Wikipedia:Requests for arbitration/Dalmatia

Case Opened on 19:42, 29 August 2007 (UTC)

Case Closed on 01:10, 19 October 2007 (UTC)

Watchlist all case pages: 1, 2, 3, 4

Please do not edit this page directly unless you wish to become a participant in this case. (All participants are subject to Arbitration Committee decisions, and the ArbCom will consider each participant's role in the dispute.) Comments are very welcome on the Talk page, and will be read, in full. Evidence, no matter who can provide it, is very welcome at /Evidence. Evidence is more useful than comments.

Arbitrators, the parties, and other editors may suggest proposed principles, findings, and remedies at /Workshop. That page may also be used for general comments on the evidence. Arbitrators will then vote on a final decision in the case at /Proposed decision.

Once the case is closed, editors may add to the as needed, but closed cases should not be edited otherwise. Please raise any questions at Requests for arbitration.

Involved parties

 * (initiator}

Requests for comment
Article requests for comment: Talk:Zadar and Talk:Republic of Ragusa

Statement by Isotope23
There is an ongoing dispute between numerous editors pushing several POV's at Dalmatia related articles. The problem is that the core content disputes are not being resolved because a number of these editors have resorted to disruptive edit warring and gaming the system, sometimes in tandem with fellow editors, in an attempt to get their POV represented in the articles. I can point to a few recent examples: , , ,  , , , , , , ,  User talk:Isotope23/Archive 10
 * Edit warring over the Republic of Ragusa RFC:,
 * Edit warring at Albania Veneta: ,
 * Reports on my User talkpage: User talk:Isotope23, User talk:Isotope23, User talk:Isotope23, User talk:Isotope23/Archive 10

These are just from the last few days and only from a few articles... there has been more of this sort of behavior at other related articles and it may not be simply restricted to the editors I've named here; there may be related editors who's contributions to this edit warring need to be considered. The reason I'm bringing this before the committee is that it would seem from the recent article RFC diffs I've show, that a User conduct RFC on these editors will likely just devolve into a messy squabble that won't resolve anything. It appears to me that the only way this will get resolved is if someone else steps in.

Statement by DIREKTOR
First of all, I must say I am truly sorry things devolved into this. However, the problem really appears to be unsolveable by other means. Here's my side of the story. The matter involves Dalmatia - related articles that have become veritable battlegrounds between the Croatian (Slavic) faction and the Venetian (Italian) faction (mostly consisting of one user, Giovanni Giove).

Now here we have a user, Giovanni Giove, that attempts to make the history of Dalmatia and its cities (Zadar, Dubrovnik or Ragusa) sound as Italian as possible. Without regard to the following facts: 1) Dalmatia is part of Croatia, 2) Dalmatia was Italian for a period of 377 (1420 - 1797) years (and a few cuturally almost insignificant, much shorter periods before the largest one, in total amounting to circa 400 years of Venetian rule), 3) the latin culture (mixed with the Slavic) before that period was not Italian, but Dalmatian (unless of course Roman Empire = Italy, as was frequently stated by this user's classic Mussolini rhetoric). 4) Inernational names that happened to be used for Dalmatian cities in (mostly the first three quarters) of the 19th century have no significance when writing about things and events not of that period (like the Republic of Ragusa, for example).

I would also like to make this clear: the user employs unorthodox methods in pursuing his view. Giove's standard "modus operandi" includes slandering other people to Administrators he thinks he can sway or that he thinks might have sympathies for his "plight". He tries in this way to biase Admins with outright (but cleverly concocted) lies before they even get a look at the problem. Besides this his tactics include starting RfCs immediately after editing articles in hopes that he might be able to convince others (preferrably Admins) that anyone who touches his version afterwards is an agressor or vandal and he an advocate of "peace". That's the way he tries to make things stick. He then uses painfully obvious and childishly plain sockpuppets (he is obvious because of his repetetive grammar mistakes, I have told him so, however, and he has become more careful), like the one that stated the "FASCIST ITALY was great" on my talkpage, or the one that filed a complaint against me, an apparently independant bystander that simply could not stand my tyrannical ways any longer mere minutes after I reported Giove; imagine. Just have a look at the new victim he thinks might be biased in advance: Steel359. I of course will not stand by and let him slander me, so I have to respond. And so it goes on... Recently this user started 2 RfCs, according to his tactics and (besides editing the text and calling others who do the same vandals due to the RfC) then actually began editing other people's comments therein (against the rules, I believe), according to some invented "rules" of his own about what info someone may or may not add to the RfC. He seems to persist in the belief (despite being numerous times advised to the contrary) that if he posted the RfC, he now has the right to change what is written there to his liking. He has a very liberal view on pesonal attacks: he called it a personal attack, for example, when a user complained about his removing and/or editing of other people's comments. He deleted the complaint promptly off the RfC, of course. Thanks. P.S. Welcome to the Balkans!


