English. If one uses the modern Russian transliteration, then one indeed becomes "Chernigov". But what is the reason to use modern Russian to the names of ancient cities located in modern Ukraine? According to phonologicals studies (for instance, G.Y. Shevelov (1979). A Historical Phonology of the Ukrainian Language, Heidelberg: Carl Winter Verlag. ISBN 3-533-02787-2.), the tribe that populated Chernihiv area (Siverians) did not have the consonant "g" in its dialect.(This consonant is still not very common in modern Ukrainian). Therefore, if one would try to reproduce in English the city name how it was prononced at the time of Kievan Rus, one would get "Chernihov" or "Chernihiv" (the written language was quite different from the spoken one, therefore what was written with "o" could well be prononced with "i"). What is definitelly known, the city name could not be prononced as "Chernigov".
 * Russian prononiation became relevant only in the second half of 18th century. (It was used by administration, although the majority of the population always remained Ukrainian) Therefore, applying Russian transliteration to the time of Kievan Rus as well to the later period up to 18th century is definitely anachronistic.
 * Let's looks at the modern English usage. All new editions of English language encyclopedias (Encyclopedia Britannica, Encarta, Columbia Encyclopedia) use the spelling Chernihiv in their articles about the city and apply this name to all periods of history. "Chernigov" is mentioned as the Russian name in Britannica . (This spelling is also used in other articles of Britannica, where likely less attention was paid to the correct spelling of the city name than in the primary article). Encarta    and Columbia Encyclopedia  do not even mention the spelling "Chernigov". There are a lot of other sources applying Chernihiv to all periods of history (e.g. , , ). Well, there are also sources using "Chernigov". But I do not see any reason, why transliteration from Russian should be prefered for the name of a Ukrainian city. Why Wikipedia should be different in spelling from other English language encyclopedias?
 * Comment of User:AndriyK to the comment of User:Irpen (see below).
 * My opponents often refer to Old East Slavic/Old Slavonic language, therefore I found it reasonable to explain the situation to the Arbitration Committee.
 * I did not assert that Britannica uses Chernihiv exclusively. I asserted the following: Britannica (as well as Encarta and Columbia Encyclopedia) uses spelling Chernihiv in the article about the city (i.e. in the article entitled "Chernihiv") and applies this name to all periods of history. "Chernigov" is mentioned in this article only as the Russian name of the city. One can easily check my assertion. I also admitted using the spelling "Chernigov" in other Britanica articles. User:Irpen did not have any reason to blame me for lies.
 * The Arbitration Committee clearly is not able to decide which spelling should be used for each city/town/river, but it would be very helpfull to establish some general principles.
 * --AndriyK 17:57, 11 December 2005 (UTC)
 * Comment by Irpen
 * The speculations of what East Slavic language was and how it would transliterate into a modern English is entirely irrelevant. The only thing that matters is whether there is a prevailing usage in English L texts where the name of the place is used in a particular historical context. That Britannica uses Chernihiv exclusively is just a plain lie and the detailed analysis is presented in Talk:Chernihiv. Encarta uses Chernigov in medieval context (see ), plenty of other ref books do so too. The American Heritage® Dictionary speaks about Chernigov Principality in the very article of Chernihiv city . As shown above, other encyclopedias use both versions and in the appropriate context they use Chernigov with substantial margin. And not only other encyclopedia. Look at this comparison in google (where "prince" is added to the city to restrict the usage to the Rus' time). The difference is 30000+ vs 1000-.
 * However, please note that while I would very much welcome the ArbCom members getting themselves involved in deciding on the matter which follows from ambiguity of our guidelines that allow bad-faith interpretation, this question may be left to the editors who will be carving the improved guidelines. The main issue of this arbitration is not whether Cherigov, Chernihiv, Vladimir or Volodymyr should be used in the articles. There are hundreds of articles and hundreds of similar disputes and ArbCom cannot possibly decide on them all. The issue at hand is, mainly, overturning the bad-faith article moves done with a sneaky trick (these moves cannot be reversed by users because of how they were made) and a ruling that would prevent the user from going on the spree to disrupt dozens of articles at a time. OTOH, if the ArbCom has time and desire to get into these meritorical disputes and decide each of them, I certainly have no objection. --Irpen 09:12, 11 December 2005 (UTC)
 * To the Lysy's comment below about an improved naming convention being right now crafted, it should be noted that the imprefectness of the current convention and the improved version being prepared are in no way the excuses for AndriyK's actions. Both the current and the future convention clearly state that the issue of the in-text usage is context dependent and is totally separate from the titles of the articles devoted to the geographic locations. AndriyK forces modern Ukrainian names for events and people of the medevial time. No one objects to the modern titles for the locations articles. The dispute is only the specific context dependent usage and all conventions recognize the difference between these two issues. --Irpen 23:58, 11 December 2005 (UTC)


