Wikipedia talk:Mediation Cabal/Cases/2006-06-07 Polish Cabal and myself as its leader/Archive 1
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Archive 1 |
Kommentar
As a possible member of the alleged Polish Cabal™ I'm definitely not impartial in this case, but wanted to add my 2 eurocents here. In the theory of communication the basic problem with any kind of compromise solution (and mediation in particular) is that both sides should be left with some sort of a possible and acceptable exit. In this very conflict Elonka leaves us (I mean me and Piotrus, can't speak for others) with no acceptable outcome at all.
She continues to spread her campaign aimed at all wikipedians even distantly related to Poland on a variety of pages. She calls us names (nationalism is a grave offence to me), suggests our bad will, some sort of a conspiracy, suggests that wikipedia would be better off without us, and so on - yet without providing any evidence and without even attempting at mediation. As we say here in Poland it's hard to prove one is not a camel. It would be really great if we could find some solution acceptable to both sides. So far all attempts at reaching terms with Elonka were unsuccessful, as can be seen at our notice board. There even a small favour Piotrus has done to Elonka (translation of some page) was treated as an evidence against him. this discussion is particularly instructing as it seems all attempts at shaking hands with Elonka were met with more and more slander, accusations and suggestions of conspiracy (I never thought starting an RfC could be an argument to prove some alleged guilts). Definitely not the way to go - though I can think of no better way to settle the apparent problem Elonka has with us as a group (informal and disorganised as it is). //Halibutt 07:41, 13 June 2006 (UTC)
- Elonka raised some valid points, while I think the case is overblown by both sides' dealing with it emotionally rather than addressing the real problems we have here. OTOH, if only the cabal or whatever took it upon itself to deal with trolls that put the entire Polish wiki-community in bad light, that would have helped a mile. On a side note, the hypocricy of the statement above is very unhlepful. --Irpen 16:13, 13 June 2006 (UTC)
- What valid points? What trolls? It would be great if you would be more specific. The only unconstructive behaviour in the related discussion was already mentioned by Halibutt, and yes, it would be great if the respective community would deal with it - but I am afraid it is not the Polish community which encourages him.--Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus Talk 18:30, 13 June 2006 (UTC)
Is this mediation valid?
I'm tired of repeating for a year that Piotrus is the most problematic admin in Wiki and that he should have been defrocked months ago, when he indulged in wheel warring to encourage his comrades-in-arms, Molobo and Halibutt, to further revert warring despite numerous 3RR violations on their part.
Not only did he fail to discontinue his shameless POV-pushing wars after many warnings on my part, but most recently he and Molobo unleashed a series of nightmarish revert wars on dozens of articles (see here for a characteristic edit). And, as I repeated ad nauseum before, they turned the Polish notice-board into a black book, used solely for the purpose of recruiting fresh revert warriors.
The very fact that Elonka almost verbatim reiterated my conclusions, expressed so many times before, is sufficient evidence that this mediation is pointless and that we should move on to desysoping procedures at last. Piotr's behavior here has demonstrated conclusively that for him Wikipedia is little more than a Polish propaganda machine and that he is not interested in NPOV editing. His recent passionate defense of Molobo from permablocking provides an instructive sidelight as to what his agenda here is.
Neither there is anything new in his dirty trick of starting a RfC or RfM to divert attention from his own unspeakable offenses against the spirit and letter of WP guidelines. I pointed out to some of his transgressions in the RfC against myself which was started by him and Hali similarly in bad faith and which they never fail to recall in every dispute with/or without myself (Piotr never fails to do so on Template_talk:Did you know every now and then, you may check it even today). In this way his actions are strikingly similar to those of another notorious POV-pusher, User:Bonaparte. He practiced the same tricks but it did not save him from being permabanned.