 * In response to the accusations of my "accident", I merely reverted Giove's standard uncompromising POV pushing. In spite of weeks of work on making the Marco Polo article NPOV, Giove simply came, saw and reverted everything. His sources do not allow for the mistery surrounding the bithplace of the famous explorer and represent only one side (POV) of the story. He refuses to compromise or contribute to the debate and has stated that he "will read nothing!".
 * There is another example of Giove's character: just hours after Zenanarh stated below that his own talkpage is the perfect dossier of his behaviour and exploitation of the obscurity of these articles, he deleted the entire talkpage and called the edit "archivied". He merely deleted everything. The page can be seen in the History, he counts on Wikipedians not wanting to look into it that deeply.
 * I feel I must respond to another exaggeration posted here by Ilario, the "foibe/fojbe" issue. At the time when I first read the article it was absolutely swamped with (badly written) Italian POV, that included phrasing possibilities and allegations as uncontested fact. Angered by this I replaced the "i" in "foiba" with a "j", believing that it too was an Italian rendering of a Croatian/Slavic word. I quickly realised my error when I did a little research and saw that "foiba" was the English name as well. I (or someone else, I cannot remember) undid my error the very next day, and admitted my mistake. This is perhaps my most radical edit, and the opposing editors will undoubtably use this against me.
 * I am not a communist, nor was I banned on any forum whatsoever (in fact I do not frequent forums). The claims of the unsigned user (LEO, on the talkpage) are extremist to say the least (to him I'm some sort of Nazi/Communist hibrid, the united evil of the world, no less). The guy is most likely a sockpuppet, I hope someone checks that possibility out.
 * The 3RR violation accusation is an outright lie. The report was rejected immediately.
 * Important notes:
 * 1) NONE of us (Slavic faction) are communists or nationalists (nor are we undemocratic barbarians as the ever so refined Italians point out).
 * 2) We have not gathered to attack Dalmatia-related articles, we were spontaneously gathered by the Italian attacks on the Slavic legacy of Dalmatia.
 * 3) The relative obscurity of the region and its history is the only reason the outrageous edits made by Italian editors were not immediately stopped by a knowledgable Wikipedia Administrator.


 * There is another matter: are the arbitrators aware that the dispute is spreading to the Istria and Istrian exodus articles?

