Wikipedia:Requests for comment/Igor

Complaint initially submitted by Shallot on November 29, 2003.

Igor is a Serbian nationalist who is constantly modifying anything even remotely related to that topic to present views highly resembling those of Slobodan Milosevic. For a few months now, I tried to reason with him in various Talk pages, to no avail. He is known to make changes without any explanation, and when he does provide explanations, they only make it more obvious that one is dealing with a rabid zealot.

Some shining examples of his bias and being unhelpful include but are hardly limited to:
 * Croat Catholic Ustashi clergy and its no less evil twin brother -- some sort of a terrorist hitlist, full of assertions and insidious insinuations. Probably based on either royal Yugoslav gendarmerie or Chetnik sources, both of which are known to have been very pro-Croat oriented or neutral. NOT.
 * Croat and Bosnian newspeak (original title by Igor) -- page that is biased from the title onwards, spiced up with glaring factual errors. This one is coupled with Croatian linguistic purism, which User:Mir Harven tried to replace this with. He didn't even find it necessary to discuss the content of the page he had a grudge with, and which was much longer than the one he created and, while probably biased, not factually incorrect (at least it seems to me).
 * Serbo-Croatian language, Montenegro -- refusing to accept that there's any legitimacy to the dissent among the Serbs about issues he (and Milosevic) have an opinion on; plus, the opinion he has is hardly founded on facts
 * Demographics of Croatia -- a propaganda piece if you ever saw one. One might argue that my attitude is too positive, but his isn't merely too negative, it's completely disinclined to accept that not everything is black and white. There is plenty of maneuvering space in the truth to take a negative stance, witnessed by the opinions of the ICTY prosecutors, the governments of the UK and the Netherlands.
 * History of Bosnia and Herzegovina -- even if we ignore the mindnumbing insistence on how it was a Serbian land in the Middle Ages, I can't fail to react at the gross misrepresentation of crimes committed in Srebrenica and Sarajevo, when masses of defenseless people were very obviously endangered by Serb military forces. BTW, compare with the previous entry: planned exodus is depicted as the most criminal act, while death of thousands is supposed to be... I'm not sure? Necessary casualties of war? Accidents? Suicides?

There are many more I'm sure. He never fails to add some extreme Serbian viewpoint everywhere. I've heard of various incursions into Kosovo-related pages, but haven't looked into it; there's also gobs of controversial edits in pages like Ustase, History of Croatia, Rudjer Josip Boscovich, Dubrovnik, Bosniaks, Croatian Communist Party, Croatia, Slavic peoples, Bunjevatz, Croatian coat of arms, Franjo Tudjman... the list goes on and on. Pay special attention to the external links he posts -- there's some really egregious propaganda pieces there. It's also symptomatic that links are hardly ever attributed, rather they're given pretty generic names. Not that that's a capital crime in itself, far from it, but they contribute to presenting of really wacko opinions as universal facts. I've come to be wary even of innocent-sounding commits of his in pages like Ivan Mestrovic.

I was reluctant to mention this problem officially for a long time, thinking there was a glimmer of hope that he might accept a few of those extremely softened compromises in the controversial articles. However, the more it goes on, the more he keeps sounding like Serbian Radio Television from the 1990-1999 period, and relentlessly making his stances, ranging from near-ridiculous to offensive, known.

These days I'm really tired of battling everything out with him so I'm starting this discussion in hope that someone will either talk sense into him, or failing that, prevent him from doing further damage. At the risk of him thinking he's being victimized, ironically...

There are several other users who have come to realize this agenda of his over time after trying to work with him. I'm betting nine out of ten of his user contributions would be considered problematic by users including but not limited to:
 * myself
 * User:Denny
 * User:G-Man
 * User:Mir Harven (*)
 * User:Yakov
 * User:Vedran
 * User:GeneralPatton (*)

User Mir Harven, marked with (*), holds views that might be considered offensive by non-nationalist Serbs and could probably excluded from the equation to avoid creating an impression of partiality. User GeneralPatton, also marked with (*), is also a Croatian nationalist but extremely rude and biased at times, and he could probably be excluded as well.

Usually it goes like this: someone posts something, Igor "fixes" it, then we go in circles for a while, and then the original poster either modifies their writing to be extremely politically correct and includes mention of various spurious or specious arguments applied by the pan-Serb propagandists such as Igor, or gives up hope. Articles where a normal point of view has prevailed without catering to Igor's wishes are a scarce commodity.

The following users also may have had some run-ins with Igor or just witnessed patterns in his behaviour and could probably provide more information on the matter:
 * User:Dori
 * User:Nikola Smolenski
 * User:Zocky
 * User:Cyan

I'd particularly point out Nikola Smolenski who also has/had some views that non-Serbs disagree with, but he can be reasoned with and he doesn't insist on the kind of BS Igor's likely to.

-

Comments
For several months now, Igor has returned occasionally and continued with the same agenda. Talk:Yugoslav wars further attests to the fact that he's simply on a personal crusade, though it's pretty obvious from his contributions already... Some of the latest abuse highlights include Alija Izetbegovic, Srem, Serbia and Croatia, List of Croatians (check out the plain spiteful commit at Marco Polo a few moments ago)... --Shallot 22:07, 16 Mar 2004 (UTC)

He has indeed inserted POV into many articles, as well as many inaccuracies. He often won't provide sources, and he keeps reverting, no matter how many editors revert him. I usually give up and put a disputed message on articles, but now he's removing that as well (see Kosovo population data-points). I am at a loss as to how to deal with him. Dori | Talk 04:16, Mar 20, 2004 (UTC)

Can user Igor be banned somehow? --GeneralPatton 10:14, 15 Apr 2004 (UTC)


 * Not unless he grossly abuses Wikipedia rules of conduct (keep an eye on reversions in particular) and not unless either a quickpoll decides that he should receive a temporary ban, or the arbitration committee decides on a permanent ban. People are not banned just for having strong POVs, nor should they be - you'll have to put up with it. -- ChrisO 14:09, 15 Apr 2004 (UTC)


 * Yeah, but this guy is basically trolling and spreading hate, it's more than a strong POV. --GeneralPatton 20:43, 15 Apr 2004 (UTC)