 * Comment by others:
 * It may be worth mentioning that both AndriyK and Irpen had since positively and extensively collaborated towards a consensus on both modern and historic context naming guidelines at Naming conventions/Geographic names, a project that was triggered by this particular conflict. In no way is this an excuse for other disruptive actions of any party but is mentioned here only to demonstrate that both editors have the potential for work together in a positive manner on the controversial issue. This said, I never doubted that Irpen had this capability. --Lysy (talk) 00:16, 12 December 2005 (UTC)



Point of view editing
3) Examination of recent edit warring by AndriyK and Ghirlandajo shows a pattern of removing the opposing point of view together with inserting their own point of view, , , , , , see Talk:Patriarch Filaret (Mykhailo Denysenko)


 * Comment by Arbitrators:


 * Comment by parties:
 * Comment by User:AndriyK:
 * There are two points of the dispute:
 * Mentioning of "uncanonicity" of Ukrainian Orthodox Church-Kiev Patriarchy
 * Controversial defrocking and excommunication of Patriarch Filaret
 * "Uncanonicity", if looking neutraly, is nothing else as just an opinion of a group of Churches about Ukrainian Orthodox Church-Kiev Patriarchy (UOC-KP). For instance, Protestant Churches are "uncanonical" from the point of view of Catholic Church and Orthodox Churches. Catholic Church and Orthodox Churches were considering each other "uncanonical" for a long time in the past, etc.
 * Presenting of only one POV clearly violates the NPOV policy. I proposed to discuss the "uncanonicity" issue in the article about UOC-KP and/or in the article History of Christianity in Ukraine so that all relevant points of view could be considered. (There are also many related controvercies between Orthodox Churches concerning "canonical territory", which church is "mother" and which is "daughter" and so on.) There is no reason to repeat this discussion at every point where UOC-KP is mentioned. Indeed, no one speaks about "uncanonical" at each mentioning of any Protestant Church. But my opponents (Irpen, Ghirlandajo, Kuban kazak and others) insist that "uncanonicity" should be mentioned each time when Ukrainian Orthodox Church-Kiev Patriarchy is mentioned.
 * The information about defrocking and excommunication clearly belong to the article about Patriarch Filaret. But here again presenting only POV of Russian Orthodox Church clearly violates the NPOV policy. I tried to add the factural information that "defrocking" and "excommunication" took place when Patriarch Filaret did not belong to Russian Orthodox Church and was the leader of another church (they could "defrock" and "excommunicate" the Pope with equal success :) ). But this information was removed by Irpen and Ghirlandajo several times. It also looks very strange that the POV of Russian Orthodox Church, that presently has nothing to do with Patriarch Filaret, is presented, but the POV of Ukrainian Orthodox Church-Kyivan Patriarchy, that is headed by Patriarch Filaret, is not be there.
 * To stop the edit war, I proposed to keep the version of my opponents with the POV tag on top of it, but they continued the edit war by removing the tag.


 * Comment by others:

"The falsified voting"
4) [ a revert by Irpen with the comment "this article should be protected until the falisfied voting is overturned" point (maybe) to the vote at [[Talk:Mikhail_of_Chernihiv#Requested_move:_Mikhail_of_Chernihiv.E2.86.92Mikhail_of_Chernigov]]. The sequence of events is discussed at Requests_for_arbitration/AndriyK where it is alleged, "Because the first votes cast were overwhelmingly in support of the move, AndriyK posted a message on an outside Ukrainian forum, which not only called for all interested Ukrainians to register Wikipedia accounts and vote regarding the articles’ moves, but also classified opposing parties as "Russian mafia" (http://www2.maidan.org.ua/n/free/1130025302). English translations of the posts are available here and here. The result of the posts was an inflow of Ukrainian voters&mdash;enough to create an illusion of greater opposition than it otherwise would be&mdash;whose only goal was to support AndriyK’s POV." An actual translation of one post is available at http://eng.maidanua.org/node/429


 * Comment by Arbitrators:


 * Comment by parties:
 * Comment by AndriyK:
 * What User:Ezhiki calles "English translations of the posts ... here and here"' is, in fact, not a translation of my posts but rather the opinion of some of my opponents about my posts.
 * English translation of all my posts is not available. Only one message was translated into English and was published on the English version of the site Maidan. Please find the translation here.




 * Comment by others:

Personal attacks on outside forum
5) On the Ukrainian forum, AndriyK, in addition to describing opposing Russian language editors (who may very well live in Ukraine) as a "Russian mafia", described "User Irpen is a very cunning, ingenious, and stubborn troll." ("Користувач Irpen - дуже хитрий, винахідливий і наполегливий троль." User_talk:Irpen.