Statement by Zenanarh
I'm not on the parties list, anyway since I've been involved in this matter I'll write a few words here. Nobody's happy about this, on the other hand something should be done to stop such unacceptable situation concerning a several articles about Dalmatia and Dalmatian cities. A group of us (Croatian users) are having continual problems with Giovanni Giove on these articles. We are not some organized group with purpose to push our POV. In the contrary, Giove's behaviour created a group of us with same problems. Zadar article as example: I really don't like to get personal but in this case I should be a little bit, fact is that Giovani was using extreme POV source - Italian Irredentismo page for editing this article. If you are not familiarized with Italian irredentism... well it's quite enough to say that it would be the same as if Neo-Nazis edit Jews article by using Mein Kampf as source. Maybe not the same but pretty close... Every my attempt to edit objective data was stopped and reverted by mr. Giovanni. All my edits were followed by relevant sources (scientific researches published by "University of Science and Arts" in Zadar). He simply ignored any of my comments and sources acussing me for being a "Croatian nationalist". Why? Just because I disputed his edit? When I warned him a few times not to use POV sources he accused me for personal attacks. It's absolutely the same pattern which he uses with other users too. One of my first experiences with him was this: ,, precisely he inserted template:suspected sockpuppet on my user page and accused me of being a sockpuppet of some other banned user with no any reason and without any explenation where his suspicions came from! It was a few days after I was logged for the first time on Wiki and day after I have come with rich sources, which were disputing some of his edits about the population of the city, Zadar article. As you can see he didn't contributed to the discussion on the Talk:Zadar. He simply tried to solve his problem of my "existance" by marking me as somebody else's sock puppet. According to WP:HARASSMENT (section: "User space harassment"): "Placing numerous false or questionable 'warnings' on a user's talk page..., placing 'suspected sockpuppet'...on the user page of active contributors...and otherwise trying to display material the user may find annoying or embarrassing in their user space is a common form of harassment. ". Another example of his behaviour: first RFC was started at the Zadar talk page where he wrote this comment: You have not intoduced the sources!!! After all my hard work with presenting sources (and work of other users too). It's transparent at the talk page. This user simply doesn't want to see other people's work and he's absolutely blind for other users sources. He acts like it doesn't exist. Here you can see just a little part of his argues with other users:, see ''' section "Why such words?" . Actually all that page is a kind of  dossier '''.

Now the best of all comes: his "conduction" of 2 Requests for Comment on the articles Republic of Ragusa and Zadar that he started. In both cases the same thing. Example - Zadar RFC: he firstly changed the article into his version, , immidiately after that he put the tags and started RFC. When other users wrote their first comments he interfered by changing it.

Any of our attempts to find some solution was stopped in the beggining, this person simply doesn't collaborate neither on the talk pages, neither in the articles.

After all I really don't know what to say, so a part of my comment here is copy of my comment on Administrators' noticeboard/Incidents. Thanks. Zenanarh 18:33, 25 August 2007 (UTC)

Statement by Giovanni Giove
user:DIREKTOR is a flamer and an alleged multi banned user, and it is enough to check his behaviour in his different edits. The situation was hard, due the different POVs between Italy and Croatia. But after him is totally degenerated. I can answer point by point to the alleged accusation by Zenanarh. I am the only Italian user here, to edit Dalmatia's articles, a (formerly) mixed region, inhabited by Italians, Croats and Serbs. The official POV of Croatian history is to deny the simple presence of Italians, presented as a 'Croatian of Italian language' (pro-Italian). I NEVER used 'Irridentismo' talk page, that was not an extreme movement, but just the counterpart of the Slavic Illyrian movement. In the history of Zara/Zadar my main source was Britannica1911, whose content was significantly altered by user:DIREKTOR, with no kind of discussion. Zemarth just inserted Kbytes of questionable copy&paste with no conclusions and comments. If a paragraph is questionable I edit a line and I insert the source.


 * My proposed version of Zadar's history is here . It was TOTALLY sourced (from Britannica). The sense was totally respected. The sources presented in a proper way. It had a first a massive revert by user:No.13, see . Shortly later (see ) user:DIREKTOR started his own undiscussed and unsorced edits, to impose Croatian POV, later defended with edit wars.Giovanni Giove 11:02, 27 August 2007 (UTC)
 * A recent example of the attitude of Zenanarh to impose Croatian POV
 * Two significant comments on Marco Polo talk page . The article was previously vandalized by user:Factanista, sockpuppet of user:Afrika paprika
 * Here DIREKTOR remove sources to claim the official language was not Italian (as quite well known). Despite several requests, he never presented a source to attest that Dalmatian language was the official language.
 * New accident by DIREKTOR see . He wants to impose a POV in Marco Polo, ignoring my warnings (see talk page) to insert sources. He has reverted 2 times my action! I will stop reverts, for the moment.Giovanni Giove 21:51, 28 August 2007 (UTC)
 * The impose POVs playing together!! Here a 3RR violation (meat/sockpuppetry) by user:DIREKTOR with user:Zenanarh'''See


