Wikipedia:Requests for arbitration/Anonimu/Evidence

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Evidence presented by Sceptre

Anonimu has a history of disruption

Several months ago, Anonimu was on ANI for breaking policies one way or another. Several of these are:

Anonimu assumes bad faith by calling his opponent's edits vandalism or disruptive

On some cases, he has reverted editors with the summary "rvv", even if no vandalism is apparent. [1], [2], [3], [4].

Anonimu is incivil

Above diffs, and: [5], [6], [7], [8], [9], [10], [11], [12] All within one month of this post (2007-11-23). Will ^(talk) 19:22, 23 November 2007 (UTC)[reply]

About Anonimu's indef block

Just a note about El C's post about the indef block: I did support an indef block, but I would've preferred for it to have gone through AC, not ANI. Besides, no matter whether it was Bonaparte or Anonimu, they are banned, thus the edits may be reverted on sight regardless of merit. Will ^(talk) 09:42, 28 November 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Hear, hear. — $PЯINGεrαgђ 00:58, 29 November 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Evidence presented by ElC

Anonimu has faced provocations from proxies

Anonimu, whose talk page sees a lot of ip activity, has faced provocations from proxies, mostly determined to be Bonparate socks. ^{[13] [14]}

Sceptre's abuse of Anonimu

I, myself, ended up prohibiting Sceptre from interacting with Anonimu due to a series of hostile edits, many (too many) of which, delivered via popup tools (TW or AWB). ^{[15] [16] [17]} I noted this in my unblock request where Anonimu was blocked after both he and Sceptre reverted three times each. ^[18] I would like to examine this incident, because I feel it is rather symptomatic of some of the Anonimu's experiences.

Upon the ousting of notorious Romanian dictator and traitor of the revolution, Nicolae Ceauşescu, he was subjected to one of the most discreditable and laughable "trials" in post-Cold War history. Accused of crimes against humanity (which he was guilty of) and genocide, Ceauşescu's trial lasted less than two hours. His own defense attorney stated that: "...you led the country to the verge of ruin and you will be convicted on the basis of the points contained in the bill of indictment..." [and] "I would like to refer once more to the genocide, the numerous killings carried out during the past few days. Elena and Nicolae Ceausescu must be held fully responsible for this." That's right, you read this correctly, this is from Ceauşescu's defense counsel. This trial lasted less than two hours, afterwhich, Ceauşescus were promptly executed.

Now, as a professional historian with some specialization into trials involving slaves, 'natives' and 'coloreds' in the British West Indies and Central-South Africa, I challenge that (even by the standards of centuries ago) calling this a "kangaroo court" is not a giant leap, and certainly is not vandalism (this will become significant later on). This, then, is what Anonimu added to the article, Sceptre (and I note that, aside from Anonimu-related edits, he does not appear to frequent Romanian articles, which to me was a concern) showed up to revert him ^[19], Anonimu reverted back,^[20] and this resulted in the aforementioned three reverts each, as a result of which, only Anonimu faced censure. What seems clear is that the labeling of Ceauşescu's trial as "kangaroo court" is what, we, in the Wikipedia nomenclature, call a content dispute.

Despite this fact, Sceptre went on to write the following aggressive note on the article's talk page to explain (?) his reverts (quoted in full):

I will revert anyone who uses the term to suggest that his trial is a kangaroo court. WP:NPOV and WP:V are not mutually exclusive. ^[21]

Finding this rather disturbing, I, belatedly, criticized that sentiment and also compared between this trial and that of similar figures, noting that:

"Adolf Eichmann's trial, by comparison, lasted for five months; more recently, Slobodan Milošević's trial lasted two years" ^[22]

I also speculated that, perhaps Sceptre did not even know that this trial-cum-execution lasted for less than two hours. ^[23]

Sceptre also went on to list Anonimu on the Administrator intervention against vandalism (AIV) board for this kangaroo court dispute, in part:

"On Nicolae Ceauşescu. Obvious POV pushing after warned on the article's talk page" ^[24]

As for Anonimu having been "warned on the article's talk page" by Sceptre, I refer you to Sceptre's "I will revert anyone" statement cited in the first bulletpoint. I submit, then, that while Anonimu is not blameless, there are key mitigating circumstances, ones which, had it not been to this (rather partial) evidentiary report, members of the Committee likely would not become privy to and would go on to rule in the absence of.