Let me hope that the three editors that inflicted on themselves the general indignation and ire of WP community - Halibutt, Molobo, and Piotr - will be reformed without the necessity of their permablocking, as was the case with Bonaparte. It seems to me the only way to stop their meaningless carnage of articles and to cool them off is to desysop Piotrus. He never uses his tools for any purpose other than intimidating those editors who do not share his nationalist mythology and who he habitually refers to as "vandals" and "trolls". --Ghirla -трёп- 21:29, 13 June 2006 (UTC)
- Thoroughly concur. Ghirlandajo's experience is my own. Desysoping Piotrus is thoroughly in the interests of the wikipedia project. I add further call for a genuine mediation, rather than the farcical one instigated here by the perpetrator. - Calgacus (ΚΑΛΓΑΚΟΣ) 21:37, 13 June 2006 (UTC)
- I cannot speak for Piotrus here, but feel free to start a RfC or some other procedure concerning yours truly. It would be lovely to finally see some diffs and links rather than constant accusations unsupported by anything. But how is that related to this case? Is the point raised by Piotrus any less valid because you don't like him personally? //Halibutt 22:28, 13 June 2006 (UTC)
- I like Piotrus. You've got me all wrong there. I would happily put links up and all that, but I'll got better things to do than go after someone. - Calgacus (ΚΑΛΓΑΚΟΣ) 23:02, 13 June 2006 (UTC)
- No offence Calgacus, but if this is how you like me, I pray that I never get on your bad side. Could you expand on how desysoping me would benefit the project?--Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus Talk 23:04, 13 June 2006 (UTC)
- I like Piotrus. You've got me all wrong there. I would happily put links up and all that, but I'll got better things to do than go after someone. - Calgacus (ΚΑΛΓΑΚΟΣ) 23:02, 13 June 2006 (UTC)
- I cannot speak for Piotrus here, but feel free to start a RfC or some other procedure concerning yours truly. It would be lovely to finally see some diffs and links rather than constant accusations unsupported by anything. But how is that related to this case? Is the point raised by Piotrus any less valid because you don't like him personally? //Halibutt 22:28, 13 June 2006 (UTC)
Yes, it is valid. No, he is not abusing his admin powers. He has not deleted, undeleted, banned, or unbanned anyone in this whole process. That is the scope of his admin powers. Stop making personal attacks. --Keitei (talk) 23:51, 13 June 2006 (UTC)
- I have serious concerns that, with your very limited WP experience, you can properly assess the scale of disruptiveness of Piotr's edits and adjudge what constitutes the abuse of admin's powers. If you bothered to follow a link to RfC that Halibutt courteously provided above, you would see the diffs and stuff. Since you seem to support Piotr's wheel warring to unblock his pets trolls (see Molobo's block log, for example), I leave to leave this unprofitable discussion in disgust. If a defrocking process against Piotr is launched, I will certainly add my two cents there. After about hundred times as much edits here as yourself, I may advice you to consult the policies and to learn what is personal attack before attempting to mediate something. Otherwise, you may get yourself into trouble. Good bye, Ghirla -трёп- 07:06, 14 June 2006 (UTC)
- As near as I can tell, though Keitei has less than 1000 edits on Wikipedia, Keitei was also an admin on Uncyclopedia, with thousands of edits there. [1]. And Ghira, I hope you'll stay. I'd like you see you contribute to the discussion in good faith, to help air grievances in a civil manner. This format seems relatively good -- It's not a trial, and Keitei has no authority to make any binding decisions. This is mainly just a discussion page, where we can keep everything in one place and try to work things out between ourselves. Why not give it a try? --Elonka 17:15, 14 June 2006 (UTC)
Elonka's point of view
Well, I guess I'll dip my toe into this process, though I'm a bit reluctant to be associated with the incivility that's going on, elsewere on this page. :/ Speaking for myself though, when I have said that Piotrus may have abused admin powers, I was referring to many page moves that he has accomplished over the last few months [2]. For one single example: he moved Jadwiga of Poland to Jadwiga Angevin [3], evidently solely at the "say-so" of another user on the Polish Wikipedian noticeboard, Logologist [4], and made two other serious errors which I regard as the abuse of adminship: (1) He moved the page in violation of the consensus that was already on that article's talk page; and (2) He moved the page without bothering to even place a courtesy note on that talk page, explaining his actions. After I complained to him about it, he moved the page back to the consensus name, but again, without informing anyone on that talk page. The entire incident was also of concern because the discussion on the Polish Wikipedian noticeboard had been started by Piotrus with an inflammatory section heading, "Two n00bies messing Polish monarchs," [5] where he repeatedly referred to the other editors' efforts