Wikipedia:Arbitration/Requests/Case/Eastern_European_mailing_list/Evidence/Biophys References

Evidence presented by Biophys

Massive outing by a mysterious informant

Some bare facts:

Personal information with real names of every member of the group was posted off-wiki, and people are receiving emails with links to that site [1]. This is probably the biggest outing in WP history.
The leak was accomplished quite professionally, through a proxy server in a third country. No traces.
The leakage was made precisely at the moment when Russavia was blocked.
This case is only the latest episode of a multi-year conflict between a small group of Russian users (some of whom were blocked but quickly replaced by others) and users from many other countries (USA, Russia, Netherlands, Baltic States, Ukraine, Poland and many others), some of whom participated in this mailing list.
Our mailing group had no archive. Someone, either within the group, or outside the group carefully collected every single message to release it at the moment of his choosing.
There was no a "dissenter" in our group who would release the archive to retaliate for Russavia and bring him back. As clear from the emails, some participants did not care about Russavia; others did not like him.
Every member of the group publicly asserted at this site that he did not send the archive. Why? That is what Russavia thinks. Do you believe him?
In email dated April 27, I said to other members of the group (perhaps for a wrong reason): "Do you want our correspondence here mailed to ArbCom?" I explained that one of the members of the group suppose to be a Kremlin's informant according to every textbook, and I also explained why our WP activities are important for people who work there. And that is precisely what had happened.

I think Piotrus crossed the line by making this edit on September 16, just before the archive was sent. Having me and Piotrus editing this article was something he/they could not afford for the reasons described in emails. Therefore, he/they released the archive next day.

I am sorry, but everyoone familiar with Russian internet affairs will believe this to be a special operation by their services, unless you know exactly who did it and why. I contacted one such person who told me to leave your project immediately. I marked my account as inactive with appropriate explanation [2]

Sock puppet by Vlad fedorov to evade ban and conduct outing

But this all started much earlier for me. I have reported to old ArbCom a coded death threat which was made to me by pro-Putin editor ellol. He did it using slang Udaff to make translation from Russian more ambiguous and almost impossible by a non-native speaker. He would be blocked right away because I also reported this incident to the ANI, but User:Alex_Bakharev declared that ellol did not mean it.

Being perfectly aware of this threat, another pro-Putin editor User:Vlad fedorov suddenly reappeared as a sock puppet, User:La poet to evade his one -year block by ArbCom (see SPI case [3]) and reported my real life identity to ellol. I send this information with diffs to Thatcher some time ago, but the diff is still sitting right there, and I would appreciate if Thatcher redirected my email to ArbCom if he still has it.

Next wave of outing was initiated by User:Miyokan and supported by User:DonaldDuck and User:Russavia (hence his two-week block by Moreshi), who all know my real life identity and made it clear to me that they know it, and who are strongly pro-Putin editors. I can support this by diffs over the email to ArbCom if needed. I am not sure why they are doing this because I almost never edited article Putin.

What's wrong with mailing lists?

If I only knew any rules that forbid email lists, I would never be a part of it. According to Thatcher, anything I said to another WP user can be viewed as an "off-wiki coordination" and result in serious sanctions. No, I did not realize that, being familiar only with voting fraud instruction (and I was never involved in voting fraud). Yes, I suspected that our correspondence could be intercepted, but I thought this can not be a reason for opening any official case, simply because I would never read your personal emails sent to someone else.

If Russavia, Ezhiki and others are privately talking over the phone [4], which is fine, what's wrong with emails?

Why the list was private? Because I followed your recommendations. You said I should not talk here [5], and I talked privately and elsewhere. It was not me who brought this back.

No punishment for talking off-wiki , please

I suggest that everyone should be sanctioned only for real damage that he/she actually did on-wiki rather than for personal opinions or never accomplished intentions expressed off-wiki and privately. I briefly described it here. During all this time, I hardly started more than a couple discussions/threads myself, but mostly commented and replied to questions by others. I said a lot of things about WP policies and practices (e.g. SPI), about situation with articles on Russian politics an history in general and about certain editors. Something has been confirmed later ( User:172 and emails filed to Arbcom); something might be wrong, and I do not want to discuss it now. Please realize, I did little beyond conducting a straightforward debate and providing advice to other members of the list, often to moderate their actions on-wiki.