 * Comment by Arbitrators:

I think that his personal attacks and the underlying attitude is the primary motivation for RfA, this is what makes any kind of dialog largely impossible. Recent example: User:Mzajac took his time and went to the library, after some discussion of remaining dispute the changes between User:Mzajac and User:Andrew Alexander, which was pretty much OK in terms of civility, suddenly AndriyK kicks in with this , I can not help but interpret it as bad faith accusation plus citation of several sources which technically did not say anything on the subject (they were about Kievan Rus' Architecture and not a word about relation to Russia and Ukraine which was the subject). I do not think editing Wikipedia is possible if for every infringement on other people's POV, you would risk learning some new names for yourself. Substract his boldness to accuse editors and patronizing attitude and his behavior becomes tolerable, add some patience, you get a good editor.–Gnomz007(?) 18:55, 11 December 2005 (UTC)
 * Comment by parties:
 * comment by Irpen
 * This is rather mild compared to the extremely foul and vulgar language the AndriyK used to recruit the followers and Ukrainian wiki. I don't think what he said is quotable but if quoting of foul language is allowed and ArbCom members would like to see the translation of the language AndriyK uses, I would certainly provide the translation. I could also provide other citations from his personal attacks at the Maidan forum but, again, it is not his personal attacks but his cheating and revert warring is the reason of this arbitration. Getting me upset by a rude user is not a reason to spend so much time of so many people on this page. --Irpen 09:27, 11 December 2005 (UTC)
 * Comment by User:AndriyK:
 * I would like to bring attention of the Arbitration Committee to extremely foul and vulgar language used by User:Irpen and User:Ghirlandajo in their edit summaries (Please see Evidence).
 * comment by Irpen: I am curious myself to see what AndriyK means when accusing me in using of an "extremely foul and vulgar language". I am hesitant to translate into English of what he was writing on the talk pages of the users at Ukrainian Wikipedia trying to recruit followers. These words seem to me as totally unusable in public places. --Irpen 21:43, 12 December 2005 (UTC)
 * addendum by Irpen: So, it's been a while. Do we get any links at the evidence page to the extremely foul and vulgar language used by User:Irpen and User:Ghirlandajo in their edit summaries? We've seen there some summaries that went over the top all right, but no foul and vulgar language comparable to unquoatable slang of AndriyK. Unless something comes up soon, this stuff needs removed. If AndriyK has anything to say about foul and vulgar language, however, please make sure it goes to evidence first. Also note, this section title is "Personal attacks on outside forums". AndriyK already made a section for allegedly rude edit summaries by other users. Even if there were any, what does this have to do with this section anyway? --Irpen 20:37, 14 December 2005 (UTC)
 * comment by Gnomz007


 * Comment by others:

Naming conventions
6) Naming_conventions while it provides "For geographic names in Ukraine, the Ukrainian National system is used. For historic reasons, many names are also presented in Russian, Polish, etc.", does not address the question of names and persons associated with the Kievian Rus' which is the historical predecessor of all modern russian states. all modern East Slavic nations: Belarus, Russia, and Ukraine. (proposed correction of the wording by Irpen.)


 * Comment by Arbitrators:
 * I really don't get this, but understand the bad feeling. It is no different than saying that Germany and Austria are german states, but it has been changed in the proposed decision. Fred Bauder 00:19, 13 December 2005 (UTC)


 * Comment by parties:
 * Comment by User:AndriyK:
 * I do not understand what are "all modern russian states".
 * Kievian Rus' is the historical predecessor of Ukraine, Russia and Belarus.
 * In my opinion, the most reasonable compromise whould be using Ukrainian transliteration if the entity was located (created, took place) on the territory of present-day Ukraine and similarly Russian and Belarusian transliteration for Russia and Belarus.
 * Comment to comment of Fred Bauder (see above).
 * I never heard the term "modern russian states" (with "states" in plural).
 * It is different than saying that Germany and Austria are german states. Germans and Austrians (as well as a part of Switzerland) belong to the same ethnos and, as Irpen already mentioned below, speak the same language.
 * Could you please add also Belarus at the corresponding place in the proposed decision?--AndriyK 13:48, 13 December 2005 (UTC)
 * Comment to comment of User:Ghirlandajo (see below).
 * The state status of Russian language in Belarus does not change the fact that the Kievian Rus' was the historical predecessor of Belarus as well as of Ukraine and Russia.--AndriyK 14:59, 13 December 2005 (UTC)
 * Comment by User:Ghirlandajo:
 * The case of Belarus is altogether different. Russian is a state language here, and Russian spellings are used officially. See my comments on Talk:Polatsk, Talk:Vitsebsk, etc. --Ghirlandajo 14:44, 13 December 2005 (UTC)
 * Comment by Irpen
 * To the arbitrator's comment just posted "I really don't get this..." the way to avoid the ambiguity is to say: "the historical predecessor of all modern East Slavic nations: Belarus, Russia, and Ukraine." The difference with DE/AT is that unlike Germans and Austrians, modern East Slavic nations speak different languages despite all three nations claim the lineage to the Kievan Rus.