Which is difficult to realize, seeing as Anonimu's opponents are not limited to Bonparate socks and the Sceptre (whose impetus for being involved in disputes with Anonimu remains a mystery to me), but also a variety of East European national and even ethno-nationalist editors. A glance at the RfC reveals it exclusively consists of a collection of Anonimu's opponents (note my closing statements of the User conduct RfC MfD, coincidentally, launched by Sceptre). Likewise with this RfAr (I also reiterate that I would like to see something said about the use of popup tools in these sort of disputes — up to and including this very RfAr,^[25] a first for me). Thanks. El_C 16:18, 24 November 2007 (UTC)[reply]

I urge Dpotop to exhibit minimal decorum & refrain from incivility on this page. His combativeness illustrates some of Anonimu's opposition. El_C 18:22, 24 November 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Once again, I take exception to Dpotop aggression and reject his hostile mischaracterizations (conspiracy, etc.) as wholly unfounded. El_C 18:35, 24 November 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Dpotop excessive combativeness and his assumptions of bad faith about me & others, I feel, harm rather than advance his case. El_C 18:49, 24 November 2007 (UTC)[reply]

November 27: indefinite block by Maxim

On Communist Romania, a dispute with Biruitorul led to an indefinite block by user Maxim while these arbitration proceeding remain ongoing:

Anonimu claims that a source (Grigore Caraza) is fascist, writes: "why do you still need a source written by a fascist?" ^[26]

Biruitorul rvts {{vf}}: "Caraza is a HERO in the fight against Communism! Please do not defile his reputation with baseless attacks!)" ^[27]

Anonimu rvts by restoring the citation tags, responds to Biruitorul with: "rv removal of tags by guy who considers fascists heroes" ^[28]

Biruitorul: "Caraza does happen to be a hero. You have yet to adduce any evidence that he was a "fascist" when he wrote his book" ^[29]

Biruitorul files a notice on ANI, cites BLP issues ("Caraza is still alive") and personal attacks against himself ("referring to me as a "guy who considers fascists heroes". That is a gross insult.") ^[30] Ads that: "I have never seen evidence that Caraza is or was a fascist" (answers my earlier question; I overlooked it when mistaking one of his summaries as indicative of him possibly being aware of such an affiliation. Biruitorul clarifies Caraza may have been a fascist in 1949, ^{(why 1949, of all years, I'm unsure)} but even if he was, Biruitorul was unaware of this).

Maxim issue indefinite block, is supported by Scpetre, Neil, and Rlevse. Irish Guy supports, but cites sockpuppets (which may well be Bonaparte — see below). TSO1D, GRBerry, and myself think it should be submitted to the arbitration pages, not ANI. Futureperfect notes that the socks almost certainly are Bonaparte. I postulate that if Caranza was in any way affiliated with fascists, then this whole incident may be viewed in a much different light. I add that, in the interest of evenhandedness, all parties should have been told to cool it. ^[31]

Three socks enter the scene following the block, and begin reverting. These are: Anonimul, Anonimu din Constanta, and A CT Romania.

Irishguy and Sceptre immediately mark these in a template that reads sockpuppets of Anonimu (which links to a redlink category) ^{[32] [33] [34]} I switch it, instead, to the Bonaparte sockpuppet template, which seems much more likely in light of the socks comments (example: "I will not be a communist any more. I promise I will love all Romanians from now on") ^[35] I protect the socks' talk pages. I also end the socks versus other revert war over Anonimu's user page, with the former blanking it and the latter adding the indefblock template, by protecting it and adding the original two-sentence user page. I also revert Springeragh comment on Anonimu's talk page, reading: "You're getting smart? Creating sockpuppets? Wow!" ^[36] and undo a comment by a Bonaparte ip that reads: well, something in Romanian ^[37]

El_C 03:50, 28 November 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Evidence presented by User:Dpotop

Comment on the evidence presented by User:El_C and User:Irpen

I am yet another editor who lost all appetite for editing due to editing practices such as Anonimu's. Other editors have listed all the problems: Fast-handed reverts with inexistent or meanigless summaries. Calling other editors' contributions "vandalism". Long-term edit warring at the limit of 3RR. Refusal to communicate, etc.

However, I will not insist on my problems with Anonimu, I am just one among many others, and the cases already presented here are representative. If you are interested, check my edit history in relation with Soviet-Romanian relations.

What bothered me in relation with this arbitration case are the interventions of Irpen and ElC:

Irpen basically proposed the creation of a new Warsaw pact inside Wikipedia. One that would group "Eastern European" subjects and apply to them different editing rules than the rest of Wikipedia.
ElC lawyerly presented Anonimu as an editor that was abused "in his childhood" by Bonaparte, and which is now abused by the bad User:Sceptre and by some ethno-Romanian nationalists. And then he goes on psychanalyzing one such case of abuse that supposedly made Anonimu a bad guy.