Once again, I explicitly stated that none of my correspondence in the list should be distributed elsewhere, and Piotrus personally assured me of this. Thus, whoever distributed these materials, a member of the list or not, was guilty of computer crime (see also evidence by Durova). But you do not even need these materials to make the judgment. To play it safe, you should simply do not refer to email archive, as I suggested here [6].

Not guilty of canvassing

I never did canvassing in emails, and started only a couple of threads myself during all this time. I frequently visit AfD discussions on political and scientific subjects, and I did not learn about those discussions from emails. Yes, I visited a couple of other voting discussions after learning about them in mail. But in all such cases I voted oppose like here and debated the issues, in part because I felt an obligation to ensure fair discussion in all such cases. All Polish editors voted support in this case. Why? Because they share common "Polish POV", but I do not.

Guilty of edit warring

Yes, I was involved in edit warring on-wiki. Did I make reverts only to support other "members of the team" on subjects I know nothing about? No, absolutely not. All my edits were on the Russia/Soviet Union and human rights subjects (in addition to Biology/Chemistry/Physics), something I am interested in. I did not edit anything of German-Polish issues and even did not read such emails. I studied text of the article in question, looked at the references and participated at article talk pages.

But I did reverts only to preserve relevant and well sourced content per WP:IAR and not to harass anyone. And it was only a matter of time to find wikifriends who would support some of my edits. Next time, I will not be around when someone removes sourced "controversial facts" [7] and places links to Russian wikipedia instead of books [8], Yes, I reverted such blatant deletions of sourced and relevant materials in any articles, even if I never edited them before.

Nashi ("Ours") are coming

Future Perfect asked how certain Russian users are related to each other [9].

They obviously included Russavia, PaswordUsername, Offliner, Ellol (see this report by Shell_Kinney), Igny and LokiiT/Krawdawg (see example with "Nashi" below; both received warnings and administrative sanctions as a part of their struggle) and two more peripherally connected SPAs who conduct edit wars in South Ossetia war articles together with Offliner (FeelSunny and HistoricWarrior007)

Here User:HistoricWarrior007 places Russian song to talk pages of User:FeelSunny and User:Offliner [10], [11] The song begins from describing a wonderful feeling when your "knife-bayonet" penetrates a trembling body of your enemy. The song celebrates actions by the special KGB forces (famous division named after Felix Dzerzhinsky) in Ossetia. The song was written by Krylov who was one of leaders of the first version of "Nashi", originally created by Alexander Nevzorov. That is why Offlier, FeelSunny and HistoricWarrior007 are conducting edit wars in 2008 South Ossetia war and other related articles.

Now let me refer to discretionary sanctions by Thahtcher [12]. Yes, it was for "disgraceful edit warring at Nashi (youth movement)." Yes, this is precisely what Thatcher thinks: a prima facia of an ideological support of Nashi by the following editors (see the content of the diffs below):

What this is all about? This particular organization is widely described in sources as Putinjugend, an extremist organization whose members physically attack their enemies, use bodies of dead animals to make a statement, etc. In Russia it gave name to a new word Nashism because it sounds precisely as "fascism". Everyone in Russia knows that. Every editor who made reverts on the both sides knew that.

LokiiT is a sockpuppet account created for edit warring

This user created at least six alternative accounts - see his SPI case [16].

I am not sure what was his original account; he was also very active as Krawndawg. As soon as User:LokiiT was created, he started from a copyright violation. He first denied this, but finally admitted [17]

Now edit war by the sock begins: Round 1: [18] [19]. Round 2: [20] [21] [22], but he reports another user for 3RR violation [23]

Repeated personal attack: (You are the one who defends Chechen terrorists who kill children and innocent civilians) [24]

Edit war continues: [25]. Now this sock removes tags inserted by another user: [26] [27] [28] [29]

Even more incivility: [30], [31] and edit war again: [32] [33]

And he continue reverts and removal of sourced information every day (let's see several last days of his editing): [34], [35], [36] [37]

Of course I traced his edits to make sure that he did not do new copyright violations, which finally led to conclusion that he was someone's sock puppet. But I had Nazi crimes against Soviet POWs on my watch list because I debated and edited this article long time before LokiiT came.