 * The locus of the dispute is that to certain historical events, places, persons the Russian version of the name made it to the English L academic literature. As such, they are called by the Russian name in the contexts of Kievan Rus even though the places are sometimes located in modern Ukraine or the persons are claimed by the Ukrainian nation at least as much as by the Russian one: Yaroslav the Wise, Kyi, etc. As for placenames, while there is no doubt that they should usually be called by their Ukrainian names in the modern context as well as the article names should be Ukrainian, the usage in the historical context should reflect the prevailing usage in the English language academic literature. Our Naming Conventions guidelines, both current and proposed, do recognize the difference between what's to be chosen for the article titles and what's to be chosen in the text, with the latter being sometimes context dependent. Whether the prevalence of Chernigov in medieval contexts is fair or not or whether this is "correct" or not is not for the Wikipedia to decide. Wikipedia should simply reflect the English usage. If the usage is unfair, incorrect, pro-Russian, etc. this should be addressed by an academic community which writes academic books. Encyclopedia, because it is a reference, should simply reflect the prevailing usage rather than be used to promote some changes in terminology. --Irpen 00:32, 13 December 2005 (UTC)


 * Comment by User:Andrew Alexander
 * The expression "modern russian states" sounds as misplaced in relation to Ukraine as the expression "modern italian states" would sound to France or Spain. Better yet, "modern french states" in relation to Italy. While I am not against expanding the naming convention to include Kievan Rus names as a special case, it needs to be noted that the current convention on Ukrainian names exists without that special case right now. Of course, it's easier to convince a few people here than to convince the whole Ukrainian community of Wikipedia editors (however small and dwindling after this proceeding is over).--Andrew Alexander 23:18, 28 December 2005 (UTC)


 * Comment by others:

AndriyK's crusade
7) AndriyK, taking an aggressive Ukrainian nationalist position has strongly advocated use of the Ukrainian names for historical places and persons. Without obtaining consensus regarding policy he has repeatedly inserted his preferred usage into a number of pages (links to evidence) and moved a number of pages, see Move log. Facing the obvious tactic of others moving back he devised a method of preventing reverts of his page moves by producing an artificial history for redirect pages, see . For non-administrators reversing such a move involves placing a request at Requested moves, see Requests_for_arbitration/AndriyK/Evidence.


 * Comment by Arbitrators:
 * A dirty trick Fred Bauder 16:21, 11 December 2005 (UTC)
 * Comment by parties:
 * Comment by User:AndriyK:
 * Is there any evidence of my "aggressive Ukrainian nationalist position" except the fact that I tried to oppose the trully agressive Russian nationalist position of User:Ghirlandajo, User:Irpen, User:Kuban kazak and others?
 * I indeed created artificial histories of redirect pages. May be this was not the best way to avoid the "move wars", but I did not see a better one. At list, it is not forbidden by WP policies, to my best knowlege. This at least forced my opponents to stop using their "brutal force" and discuss the issue.
 * To continue the example from my statement, imagine that after the native English speaker Y had corrected the article title "George Vashington" by moving the page to "George Washington" the user X moved it back. Then user X being supporeted by users X1,X2,...,XN demonstrated similar behavior on several other articles. User Y realized that user X and his frends do not accept any reason, but found the way to "fix" the articles on their right places. Would you blame user Y for "dirty trick" if he created an artificial history of redirect page "George Vashington" to protect the name of "George Washington" from distortion?


 * Comment by others:
 * While it is not Ghirlandajo's RfA, it can be noted that the same move trick has been used by AndriyK's opponent: and . --Lysy (talk) 21:08, 11 December 2005 (UTC)
 * And what about Assume good faith? Had I moved 12 articles that you should denounce me here before arbitrators? Seriously, ten days before that move, I asked Tony Sidaway what he thinks about this trick, and received no reply. Actually the tactic invented by AndriyK, while still not prohibited officially, is gaining footing. An example from today's move of the same article by another editor:, . --Ghirlandajo 18:29, 12 December 2005 (UTC)
 * The example that you provided does not involve the trick that you and AndriyK were exercising. As for good faith, are you saying, that you applied the trick in good faith ? What for then ? Irpen explained to me that your guilt was lesser because you've applied it only once. --Lysy (talk) 18:26, 19 December 2005 (UTC)
 * Comment by Irpen: Lysy, how does your mentioning of this at, as you correctly put it, "not Ghirlandajo's RfA" is relevant? It only shows that the trick invented by AndriyK is tempting to use and that AndriyK should be punished for the huge disruption he caused by his multiple moves so that whoever else is tempted to follow on his footsteps would be warned about the serious consequences.
 * It is relevant since Ghirlandajo signed as a party of this RFA, and one of the complaints of it, was of using the move trick. --Lysy (talk) 18:26, 19 December 2005 (UTC)


 * The mess with that article's move that following the Ghirlandajo's move, was moved by a bunch of editors using tricks and cut'n'paste, was cleaned up by Mikkalai with the histories merged. Now there is a civilized discussion on the talk page on how we will call the article. The problem with AndriyK's moves is that he uses the trick only because he knows that it would likely be opposed by a community. When I wrote to him about that early on:
 * "Moving articles should be done with care in cases where you may expect disagreement since it it much more difficult to undo (usually requires listing at WP:RM and voting). Before you move the article, when you can reasonably expect a disagreement, propose it first at the article's talk. The names there are for a reason. The reason may be wrong. There is talk to discuss that rather than imposing your views on the community. --Irpen 20:43, 8 October 2005 (UTC),
 * AndriyK cynically responded:
 * "I just follow Wikipedia Guidelines, so I do not expect any disagreement. --AndriyK 21:09, 8 October 2005 (UTC)".
 * The ArbCom, by its decision, will inform the community about its view on the spirit and the letter of such moves. --Irpen 20:27, 12 December 2005 (UTC)