 * Response to Kubura


 * (a note:, Giovanni Giove wrote this part also) on 30 Aug 2007, 18:40, in Kubura's section) Translate all, no single passage:-) and yes. You deny all the Croatian war crime! ... and yes, you could discusse why and where before the 1840s, the therm Croat was not applied to the present day Croat nation.Giovanni Giove 18:40, 30 August 2007 (UTC)
 * All your sources has been surpassed by my sources about the Serbocroatian language.. Finally I shall remember that you are famous (even in Italian wiki) for your extreme nationalistic ideas. Finnaly I want tell you a futher time, that your edits about the 'Croathood..." and so on are useless. We do not deny the city was Slavic (and Italian), on the other side YOU simple deny the presence of the Italians in all Dalmatia and Ragusa--Giovanni Giove 16:02, 28 August 2007 (UTC)

Statement by Kubura
Despite numerous invitations to discuss (on article talkpages Talk:Jakov Mikalja, Talk:Republic of Dubrovnik, even his talkpage User talk:Giovanni Giove) matters where we couldn't make consensus, user Giovanni Giove ignored them. Even when I begged him to do so Talk:Jakov MikaljaEspecially on article Jakov Mikalja. All his actions were editing in form he wants to be, with ignoring otheruser's invitations. He even childishly rejected any answers given (see Talk:Jakov_Mikalja. All his "discussion" with opponents is "you're vandal", "you'll be reported to admins", "end of discussion", "dispute is over", "now it's referenced", that's vandalism", "that's falsificiation", "that's not a trustable source... see also his answer User talk:Giovanni Giove. We had cases of Giovanni Giove's  edit-slaughter  (edit-slaughter: while opponents respect the rule "don't do anything on the article till consensus made on Rf..", at the same time, vandal-slayer freewillingly and with attitude "who-cares-for-idiots-that-obey-the-rules-and-do-nothing", edits the article the way he wants it to be, or POV-ize it). His recent edit without discussion (on article Jakov Mikalja was, and after user Zmaj's revert (note:rv back - user Giovanni Giove reverted the edits of a total of 8 editors), Giove again made his actions. Both his actions were made Aug 27. Of course, he gave no explanations on talkpage. He belittles the sources from small nations (especially Croats), even if those are  scanned pages  (of original documents, not just scientific works) and catalogue search results from the libraries of Croatian Academy of Sciences and Arts or from Faculty Philosophy from Zagreb. Here're the sections with scans and catalogue results on Talk:Republic of Dubrovnik: Illyrian language, Croathood of Dubrovnik and translations, The name of the country When I gave him the source Talk:Jakov_Mikalja in Italian, published by local Italian Academy of Sciences and Arts, he gave childish denying answer, and later didn't answered at all. But he did edited. He turns the articles into his propaganda about his ideas about Croatian language history (he makes his original research there, instead discussing it on proper page). I gave him long descriptive message, but invain. All answers I got was "Stop to play Kubura. Now the article is totally referencied. Your personal opinions about the therm 'serbocroatian' are meaningless here. Most funny thing is, that he speaks against the sourcesite which he gave as his "trustable source". See Talk:Jakov Mikalja. I've explicitly warned him on his behaviour many times (just type Ctrl+F and type "warned" on Talk:Jakov Mikalja, Talk:Republic of Dubrovnik and User talk:Giovanni Giove. Kubura 15:37, 28 August 2007 (UTC)


 * Note: (a response by Giovanni Giove followed here, in my section. Edit was from 16:02, 28 August. The text is above, in "Response to Kubura". and in 16:07.