Wikihounding by Offliner

What these people do? Editing by Offliner is a good example. I have filed this AE request about him. Once again, no one asked me to do this by email. I believed the request was justified because Offliner continuously wikistalked my edits. All these articles were created or extensively edited by me. Offliner never edited them before. He suddenly visited a number of such articles (most of the diffs below are in the end of April), and removed a lot of sourced content, together with supporting sources:

Article 1 and again, and again, and again, and again
Article 2
Article 3 and again
article 4, and again, and again
Article 5
Article 6, and again, and again, with offensive edit summary
Article 7, deletion of other sourced information in the same article
Article 8
Article 9
Article 10

And he refused to discuss his deletions: [38], [39], [40], [41], [42], [43].

Also note this offensive suggestion by Offliner at my talk page and endless block shopping by Offliner [44], [45], [46].

User:YMB29 is an SPA who does nothing but reverts

This user made so far only ~500 edits. It is enough to look at his edit history and block log. Just a few examples (note misleading edit summaries): [47] [48] [49] [50]. He was also incivil [51]. The only user with whom he was able to positively collaborate [52] was User:Kostan1, a sock of notorious User:M.V.E.i.

Response to evidence by Russavia

Please see this evidence by Colchicum first: [53]

No, I did not disclose any personal information about Russavia on-wiki or in emails, beyond something he wanted himself to be known about him. The PDF authorization for using kremlin.ru images was openly placed by Russavia himself in Wikimedia. No, I have absolutely no idea who he is in real life, simply because I do not believe any of his own assertions about his identity he wanted to be known by placing this PDF file, as I also said in emails.

I made only two official question/requests about Russaiva at public forums that are relevant to this case, and Russavia received no sanctions due to any of these requests: (a) an AE request about uncivil comments by Russavia with regard to Baltic users (no one asked me by email to file this request); (b) a later thread about 22 hour non-stop editing started by Piotrus (I did not ask Piotrus to start this thread over the email).

With regard to the first request, did I incite Russavia to behave badly by filing this AE request [54]?. No, I only correctly identified the problem and reported it to an appropriate noticeboard. Indeed, Russavia had received a topic ban later for doing precisely the same offense. That was not an unsubstantiated "personal attack" (a claim not supported by evidence).

With regard to the second request (my question at the ANI later), I believe it was wrong on my part, although it was my first question on a public forum on this matter. (Previously, I only asked an advice from Tiptoety, but the response by Tiptoety and others did not dispel my concern; and I answered a question by Muscovite99 who came to my talk page). After the incident at the ANI I promised Rusavia do not comment about him again. The first time I made next comment about him was after his topic ban, when I commented in Russavia favor and agreed with Ezhiki that the broad ban on Russavia should be lifted.

The only bad thing I ever said about Russavia in emails was essentially this: I think he has a conflict of interest. However, I never accused any editor of this in wikipedia space, contrary to claims by Russavia and some others. This is not supported by any of his/their links or diffs.

Since no one challenged the first two-week block of Russavia for outing me (15 September 2008), I have to start later. When Russavia came back from the block, I suggested him to live in peace here and suggested an independent editor who was at the moment at the Russavia side to mediate any potential disagreements. But Russavia responded that "Anyone who thinks I would agree to such a thing would have to have rocks in their head" [55]. and mobilized several users to support him [56], [57].

Although this all sounds bad, I had a serious content disagreement with Russavia in only one article ( Litvinenko). I suggested a compromise version here. The compromise was to include all "Criticism" of Litvinenko in a separate section, just like in many other articles, and I had no problem negotiating anything here with Alex Bakharev [58]. Russavia also accused me of BLP violation (see his statement below). He did it during an unrelated AfD discussion, at the talk page of Kirill, at the BLP noticeboard, and WP:RS noticeboard. After such campaign by Russavia, I decided that it would be safer to remove this information even though it was well sourced. I removed it [59] and reported to BLP noticeboard that the problem has been resolved: [60]. And what Russavia does? He re-inserts this claim back!. I am trying to remove it again because I do not want to be accused of BLP violations: [61]. But he reinserts it back again [62]. Why he is doing this? In order to accuse me again during this case?

Other responses

DonaldDuck

This is warning by FaysalF to DonaldDuck with regard to outing me [63]. Actually, I asked blocking admin. for softer sanctions for Petri Krohn: [64]. And I still believe he does not deserve such harsh sanctions.

Commodore sloat

By commenting here Commodore sloat decided not to follow this ArbCom recommendation [65]. If he agrees to follow this recommendation (and I certainly agree), we hardly have any problems. No, I never asked any people who made reverts in these articles to make reverts, and I visited the AfDs because I have these articles on my watch list.