Copyright violations
8) Andrew Alexander, AndriyK and MaryMaidan disrupted removal of a copyright violation, Requests_for_arbitration/AndriyK/Evidence


 * Comment by Arbitrators:


 * Comment by parties:
 * Comment by User:AndriyK:
 * Andrew Alexander was clearly acting in good faith. The text he coppied into the article about Ivan Kotlyarevsky was permitted to be freely distributed. He did not understand, however, the subtle difference between free distribution in general and free distribution in terms of GFDL. I also had no idea of these subtleties that time. So I restored his version. Then I got a message from an admin about copyright violation and did not perform any further action on the article. So I reverted the article only one time being not aware about some subtelties of copyright matters. Is my guilt so serious that it deserves to be considered by Arbitration Committee?
 * Comment by Irpen:
 * The edit history of Ivan Kotliarevsky's article is worth a look! While user:Andrew Alexander might have been acting in good faith posting the magazine article for the first time, he was warned repeatedly not to do it while he was reinserting it well after the copyright problems were explained to him. When I replaced his copyvio text with a stub I wrote myself from scratch, Andrew Alexander posted a message to the forum: "Help defend from vandals the article about Kotlyarevsky?" to which some people with even less understanding of the matter responded. One of the responders was user:AndriyK who by then could not have been unaware of the copyright rules with his Wikipedia experience. His revertion to copyvio version was supplied with an inflamatory rvv edit summary. The article had to be protected. After it was unprotected, there were only a couple of edits: an addition of image by myself, categorization by Alex Bakharev. So, it is pretty much still the same small stub I wrote. Both fervent supporters of an extended article did not have any interest to write a single word on their own.
 * Additionally, Andrew Alexander's posting an entire paragraph from Britannica to this very article verbatim could not have been possibly made in good faith.
 * He also added the text from the very same work in the same magazine, and again verbatim, to the Ukrainian language article from where it is yet to be removed (I promised myself to get back to UA L after this ArbCom, because it was damaged too badly).
 * Similarly, AndriyK pasted a copyvio text much later to St. Volodymyr's Cathedral (I later removed it). No way he didn't know what he was doing by then. --Irpen 03:13, 19 December 2005 (UTC)
 * Additionally:
 * to what's added just below by user:Andrew Alexander, I encourage the readers to find some "evidence" to the accusations he makes of "other violations" I am accused of such as "erasing whole chapters", "ignoring the naming convention", "personal attacks" and "overall attitude towards Ukrainian editors." He forgets to specify how many "Ukrainian editors", and I am one of them btw, share his perception about my "attitude". He "forgets to explain" his pasting from Britannica to the article and to give links to the pages when he was accused of Russophobia. It would be instructive to see what actually was said by him. In any case please make sure to actually check links he provides or will (if) provide rather than take his accusation at the face value. Article's edit history and Talk:Ivan Kotlyarevsky are not hidden and are easy to check by anyone who is interested to see the facts on the ground. It would be more difficult to check Andrew Alexander's talk (because he censors it) but still possible from the page history. --Irpen 23:31, 28 December 2005 (UTC)
 * Comment by User:Andrew Alexander
 * Irpen as usual twists the truth. It wasn't only him who added new images and text to the article. I personally added a portrait of Kotlyarevsky. I also spent quite a lot of time obtaining a permission from the author of the original text (published on a free web site) to publish it in Wikipedia. Irpen essentially behaves less then friendly in this dispute. First he admits that the publication was an "honest good faith mistake", then he comes here and demands a punishment for it. I am therefore very discouraged to continue contributing to that article or any other article for that matter. Many Ukrainian editors that came to Wikipedia felt the same way. Please see the statement of Yakudza, for example. I am also quite able to recieve any types of warnings and other types of punishements for that mistake made by a few newbies including myself. I am only amazed that Irpen gets away with many other violations described on the evidence page of this proceeding, erasing whole chapters in the Holodomor article, openly ignoring the Wikipedia naming convention on Ukrainian names, many personal attacks and overall attitude towards several Ukrainian editors. Just recently I was accused of "russophobia" because I dared to mention that Stalin Russia destroyed two major ancient cathedrals in Kiev - .--Andrew Alexander 22:55, 28 December 2005 (UTC)


 * Comment by others:

Rudeness and personal attacks by Ghirlandajo
9) Ghirlandajo has sometimes been discourteous


 * Comment by Arbitrators:


 * Comment by parties:
 * Comment by User:AndriyK:
 * Links to other examples of Ghirlandajo rudeness can be found on the page "Evidence".
 * Comment by User:Ghirlandajo:
 * I'm quite surprized to discover this section here, because AndriyK is the subject of the present arbitration, not me and because my responses were quite symmetrical to AndriyK's insults. He was the first to style Russian editors in his summaries "Russian mafia", "teenage gang", "cunning troll", "insufficiently educated", etc. It's a pity that nobody paid attention to his insults during this arbitration. I don't defend incivility here. If my responses were rude, I already brought my apology, unlike user:AndriyK. --Ghirlandajo 17:46, 12 December 2005 (UTC)
 * I'd like to point out that the first example cited here is strange, because it was me who started the article on St Volodymyr's Cathedral and I never moved it to St Vladimir's Cathedral or elsewhere. All I want is to keep the historical names - St Vladimir's Cathedral, Chernigov, etc - mentioned at least *once* in the text of the article. User: AndriyK, on the other hand, insists on deleting all mention of these spellings as if they didn't exist at all. --Ghirlandajo 17:58, 12 December 2005 (UTC)
 * As for my rude retort in the second case, it was prompted by AndriyK's dissimulating his edit as "rv", although he didn't revert in that particular case. User:Ezhiki presently pointed out to me,  that such outbursts of emotion are to be avoided, and I had to agree with him. --Ghirlandajo 17:59, 12 December 2005 (UTC)
 * Comment by User:Gnomz007:
 * User:Ghirlandajo has one of the best written English and the most knowledgeable of many editors I've seen, his contributions are massive, but he is often overconfident in his knowledge and too bothered to explain his changes politely, especially if he already has an opinion of the person he has conflict with. While I agree that it is inappropriate when Ghirlandajo gets on his high horse, but from what I've seen AndriyK has matched and even beaten him in rudeness. –Gnomz007(?) 19:20, 11 December 2005 (UTC)


 * Comment by others:
 * Yakudza 18:44, 13 December 2005 (UTC)

User:Ghirlandajo is very intolerant to opinions of other editors. He often offend them. Here are several examples of Ghirlandajo's comments to his edits: He called me "banderovets" (a very insulting name given by Russian nationalists to Ukrainians). His edits contain a lot of POVs. User:Ghirlandajo makes a large number of reverts calling edits of other users "vandalism" and very rarely discuss the disagreement on talk pages. Particularly he intolerant to new editor. When new users come, they run into the boorishness of User:Ghirlandajo and obstinacy of User:Irpen, see that any constructive work is impossible, and finally have to give up, or get engaged in edit wars like AndriyK. See also: Requests for comment/Ghirlandajo
 * (rvv attack by Polish Mafia :)))
 * (rvv a new attack by banderovtsy)
 * (rvv foolish ukrainization of russophone towns)
 * (rvv idiotic Moldovan nationalism)
 * (rvv a new piece of polish idiocy)
 * (stop pushing laughable nationalism, or you will be banned)
 * (rvv islamic propaganda)
 * (rvv a lunatic vandal)
 * (rv edits by another Polish zombie)
 * (rv moron who was blocked yesterday but returned)
 * (rv demented racist who was blocked yesterday but returned)
 * (rv shameless POV-pushing by a banderovets)
 * (rv a revert maniac)
 * Yakudza, you already pasted the same stuff verbatim on my RfC and elsewhere three times! I'm tired of disputing these points with you. Please don't mislead arbitrators, at least. Banderovets is the self-appelation of supporters of the Uke nationalist Stepan Bandera? Aren't you one of his admirers? --Ghirlandajo 19:01, 17 December 2005 (UTC)

Rudeness of Irpen
10) User:Irpen uses edit summaries to offend his opponents even after the inapropriateness of such behavior was pointed out . Please find the further evidence  here.
 * Comment by Arbitrators:


 * Comment by parties:
 * Comment by Irpen
 * I urge everyone interested to actually click on the links offered by AndriyK and take a look at the allegations and the context of the above comments. When AndriyK reverts 60 articles one after another in no time, the "mass cleanup" is exactly what has to be done.


 * Comment by user:Andrew Alexander
 * It appears that Irpen applied the edit comment "mass cleanup after a maniac on another spree" 9 times. This would explain some "tension". Is there some rule in Wikipedia that allows insulting other editors in some specific "context"?


 * Comment by others:

Sneaky vandalism
11) User:Ghirlandajo, taking an aggressive Russian nationalist position, has distorted information in Wikipedia article to represent places located in Ukraine, Belarus etc. as if they were located in Russia. User:AndriyK corrected the mess (links to evidence).
 * Comment by Arbitrators:


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Broken links
12) User:Irpen, User:Kuban kazak, and User:Ghirlandajo, taking an aggressive Russian nationalist position, were trying to replace the names of Ukrainian geographic locations with their transliteration from Russian. This often resulted in wrong and confusing links . User:AndriyK corrected the mess (links to evidence).
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Rudeness and personal attacks by AndriyK
13) AndriyK has sometimes been discourteous


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Blanking comments of other users on this page by Ghirlandajo
14)During the arbitration process, User:Ghirlandajo was blanking comments of other users about his rude behavior (links to evidence)
 * Comment by Arbitrators:


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 * Comment by others:

Ignoring Wikipedia NPOV Policy by Kuban kazak
15) User:Kuban kazak neglects the NPOV policy trying to use Wikipedia for propaganda of his extremely conservative Russian Orthodox POV. His extremely POV edit started an edit war on the article St Volodymyr's Cathedral. AndriyK tried to find a compromise to stop the edit war, he proposed mediation to resolve the dispute (links to evidence).