This proves what I've said about Giovanni Giove. First, "Serbocroatian" - Giove can't stand to see the form "Croatian" solely. Second, Giove said "your edits are useless". Typical Giove's ignorance and non-respect of other users' edits. Third, Giove said "your sources have been surpassed by my sources". Typically. Who cares for  scans  of the first-hand documents. Fourth, I don't deny the presence of Italians, I'm speaking about something else. I wrote that, read, Giove, what I write (e.g., Giovanni Giove lies; my confirming of presence of Italians on 16 July, 06:21, examples on 28 Aug, ). Please, use talkpages for discussion, not RfARB. Giove, you should have discuss when was time to do so. Fifth, Same story about the Republic and city of Dubrovnik. Sixth, about nationalism, everything that stands on the way of Italian imperialism Giovanni Giove calls "nationalism". About nationalism and it.wiki, I'll remind the readers with things Giovanni Giove wrote on Italian Wikipedia on my talkpage on July 30, 2006. We don't discuss on en.wiki the things on other wiki's, but this should be a guide and proof for others to see Giovanni Gioves's attitudes towards Croats and Croatia. . "...: La nazione croata è un'invenzione dell'800. Prima non esisteva: non avevate nemmeno una lingua vostra . Ve la siete dovuta inventare a partire da uno dei vostri dialetti...". The translation: "The Croat nation is an invention from 1800's. Before it hasn't existed : you (Croats, translators' note) neither had your own language . You (Croats, translators' note) had to invent it from one of your dialects...". In the same message there's an explicit anti-Croat attitude (though, it referres to Croatian War of Independence): "Ti faccio da ultimo presente inolre che hai elimanato tutti riferimenti ai crimini di guerra croati.. ("... that you have removed all references to Croatian war criminals"). Giove mentioned general Ante Gotovina, although Gotovina was still under process. And even worse, he "attacked" me for removing that false reference . Interesting, Giovanni Giove hasn't mentioned any Serb war criminals at all, like Milan Martić and Milan Babić on the article Dalmazia. That was the message. Denying of Croatian nation and language. Anti-Croat hateridge. That tell's everything. Now make conclusions about his edits here. Kubura 14:04, 24 August 2007 (UTC)

Statement by Brunodam
I have only participated with few posts on Dalmatia and Zadar (and may be with other related articles), but I am the author of an article on the historical southern tip of Dalmatia called Albania Veneta (where there it is an agreement with Direktor:read ) and probably that is the reason why I have been named in this arbitration.

Allow me to write that I am very sorry for all these problems and I am going to write only my personal points of view on Dalmatia, without commentaries against anybody.

First of all, I agree with the posts of Giovanni Giove that are based on the Britannica Encyclopedia. But I even understand some points of view of the Croatians (Dalmatia, for me, is partially Italian and partially Slav). As I said to Direktor, I believe that the Dalmatian Croats are "the most Latin of the Slavs" and are different from the Venetians/Italians only (or mainly) because of the language. I am sure that with the European Union all of us will be "one country" soon or later.

Back to the arbitration, my points of view are nearly identical to those here:
 * 1)[] On the History of Dalmatia.
 * 2) On the Italians in Dalmatia.
 * 3) On Zara/Zadar, when was a city of the Kingdom of Italy.

What strikes me more is the tentative -done mainly in the last century- to "appropriate" everything is italian in Dalmatia and "transform" it in Croatian: let's look at the literature, as an example. Giacomo Scotti in Quaderni Giuliani di Storia/Anno XXIII (n°1 gennaio-giugno 2002) pag.21-35 LA LETTERATURA ITALIANA IN DALMAZIA: UNA STORIA FALSIFICATA writes that "..Da circa ottant'anni - il fenomeno cominciò timidamente dopo la costituzione della prima Jugoslavia nel 1920, per prendere via via sempre maggiori dimensioni - dalla critica e saggistica letteraria croata, in parte an­che da quella serba, è stata portata avanti una sistematica appropriazione di scrittori italiani della Dalmazia e del Litorale montenegrino, e c'è stato, conseguentemente, l'inserimento nella letteratura croata e montenegrina - alcuni no­mi sono ripetuti nell'una e nell'altra - di tutti gli scrittori e poeti che scrissero in latino e in italiano, se nati e vissuti sul territorio dell'odierna Croazia e dell'at­tuale Montenegro. Il ladrocinio è accompagnato quasi sempre dalla slavizzazio­ne e falsificazione dei nomi e cognomi italiani, come abbiamo largamente di­mostrato..." This in plain english, more or less, is: "..For the last eighty years, the phenomenon started after the creation of Yugoslavia in 1920 and has grown since then, the Croat (and even Serbian) literary critics have done a calculated process of appropriation of the italian writers of Dalmatia and of the Littoral of Montenegro. All the Italian/Venetian writers (who wrote in Latin, Venetian and Italian in the last centuries) have been inserted in the croatian and montenegrin literature, if they were born and/or lived in the areas of contemporary Croatia and Montenegro. The process is nearly always accompanied by the change (and "falsification") of the italian names and surnames into Slav names and surnames....." In this way, Giovanni Bona de Boliris (born in Cattaro in 1520) is included as Ivan Bolika in the croatian literature; Francesco Patrizio (born in Cherso in 1529) is now called Frane Petric; Gior­gio Orsini, born in Zara, is now the croat Juraj Dalmatinac; Francesco Difnico (born in Sebenico in 1607) is Franjo Divnic-Difnik; Andrea Meldola is Andrija Medulic and so on and on....All this with the obvious aim to "increase" (and in some cases even to "create") the croatian and serb presence in the cultural history of Dalmatia, that otherwise would be practically only Italian/Venetian until the first half of the nineteenth century. Regards.--Brunodam 02:30, 29 August 2007 (UTC)