as a "mess" that needed to be cleaned up (he was referring to User:Tsalreve and User:Shilkanni). I find the term "n00bie" derogatory and disrespectful, and per WP:DR I brought up my concern to Piotrus on his talk page [6], saying that I felt the term was disrespectful, especially when used to refer to a user who wasn't new, and that since Piotrus was an admin, I hoped he would be more aware that people looked to him to set a standard of behavior. However, Piotrus responded by replying to my talk page and using the term several more times. He also said, and I quote, "I consider political correctness a folly to be destroyed," and that even if the editors weren't actual n00bies, that they were acting like n00bies since they were moving pages without participating in the talk page discussion. At which point I pointed out the Jadwiga page move to him, since that was exactly what he had done, was to move a page without participating in (or even reading) the talk page discussion [7]. --Elonka 01:22, 14 June 2006 (UTC)
- I don't get what this is all about. Is this about Piotrus' errors in exersising his admin powers or is this about certain pattern in the group behavior? Who sets what this is all about? Is it Piotrus who started the case? Is this the mediator? Anyone can steer the discussion in any direction? I just want some clarity first because otherwise it is very much a waste of time. --Irpen 01:34, 14 June 2006 (UTC)
- I agree with Irpen, and as I already mentioned to Keitei, I'm not certain either, just what exactly it is that we are supposed to be mediating here. :/ --Elonka 02:05, 14 June 2006 (UTC)
- It appears at this point, the purpose of mediation is to clear up misunderstandings before these conflicts (personality conflicts? lack of communication? disagreements? I'm not certain) get worse, and hopefully to avoid an ArbCom proceeding. I am impartial as to what is under discussion, and this case can stay open as long as there are disagreements. I'd suggest setting forth what the disagreements are, and then addressing them one by one. Is that any clearer? --Keitei (talk) 03:14, 14 June 2006 (UTC)
- I think there may have been confusion about semantics. Correct me if I am wrong, but it seems that there are two kinds of mediation on Wikipedia, yes? One is "full mediation", which is a last resort, and in which an official mediator is empowered with making some decisions, and trying to guide the participants towards an agreement. Another is this informal "mediation cabal", where the mediator does not really have any authority, but acts as an intermediary to try and provide an environment where all parties can engage in civil discussion. This discussion that we're having here, is the latter "informal" kind. There's no "judge" that we need to convince of anything, it's just us talking, for as long as we want. Is that pretty much accurate? --Elonka 03:44, 14 June 2006 (UTC)
- Yes. :] --Keitei (talk) 04:05, 14 June 2006 (UTC)
- Okay, thanks. Next question: Are we "off the grid" here? Meaning that it's sort of, "What's said on this page, stays on this page?" Will this page be deleted when the mediation is over? Or are statements here still potential ammunition for being used as diffs in an RfC or RfAr? --Elonka 04:19, 14 June 2006 (UTC)
- These pages won't be deleted when it's over. They could be used as diffs, as far as I know. I'm hoping it'll stop here though. --Keitei (talk) 21:57, 14 June 2006 (UTC)
- Okay, thanks. Next question: Are we "off the grid" here? Meaning that it's sort of, "What's said on this page, stays on this page?" Will this page be deleted when the mediation is over? Or are statements here still potential ammunition for being used as diffs in an RfC or RfAr? --Elonka 04:19, 14 June 2006 (UTC)
- Yes. :] --Keitei (talk) 04:05, 14 June 2006 (UTC)
- I think there may have been confusion about semantics. Correct me if I am wrong, but it seems that there are two kinds of mediation on Wikipedia, yes? One is "full mediation", which is a last resort, and in which an official mediator is empowered with making some decisions, and trying to guide the participants towards an agreement. Another is this informal "mediation cabal", where the mediator does not really have any authority, but acts as an intermediary to try and provide an environment where all parties can engage in civil discussion. This discussion that we're having here, is the latter "informal" kind. There's no "judge" that we need to convince of anything, it's just us talking, for as long as we want. Is that pretty much accurate? --Elonka 03:44, 14 June 2006 (UTC)
- Let me address Elonka points. I had and still have the habit of assuming good faith, thus when a user in good standing asks and some wiki-experience me to do something (move an article, delete a mistake, etc.) I do so without double checking them. Thus I did not double checked the situation with Jadwiga_of_Poland, as User:Logologist fits the description of experienced wiki editor not know to engage in revert or move wars. After I was informed that the move was an error, I have reverted my move and I saw no reason to clutter the discussion page with information about the mistake.