 * Comment by Arbitrators:


 * Comment by parties:
 * Comment by Irpen: This is purely a meritorical content dispute. Considering the one's own self edits neutral and accusing the opposing party in a POV is older than Wikipedia. Since it would be highly unusual for arbitrators to get into such particular content dispute, this entry at workshop seems to me like a waste of everyone's time (see Wikipedia talk:Requests for arbitration/AndriyK/Workshop). If, on the other hand, the Arbitrators are willing to decide on the merit on this article's content dispute, I am sure all parties would have no objection. --Irpen 01:13, 18 December 2005 (UTC)


 * Comment by others:

Ignoring Naming conventions by Kuban kazak
16) User Kuban kazak, taking an aggressive Russian nationalist position, neglected the Wikipedia policy Naming conventions repeatedly reverting names of Ukrainian entities (e.g. subway lines and stations) to Russian transliteration. To prevent this, AndriyK had to create artificial edit histories of redirect articles. Nonetheless Kuban kazak found the trick how to avoid the restrictions of WP software and moved the articles to the Russian names (links to evidence).


 * Comment by Arbitrators:


 * Comment by parties:
 * Comment by Irpen. I take no position regarding the action of Kuban kazak's "avoiding the restriction of WP software" and I did not follow most of Kiev Metro conflict except making some general statements at the article's talk. However, this entry is nothing but a self-admission by AndriyK that he purposefully created the artificial histories of the redirect articles. This has been characterized as "dirty trick" by Arbitrator Fred Bauder in AndriyK's crusade entry. Employing this deplorable practice by is the main topic of this arbitration, as I see it. --Irpen 01:20, 18 December 2005 (UTC)


 * Comment by others:

Proposed remedies
Note: All remedies that refer to a period of time, for example to a ban of X months or a revert parole of Y months, are to run concurrently unless otherwise stated.

AndriyK banned
1) AndriyK is banned for one month from Wikipedia for creating irreversible page moves.


 * Comment by Arbitrators:


 * Comment by parties:
 * Comment by User:AndriyK
 * I copied this proposal from the decission page to comment on it.
 * Please pay attention that creating artificial histories is not forbidden by the present Wikipedia policies.
 * I did it to prevent violation of the existing policy.
 * There is no need to ban me. Simple warning would be sufficient. Just say me: "Do not do it anymore", and I will never do it.
 * I kindly ask arbitrators to consider an alternative way (see below).--AndriyK 17:28, 18 December 2005 (UTC)
 * Comment by User:AndriyK to the comment by Irpen (see below)
 * Neither of my moves violated the existing Wikipedia policy, while reverting of them did it in most cases. The policy Naming conventions clearly states: "For geographic names in Ukraine, the Ukrainian National system is used". Using Russian transliteration for subway lines/stations clearly violates this policy. But User:Kuban kazak moved the several articles back to Russian names when I tried to correct it.
 * Which policy encaurages using Russian transliteration for the names of clearly Ukrainian persons like Ivan Bohun or Severyn Nalyvaiko?
 * I indeed tried to do my best to prevent violation of Wikipedia policy. May be the way I found was not the best one. But indeed, it did not contradict to existing policies. Where did Irpen found Hypocrisy?--AndriyK 21:09, 18 December 2005 (UTC)
 * Comment by Irpen:
 * "creating artificial histories is not forbidden by the present Wikipedia policies" and "I did it to prevent violation of the existing policy" is the Hypocrisy in its prime! Details are in my comments to the next section. --Irpen 18:15, 18 December 2005 (UTC)
 * While few of the moves by were sensible (like Mongol invasion..., Bohun, Nalyvaiko. Some of them were already being discussed and no one attempted to complain anyway), most of them were not or at least doubtful. The most basic rule of our policies reads "...use the most commonly used English version of the name for the article, as you would find it in other encyclopedias and reference works." I am sorry if the fact that in some cases these names are closer to Russian than to Ukrainian makes someone loose his sleep.
 * The "Ukrainian names" section of naming convention AndriyK cites above is primarily about transliteration when the name to use is clear and the "use English" rule is the primary one. Of his moves, all ..of Chernihiv and other princely moves, the Slavic tribes moves and an especially gross Russian architecture move are totally out of question. Peter Mogila (actually not a Russian name which would have been Petr or Pyotr) move is borderline: confirmed by google hits, but disconfirmed by google books and Britannica. There was a discussion at talk he could join rathern than do a move with a dirty trick, that made further discussion useless. He cites only the examples (Bohun, Nalyvaiko) where no one actually complained.
 * Not most but all of his moves past October 24 have to be reverted based on the fact of the dirty trick he used. Then, we can move several articles again (Invasion, Nalyvaiko, Bohun..) but in normal way with no history damage, discuss some other moves further (Mogila/Mohyla) and leave some articles alone until the English usage evolves so that we will document it in Wikipedia