Both interventions use a populist rhetoric to invoke leniency w.r.t. User:Anonimu. They also ignore, both of them, the real problem here: One editor did infringe on half a dozen Wikipedia policies for more than one year. As shown by previous arbitration and banning cases, Wikipedia is not a mental institution for helping people with personality problems (I am thinking particularly of Bonaparte, which was also abused by some admins before becoming... well, the banned Bonaparte we know). Its goal is also to produce good articles, not to provide an arena for fighting between "Eastern Europeans".

So, how about applying Wikipedia rules?

Also, ElC: 1. How about you comment on the behavior of Anonimu, and not that of other editors. If you have an issue with Sceptre, RfC him. But this case is about Anonimu.

2. Among the signers of this RfArb (by native language):

User:Istvan is Hungarian.
User:K. Lastochka is Hungarian-American
User:Biophys is Russian
User:Vecrumba is Latvian

So much for Romanian ethno-nationalists being the culprits.

Following my previous comments, ElC replaced "Romanian ethno-nationalists" with "Eastern European ethno-nationalists". So, there we have a conspiracy of Romanian-Russian-Hungarian-Latvian-American ethno-nationalists that want to abuse User:Anonimu.

One basic assumption

I will state here one basic assumption I thought stands at the basis of Wikipedia: Everybody is entitled to have his own beliefs, as long as the rules of Wikipedia are respected and editing proceeds. One can be a Communist (like Anonimu or El_C), a nationalist (like me and, probably, Biruitorul), etc. We can all contribute. The problems come from one editor not being able to refrain from POV-pushing his/her beliefs.

Evidence presented by K. Lastochka

Anonimu is unacceptably rude and incivil

Here Anonimu implies that, as a female, I am incapable of contributing anything useful to a discussion of military history and had better "go play with my dolls." A bit later, after he seemed to be taking it upon himself to "correct" my behavior in general on the Wiki, I irritatedly asked him why no one else seemed to have such a problem with me, drawing this response. He later resorted to outright insult, calling me a "barbarian-recruited auxilia". After I said "personal attacks noted," he replied by calling me paranoid. Obviously this is only one example of his habitual pattern of snide and sneering remarks, outright slander, and disruptive obnoxiousness. I will add more examples later.

Anonimu assumes bad faith and attempts to smear and discredit his opponents

I have never seen Anonimu engaged in a discussion in which he did not call one or many of his antagonists a "fascist," an "ultranationalist," or in my case, a "groupie."

According to Anonimu, I have no free will of my own and am simply a sycophantic servant of User:Biruitorul, ready to leap into action with tail wagging eagerly at the slightest snap of his fingers. It began here: in a side-comment in a discussion of some other issue, Biru asked "by the way, would you like to weigh in here?" and provided me a link to the proposed renaming of "Fantana Alba incident" to "Fantana Alba massacre." After checking out the link, I decided that it was indeed an issue I'd like to weigh in on, and joined the discussion. And then along came Anonimu. His first appearance was to attempt to discredit those requesting the move as ultranationalists. He then told me rather bluntly to go away, and attempted to discredit me on account of my ethnic background. Then he let loose with the groupie stuff: see this and this. Later in the discussion, he implied that User:Vecrumba's opinion was invalid on account of Vecrumba being from the Baltics: [38]. He later called Biruitorul "Mr. Holodeny", which as we later realized, could only stand for "Holocaust denier." As his parting shot in this battle, he gave his collected opponents the charming nickname of "The Monstrous Coalition."

Regarding his accusations of Holocaust denial and other slander against Biruitorul, the full story including relevant diffs can be found here. Despite the responding admin's assertion that it was somehow no big deal, I see it as part and parcel of Anonimu's habitual completely unacceptable behavior. K. Lásztocska^talk 18:27, 24 November 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Evidence presented by Biruitorul

Anonimu is grossly incivil

I posted a version of this message to the ANI and was urged to take it here. The fact that Anonimu is blithely proceeding with his hostile behaviour shows clearly his unwillingness to be a normal, productive member of this community. Moreover, note that the incident described also verges on a 3RR violation (though he knows how to game the system, so he didn't violate the strict letter of 3RR) and is clearly an attempt to derail constructive editing by pushing his own theories into the article (ie, a WP:POINT violation).

Anonimu is showing no signs of slowing down his tendency to violate WP:NPA at the drop of a hat despite his ongoing ArbCom case. Three times ([39], [40], [41]), he referred to Romanian author Grigore Caraza as a "fascist". In and of itself, this is unacceptable: Caraza is still alive (see WP:BLP), and he spent over two decades imprisoned in horrific conditions for his anti-Communist resistance activities. However, he has compounded his attacks by referring to me as a "guy who considers fascists heroes". That is a gross insult. I have never seen evidence that Caraza is or was a fascist, and I consider him a hero purely for his resistance activities and the time he spent in prison. Biruitorul (talk) 01:18, 27 November 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Evidence presented by Turgidson

Anonimu attempts to smear and discredit other editors or authors

I've been editing for exactly one year now at WP, and I've never seen anyone more uncivil than Anonimu (with perhaps one exception). His edit summaries and his speech on talk pages are extremely aggressive and rude, with continual personal attacks and diatribes, making it very difficult to make any progress in improving an article on which he has set his sights on. Let me give here just a few recent examples (all since the RfC started) of just one type of attack.