- As for the 'n00bie' incident, I have explained it several times in various places, but let me repeat the gist of it. First, I did not know that n00bies was so offensive, and I still believe it is a rather mild term. Second, the users in questions have moved many pages without consensus, ignorning discussions at talk (some ongoing) and creating a lots of double redirects and possibly some 'looped' redirects. I feel it was not a problem to mention this at the noticeboard which those users where unlikely to read and others interested in the matters would help fix the double-redirect mess created by their actions. I didn't think the users in question would ever find that notice - and indeed they have never complained. When Elonka contact me with her concerns I gave her similar reply, and yes, i repeated the term n00bie on her page in regards to those editors. However my intention was never 'name-calling', just pointing out that those editors are new to Wiki. In view of the incident I have stopped using this term and are simply calling new editors 'new editors'.
- Nowhere in this two cases I believe I used my 'admin powers' (deleting, blocking, unblocking) other then possibly delete the Jadwiga redirect blocking the move. Since then, once 'burned', I have the habit of refering all such requests to WP:RM, although I don't know if this is 'better for Wikipedia' that what I could do in few seconds now needs a vote. Still, better be safe then sorry.
- As for Ipren question, the mediator is Keitei. I will let her answer the questions related to the procedure and she is much more familiar with them then I am.--Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus Talk 02:41, 14 June 2006 (UTC)
- Piotrus, re your comment User:Logologist fits the description of experienced wiki editor not know to engage in revert or move wars. I'm sorry, but I do not think that that is an accurate statement. A simple look at your own admin log [8], plus a search through Logologist's contributions[9], can easily show that both of you have been engaging in a systematic campaign over the last few months of moving many articles from English names to Polish names, without the backing of a clear consensus to accomplish those moves. Many of those changes have since been reverted, many are having to go through a tedious bureaucratic process of re-debating each and every one in order to get them moved back to the English names, and many have yet to be identified (I just found another one this evening, Talk:Kazimierz II the Just (which you moved from Casimir II the Just) [10]. What it has looked like to me, is that you and a few other editors, most of whom seem to be native Polish-speakers, decided amongst yourselves to move articles to Polish names. When counter-arguments were offered, you ignored them and proceeded with the moves anyway. These actions of yours have not been to the betterment of Wikipedia, and have caused an enormous amount of wasted time on the part of many editors who have better things to do than individually debate every single one of the moves that you should have never forced through in the first place. What I would hope is that you would just admit that you did not have consensus, apologize for the confusion, assist with moving the pages back to their original names, and then we can move on to more productive activities. But the more that you argue this point, and the more that you react with uncivil or disrespectful behavior to others, the more I believe that it is time that you resign your adminship. --Elonka 03:38, 14 June 2006 (UTC)
- Logologist has been on Wiki longer then you and has done over half as many edits (see Kate's tool). It is human to err, and you can ask him what he thinks about the Jadwiga case. His moves are no different IMHO then your move of Polski Słownik Biograficzny to Polish Biographical Dictionary. As for my moves, as I have mentioned several times, I only reverted the 'new users mess' and it was Logologist who moved them in the first place at the time there was a majority consensus to do so. Most of the counterarguments, debate and controversies were offered the move was carried out. As for the current debates many of them show there is still no consensus where the page should be moved. I still fail to see where I am acting in uncivil or disrepctful manner, or abuse my admin powers.--Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus Talk 15:57, 14 June 2006 (UTC)
- My contention is that you abused admin powers by moving many pages from English names to Polish names, without consensus. How many examples do I need to provide of places where these moves are being criticized and challenged, in order to convince you of that? How many examples of sarcastic, abusive, and uncivil behavior do I need to provide, to prove to you that there is a pattern? How many examples of pouncing on newbies do I need to provide, to convince you that you've been biting the newcomers? --Elonka 17:02, 14 June 2006 (UTC)
- A signle one would be nice for most of them, and I am pretty sure you will hardly find more then one for anything you accuse me of (Polak mądry po szkodzie... [Translation: Poles learn by mistakes]). Let me repeat: anybody can move pages, not only admin. You have done so, too. With the exception of Jadwiga mistake, plese show me where have I moved the pages without a consensus? Note that WP:RM defines consensus as 60%, and note that reverting other people moves when there is no consensus should not be viewed as revert of move for which there was no consensus, not breaking of any consensus. As for the "pattern of my sarcastic, abusive and uncivil behavior" I will let other neutral editors to comment on that, because the only pattern I see is the lack of them in my edits. Same for the treatment of newcomers, I plead not guilty to all charges. Please provide evidence to the contrary.--Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus Talk 18:05, 14 June 2006 (UTC)