 * Comment by others:
 * Comment by Lysy
 * I second that the desired result can be equally obtained with a firm warning instead with less collateral damage.
 * It is clear from my reading here that the ArbCom suffers from a deficit in their collective understanding of language as a weapon of imperialism. In the Soviet Union, languages were exterminated by force and fear - which means that histories, poetry, puns and many other forms of literature traditionally passed down from parent to child are ended by force. The end of the soviet oppression means the freedom once again of people to practice the exercise of their sovereign culture without interference - and this very much includes outside acceptance of the words used for self-identification. For this panel to deny recently freed peoples the unquestioned right to insist on the terms of self-identity over the objections of outsiders when they have not themselves felt the loss of their own cultural heritage by the violent suppression of speech - and without fully contemplating and understanding the full force and effect of their decision is less than fully civilized. Imagine grandchildren to whom you cannot speak because a foreign government has made it a crime to teach them their mothers tongue. The Arbcom today has brought shame on the body of members; it has shamefully made this instrument of freedom a party to cultural extermination. (see also russification and Ems Ukaz) AndriyK should not need to rely on an asterisk to defend his native tongue against the russianized consensus - he and his language ought to be extended the full courtesy and protection of the ArbCom umbrella - instead he and his language are exposed to additional ignominious and inhumane treatment by the unappreciative citizens of the free west. Benjamin Gatti 04:43, 25 December 2005 (UTC)
 * I would agree that a ban is far too severe --Chazz88 01:18, 28 December 2005 (UTC)
 * I would agree that a ban is far too severe --Chazz88 01:18, 28 December 2005 (UTC)

AndriyK warned
2) AndriyK is warnet to avoid creating irreversible page moves.


 * Comment by Arbitrators:


 * Comment by parties:
 * Comment by User:AndriyK
 * Just say me: "Do not do it anymore", and I will never do it.
 * Comment by User:AndriyK to the comment by Irpen (see below)
 * I am not an experienced editor. I did some edits during a short period of time a year ago or so. I returned in the beginning of October 2005 and ran into User:Irpen completely neglecting the Verifiability policy. Than I ran into ruidness User:Ghirlandajo. My edits were reverted. Irpen simulated active discussions, but did not accept any reasons, did not demonstrate any willingness to reach a compromise. He also continuously misinformed other users. User:Mzajac has immediatly taken Irpen's side in the dispute and did not even try to understand my reasons and start a fair discussion. What could I learn about Wikipedia spirit in this situation?
 * Comment by Irpen
 * While I take no positions on whether AndriyK should be banned and if banned for how long, it is important to note that he was warned many times against moving pages. See evidence and the end of Ukrainian nationalism section at his talk. Also, his talk page documents many attempts of many editors to talk reason to this editor. Whether the word from the arbitrators (but without ban) would be enough warning for him despite his not heeding to the past warnings, is for the arbitrators to decide.
 * OTOH, AndriyK, as an experienced Wikipedian, couldn't have been unaware that an important part of our policies is the spirit in which they're made. These page moves and name substitution in the articles violate anything even close to the Wikipedia spirit. Before starting to actively edit the en-wiki he had over 1000 edits in Ukrainian Wikipedia. His "invention" of the trick contrasts with his pretending that he didn't know how WP works. I always wondered myself why some moves over redirects were possbile and some weren't and I had no idea that the secret is in history. And I am around the WP long enough (not that I ever wanted to make an irreversible move myslef). Then came AndriyK with detailed knowledge that allowed him to impose his moves over consensus.
 * That said, I find the most important, the remedy that would warn against further page moves (with or without the dirty trick) without a proper discussion, as I proposed to AndriyK earleir many times (see again, his talk).
 * I find it equally important to have the remedy that each and every move with a dirty trick be it by AndriyK or by anyone else be automatically reverted by any admin regardless of the merit simply based on the fact that the dirty trick was used. (That would allow discussion of page moves by the community).
 * I find it equally important in view of AndriyK's revert spree and using the 3RR rule as allotment to restrict his right to revert to whatever number per article per day or per week that ArbCom considers reasonable
 * In view of suspected vote fraud and sockpuppetry, I respectfully request an ArbCom to investigate the sockpuppetry allegations brought to this Arbitration earlier, and if proven, issue a broader remedy for any newbie and/or anon account that express the immature Ukrainian nationalism through making the edits that reduce to nomenclature substitutions as per ArbCom Zivinbudas decision.
 * I urge every party to take a look at many attempts documented at the AndriyK's talk by many editors (myself, MichaelZ and Kuban kazak included) to talk to AndriyK in neutral and even friendly way not only before but even after his insults here and at outside forums. He chose to always bite the hand extended to him, see for instance this, the whole Challenge section and all of his talk, actually. Perhaps, whoever has time, please go and read through entire user talk:AndriyK, from where, I hope, he would not start deleting. This speaks about the attitudes!


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