Arbitrators' opinions on hearing this matter (4/0/0/0)

 * Accept. James F. (talk) 22:27, 24 August 2007 (UTC)
 * Accept. Kirill 01:14, 25 August 2007 (UTC)
 * Accept. SimonP 16:25, 27 August 2007 (UTC)
 * Accept FloNight&#9829;&#9829;&#9829; 20:18, 27 August 2007 (UTC)

Temporary injunction (none)
=Final decision= All numbering based on /Proposed decision (vote counts and comments are there as well)

Consensus
1) Wikipedia works by building consensus through the use of polite discussion. The dispute resolution process is designed to assist consensus-building when normal talk page communication has not worked. Sustained edit-warring is not an appropriate method of resolving disputes, and is wasteful of resources and destructive to morale.


 * Passed 5 to 0, 01:10, 19 October 2007 (UTC)

Locus of dispute
1) The dispute centers around the status of Dalmatia, and includes a number of articles, notably Zadar.


 * Passed 5 to 0, 01:10, 19 October 2007 (UTC)

Giovanni Giove
2) has engaged in sustained edit-warring.


 * Passed 5 to 0, 01:10, 19 October 2007 (UTC)

DIREKTOR
3) has engaged in sustained edit-warring.


 * Passed 5 to 0, 01:10, 19 October 2007 (UTC)

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.

Giovanni Giove restricted
1) is subject to an editing restriction for one year.  He is limited to one revert per page per week (excepting obvious vandalism), and is required to discuss any content reversions on the page's talk page.  If he exceeds this limit or fails to discuss a content reversion, he may be blocked for the duration specified in the enforcement ruling below.


 * Passed 5 to 0, 01:10, 19 October 2007 (UTC)

DIREKTOR restricted
2)  is subject to an editing restriction for one year.  He is limited to one revert per page per week (excepting obvious vandalism), and is required to discuss any content reversions on the page's talk page.  If he exceeds this limit or fails to discuss a content reversion, he may be blocked for the duration specified in the enforcement ruling below.


 * Passed 5 to 0, 01:10, 19 October 2007 (UTC)

Log of blocks and bans
Log any block, ban or extension under any remedy in this decision here. Minimum information includes name of administrator, date and time, what was done and the basis for doing it.


 * 15:57, 6 November 2007 Steel359 (Talk | contribs | block) blocked "Giovanni Giove (Talk | contribs)" (account creation blocked) with an expiry time of 6 days ‎ (Edit warring in violation of ArbCom revert ruling; see Wikipedia:Requests for arbitration/Dalmatia#Giovanni Giove restricted)
 * Link to diffs showing violation: – Steel 16:01, 6 November 2007 (UTC)
 * 17:02, 16 November 2007 Steel359 blocked Giovanni Giove with an expiry time of indefinite ‎ (Violation of revert restriction again + personal attacks + lengthy block log = indef)
 * (subsequently shortened to 48h by Thatcher131 for "extenuating circumstances")
 * 16:09, 30 November 2007 Coren blocked Giovanni Giove with an expiry time of 1 week ‎ (Edit warring: 3RR and incivility)
 * 19:30, 30 November 2007 Fut.Perf. blocked Giovanni Giove with an expiry time of indefinite ‎ (exhausted the community's patience, as per )