- My contention is that you abused admin powers by moving many pages from English names to Polish names, without consensus. How many examples do I need to provide of places where these moves are being criticized and challenged, in order to convince you of that? How many examples of sarcastic, abusive, and uncivil behavior do I need to provide, to prove to you that there is a pattern? How many examples of pouncing on newbies do I need to provide, to convince you that you've been biting the newcomers? --Elonka 17:02, 14 June 2006 (UTC)
- Logologist has been on Wiki longer then you and has done over half as many edits (see Kate's tool). It is human to err, and you can ask him what he thinks about the Jadwiga case. His moves are no different IMHO then your move of Polski Słownik Biograficzny to Polish Biographical Dictionary. As for my moves, as I have mentioned several times, I only reverted the 'new users mess' and it was Logologist who moved them in the first place at the time there was a majority consensus to do so. Most of the counterarguments, debate and controversies were offered the move was carried out. As for the current debates many of them show there is still no consensus where the page should be moved. I still fail to see where I am acting in uncivil or disrepctful manner, or abuse my admin powers.--Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus Talk 15:57, 14 June 2006 (UTC)
- Piotrus, re your comment User:Logologist fits the description of experienced wiki editor not know to engage in revert or move wars. I'm sorry, but I do not think that that is an accurate statement. A simple look at your own admin log [8], plus a search through Logologist's contributions[9], can easily show that both of you have been engaging in a systematic campaign over the last few months of moving many articles from English names to Polish names, without the backing of a clear consensus to accomplish those moves. Many of those changes have since been reverted, many are having to go through a tedious bureaucratic process of re-debating each and every one in order to get them moved back to the English names, and many have yet to be identified (I just found another one this evening, Talk:Kazimierz II the Just (which you moved from Casimir II the Just) [10]. What it has looked like to me, is that you and a few other editors, most of whom seem to be native Polish-speakers, decided amongst yourselves to move articles to Polish names. When counter-arguments were offered, you ignored them and proceeded with the moves anyway. These actions of yours have not been to the betterment of Wikipedia, and have caused an enormous amount of wasted time on the part of many editors who have better things to do than individually debate every single one of the moves that you should have never forced through in the first place. What I would hope is that you would just admit that you did not have consensus, apologize for the confusion, assist with moving the pages back to their original names, and then we can move on to more productive activities. But the more that you argue this point, and the more that you react with uncivil or disrespectful behavior to others, the more I believe that it is time that you resign your adminship. --Elonka 03:38, 14 June 2006 (UTC)
- You said "a single one". Well, I showed you one at Jadwiga, and now you're asking for another. How about Talk:Kazimierz_II_the_Just and Casimir III? How many more do you want? Uncivil behavior, here's three, as I've pointed out to you before: You using the terms "n00bies", "racist attack", and "slander". I've already given you diffs for each of those, do I need to pull them out again? Or do you want more? How many? As for attacking newbies, how about you on my own talk page in December 2005, when for the very first articles I ever created on Wikipedia, you pounced immediately, with basically the first message that had ever gone on my talk page. You posted two templates (that were broken, I might add), with duplicate impersonal rubber-stamp text that looked to me like some kind of official warning [11], complaining that I hadn't referenced my first two articles, even though the sources were already on the pages [12][13]. It took days to untangle the mess on my talk page (you did something that had broken the section headers). You also continued to argue with me about the references, when the conversation moved to the Portal_talk:Poland/New_article_announcements. How many more do you want? I've got a long list, we could be here awhile. --Elonka 19:49, 14 June 2006 (UTC)
- Sorry Elonka, but this seems like nitpicking. You can't blame Piotrus for the {{Unref-talk}} template, which is sort of a standard reminder of official Wiki policies and guidelines. Besides, if the text beginning with Hello. Good work on <article name>, and thanks for the contribution is not friendly enough then what could be done more to make you feel better with both the template and those who wanted to let you know some rules exist here?