Here he implied that fellow editors are "anglo-american imperialists". And here is his mocking reply, when challenged on this comment, which several editors took as a personal attack.
Here he implied that anyone supporting the position that Soviet troops occupied Romania after WWII is "a spy or a guy paid to accuse Soviets". When challenged on what he meant by that, he started to backtrack, shifting his accusations towards Mircea Răceanu, a Romanian and American diplomat, dissident, and essayist, and against Vladimir Tismăneanu (whom he calls "Volodea", or "Volo"), a Romanian and American political scientist, a professor at the University of Maryland, and president of the Tismăneanu commission.
Here, here, here, and here he calls an author, Grigore Caraza, a "fascist" and a "legioneer" [sic]. It so happens that Caraza (naturalized American citizen in 1986) was born in 1929, so he was only 15 in August 1944, when Nazism was defeated in Romania, and 20 in 1949, when he was arrested by the Communist authorities, to be freed only in 1977. I challenged Anonimu here and here to produce evidence for his characterization, but he has not produced any.

And this is just a sample of Anonimu's recent attacks. I think he is a loose cannon, and, if left to his own devices, will continue to do damage. Turgidson (talk) 02:51, 27 November 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Evidence presented by AdrianTM

Anonimu is uncivil and totally disregards WP:NPA, WP:CIVIL, and WP:AGF

Some notable edits: edit summary comment, edit summary comment when he was announced of his RfC, edit summary
Accusations of bad faith, as I explained, I didn't see the block for the sock (as proof the block tag was added only on Nov 24 (my revert took place on Nov 3), in my revert I explained that "I don't see this user to be banned as being a sock, if it becomes so remove endorsement", however that didn't stop Anonimu to present my revert as a proof of my "bad faith" and by extension to all the editors in his RfC. This is a rather minor incident, but is fairly typical example of poisoning the discussions with accusations of bad faith when the solution would have been rather simple: provide the proof that that user is a sock -- especially that I clearly stated "if the user is banned as a sock, remove endorsement". Furthermore, in this case it is pretty clear that I had no interest to keep an endorsement of a banned user since it doesn't count anyway, however Anonimu used the occasion to fling an accusation of bad faith to me and by undue generalization to all the editors in his RfC. -- AdrianTM (talk) 03:24, 27 November 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Anonimu engages in revert wars and accuses authors and editors of fascism and anti-semitism if the sources provided contradict his opinions

[42] By the way, in this case Paul Goma is a living person who doesn't accept the label of anti-Semitic, so that probably constitutes a libel (if the issue is debatable it's still not up to Anonimu to decide who is anti-Semitic or not), again, again, again, and again, Other instances in other articles, same behaviour: [43], [44], and here with personal attack, extensive detail of his edit warring in his RfC page.

Evidence presented by Fsol

No comments, just evidence

A discussion with Anonimu a long time ago: [45]

"Yes of course.. if i'd recommend psychiatric counselling i'm breaking wiki's civility policy? Anonimu 20:46, 9 September 2006 (UTC)[reply]

When you are faced with the lack of arguments you find insults comforting...Don't worry I won't "report" you to wikipedia or anything by using this kind of language you are discrediting yourself enough.Fsol

It wasn't an insult.It was just a counsel. And i still recommend you to do it... Anonimu 07:22, 10 September 2006 (UTC)"[reply]

Later on, on that same discussion he starts writing in Romanian and without signing his comment: [46]

"Nu v'ar fi rusine obrazului... Cand o sa ajung la putere (si o sa ajung, ca in sondaju secret facut de presedintie sunt pe primul loc, ma dane) in 24 de ore o sa bag toti mafiotii ca tine din tara care au furat din averea poporului roman asta in puscarie. Cat credeti ca va va mai suporta poporul roman?"

The translation of the insults, personal attacks and even threats this time is: "You should be ashamed of yourself ... Once I come to power [...] in 24 hours I shall put all mobsters like you, who stole from the people's wealth, in jail. How much more do you think the Romanian people will take?"--Fsol (talk) 22:05, 7 December 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Evidence presented by {your user name}

before using the last evidence template, please make a copy for the next person

{Write your assertion here}

Place argument and diffs which support your assertion; for example, your first assertion might be "So-and-so engages in edit warring", which should be the title of this section. Here you would show specific edits to specific articles which show So-and-so engaging in edit warring.