- Also, you can't hold the fact that Piotrus does not always agree with you as a proof of some disputed behaviour. If he continued to argue with you, then why not word it differently, say I continued to argue with Piotrus? //Halibutt 20:02, 14 June 2006 (UTC)
- Halibutt, I do not blame Piotrus for the template being broken. I do think that for a new user, I did a damn good job on my first articles, and it was inappropriate for Piotrus to place the double template on my talk page because (1) it was an obvious rubber-stamp impersonal "you did it wrong" to a new user, (2) it was overkill to use it twice, and (3) it was inappropriate for him to use it at all, since the articles were referenced. To use your own word, he was "nitpicking". I'd been following the standard that I saw in other Wikipedia articles. Believe it or not, though I realize it's unusual to believe that a new user would do this, I did take a lot of time to review policies and other examples, before creating those pages. I put a lot of work into them, and it hurt to have the only feedback be, "You did it wrong", in an impersonal message on my talk page. He should have just changed the articles himself, rather than chasing after me to change it. Or he could have asked a simple question on my talk page, like, "Hey, I like the articles that you created, but I was a little confused as to where you got the information from, could you please clarify?" Which still would have been an odd question, since the references were already on the page, but it would have been a friendlier way for him to handle it.
- Further, he then continued to follow me around Wikipedia and the Commons, nitpicking nearly every Poland-related article that I worked on. To my knowledge, he rarely commented on any of my edits unless they were Poland-related, but if I worked on anything to do with Poland, I quickly learned to brace for criticism from either Piotrus or one of the other members of the Polish noticeboard. For example, the Raphael Kalinowski article that I created became the subject of a flamewar within a few weeks of its creation, and I watched in confusion as several people engaged in an edit war about how to name Kalinowski's birth place (the Vilnius/Vilna/Wilno debate). I didn't participate in that particular discussion, but did watch it with discomfort. Where I did step in, was when people started changing all the proper names in the article from English names to Polish names. This bothered me considerably, and made it clear to me that there was some kind of unusual agenda going on. No one can tell me that the names use Polish spelling in English-language sources, because I own every single English-language book on Raphael Kalinowski, and even a few in other languages. I'm also familiar with every English-language website about him. But I still had Polish Wikipedians coming in and trying to argue that the names were spelled wrong, sometimes with very rude commentary (Molobo). This, too, left a bad taste in my mouth. --Elonka 23:12, 14 June 2006 (UTC)
- You have long memory, don't you? Yes, you did a pretty good job on your first articles. But, like most of us, your contribs were not perfect and I believe in 'giving fishrod' - i.e. I often try to tell people what they could do better. If the templates I chose for this didn't work well - unfortunate, but they seem to work in most cases. And as I believe I wrote before (this is getting repetitive...) external links don't equal references, as is clearly stated in related policies. As for dear old Raphael... well, he is a good case that nobody "owns" the artice, and in the course of edits and even some revert wars the end effect is a better article. People will be correcting and changing your contributions, and we all have to learn to live with it. Going back on topic, where in those particular edits have I shown 'sarcastic, abusive, and uncivil behavior' and/or abused my admin powers?--Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus Talk 02:38, 15 June 2006 (UTC)
- Further, he then continued to follow me around Wikipedia and the Commons, nitpicking nearly every Poland-related article that I worked on. To my knowledge, he rarely commented on any of my edits unless they were Poland-related, but if I worked on anything to do with Poland, I quickly learned to brace for criticism from either Piotrus or one of the other members of the Polish noticeboard. For example, the Raphael Kalinowski article that I created became the subject of a flamewar within a few weeks of its creation, and I watched in confusion as several people engaged in an edit war about how to name Kalinowski's birth place (the Vilnius/Vilna/Wilno debate). I didn't participate in that particular discussion, but did watch it with discomfort. Where I did step in, was when people started changing all the proper names in the article from English names to Polish names. This bothered me considerably, and made it clear to me that there was some kind of unusual agenda going on. No one can tell me that the names use Polish spelling in English-language sources, because I own every single English-language book on Raphael Kalinowski, and even a few in other languages. I'm also familiar with every English-language website about him. But I still had Polish Wikipedians coming in and trying to argue that the names were spelled wrong, sometimes with very rude commentary (Molobo). This, too, left a bad taste in my mouth. --Elonka 23:12, 14 June 2006 (UTC)
- Elonka, please read my posts carefuly. How many times I have said that the moves you quote above (Kazimierz, Casimir) were only reverting the 'double/looped redirect creating moves' by two users who moved the article in the middle of a heated debate? As for uncivil behavior, we already talked about 'n00bie case'. The 'racist attack' was a description of a user who IIRC wrote that Poles should not be allowed to vote, and although the term 'ethnic attack' may be better I see no reason to withdraw my statement and I think you'd better criticize that user, not me (or do you think it is all right to criticize nationalities but not the ones who criticize them?). I believe I addressed this few days ago when you asked about this. The same is with slander, as I explained on your talk page I believe the term is applicable here. Just out of curiosity, how is your accusing me of 'sarcastic, abusive, and uncivil behavior' differs from me complaining about that 'racist attack'? Other then your complains being about a much more minor infrigments upon WP:CIVIL? As for the templates, at that time I was not familiar with substitution of the templates, and I messed up a few pages - I believe I fixed all of them eventually. And I see no reason why usage of {{Unref-talk}} can be seen as 'biting the newcomers'. The newcomers have to learn the rules - cite references, provide sources, don't plagarise, etc. Feel free to propose the offending templates at WP:TfD, if you believe we would be better off without them, but for now they are accepted as normal and uncontroversial.--Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus Talk 21:33, 14 June 2006 (UTC)
Piotrus, this is becoming tiresome. I see no efforts from you that you are attempting to discuss things in good faith, this appears to just be an endless exercise of you demanding that I provide evidence, and then after I spend time digging out diffs, you just shrug them off and say, "I did nothing wrong," and ask for more. Is this part of the "How to deal with Poles" checklist that Polish Wikipedians so often advertise?[14], Rule #6, keep asking for sources? As it is, you won't even admit that accusing me of slander is uncivil, even though it's a word that's specifically mentioned at WP:CIVIL.
(sigh) But I'll still try again. Please see below. I'm also making a new section header, because this page is getting absurdly long and difficult to navigate. If you see other places where section headers may be appropriate, feel free to add. --Elonka 07:42, 15 June 2006 (UTC)
Elonka's opinion: Improper page moves
Piotrus, you have been engaging in multiple page moves without consensus.
On January 26-28, you engaged in a move war with Calgacus, where he was attempting to move Władysław II Jagiełło to Jogaila of Lithuania. You reverted one of his moves with the comment revert move by POV pusher. Calgacus later moved the article to Jogaila (Władysław II), and then you reverted that move, this time saying, moved Jogaila (Władysław II) to Władysław II Jagiełło: correct name, clueless editor keeps redirecting to invented name[15]. You also used your admin powers to protect the article so that no one else could change the name, though you unprotected it on April 17. I charge that it was improper for you to engage in the move war and then protect the article, since you were clearly not neutral in this matter. I also charge that calling Calgacus clueless editor was a personal attack, especially because it appears he was engaging in a good faith discussion at the talk page, despite multiple uncivil comments being thrown at him [16] after you had advertised the disagreement on the Polish Wikipedian noticeboard [17].
On April 28, you bypassed formal move requests or page discussion, and instead used your admin powers to engage in a move war involving several different articles [18]. Shilkanni had been moving pages to English titles per guidelines at Wikipedia:Naming conventions (names and titles), but then you followed along behind her within hours and moved the pages to Polish titles, claiming that your moves were justified by Wikipedia:Naming convention#Polish monarchs. I think it has been adequately proven that you never had consensus there, and that the proposal is in fact now formally rejected. You have also claimed justification for several moves by linking to the discussion at Talk:List of Polish monarchs, but a simple read of that page should easily show that there has been significant opposition to the moves for several months. Yet again, you appear to have just ignored all the opposition, and continue to insist that you (and other Polish editors) were justified in moving pages to Polish titles. But, Piotrus, you do not have consensus, and this campaign needs to stop. I would like to see you apologize and assist with cleanup, instead of continuing to insist that you had community consensus when you did not. --Elonka 07:42, 15 June 2006 (UTC)
- Piotrus has argued, on a rigorous statistical basis, for the use of authentic Polish names. To his empirical data I would add what particularly strikes me, as an English-language native speaker: the grotesqueness of many of those names' Latin-derived "anglicizations," which tends to cast a pall of ridicule over things Polish. It would be akin to calling an Anglophone by a latinized version of his English name — e.g., "Joannus" for "John." The situation becomes particularly hideous with latinized names ending in "-laus," which sounds like the English "louse." It speaks well of Piotrus' good sense, and sensitivity to the nuance of English, that he appreciates such considerations. logologist|Talk 08:10, 15 June 2006 (UTC)
- At the time Calgacus moved the article in January, there was clearly no consensus for the move. At that time he was clearly pushing the Lithuanian-POV and later the 'Jogaila (Władysław II)' was certainly an invented name (ever seen that one in any academic sources?). As Calgacus has shown that he is ignore discussion and lack of consensus, I felt that protecting the article from moves was the best solution to convince him to talk. I do agree that my edit summary with 'clueless' was not very civil, however I was annoyed at Calgacus who kept stating in his summaries that he is acting 'as per discussion' (when the discussion certainly did not gave him majority support) and against 'a less Polonocentric name' (sic!). So overall this does gives you a second evidence of my incivility, making it slightly less then one per year on Wiki. I'd expect if you go throug all of my edits you may find a few more like this. Errare humanum est, in errore perservare stultum. I am ready to apologize for every single one of those, although I still feel that they simply confirm it is an exception to the rule of my behaviour and that I certainly deserve an apology from people accusing me that I am constantly uncivil.
- As for Shikanni moves, first of all, she created a lot of double redirects and didn't bother to fix them, second, she moved the article when there was clearly no consensus to do so (while there was a majority support when logologist and Appleseed moved them in Dec). I see no reason to apologize for the hours I spent fixing the double redirects and such in that case. WP:NC(UE) has many exceptions and we were - and still are - debating whether the Polish monarchs are one. A user who doesn't bother to look at the discussion and causes much work for others with their improper moves should be the one to apologize, not the people who fixed the double redirects and such.--Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus Talk 16:36, 15 June 2006 (UTC)
- Piotrus, I feel that your above statements are deceptive. You started making claims that you have never been incivil, and then I pointed out an example. You said that it was a solitary example, and I have pointed out more. Now you are trying to claim some sort of "once per year" average, but trust me, I have many more examples of improper behavior on your part, and it is my belief that you are well aware of the things that you have done, and that you are just bluffing and hoping that I won't spot them and come up with diffs. You have said you will apologize for uncivil behavior, but I have asked you to do this in the past, and you have refused. So, let's see it. Specifically, where you accused me of slander at Wikipedia_talk:Requested_moves. I regard being accused of slander as offensive on a number of levels. For one, it is false. For another, it is a personal attack. For another, it is a legal challenge. For another, I am a public figure, I am here on Wikipedia under my real name, and I make the majority of my livelihood on the internet. It is injurious to me to have an accusation of slander against me on a public webpage, and I have no choice but to challenge it. I have asked you before, to either remove that comment, refactor it, or apologize for it. I am now asking you again, to do the right thing. Otherwise this will continue, I will bring up even more evidence of improper behavior on your part, pressure is going to increase upon you to resign your adminship, and you are going to continue to lose face. So I am asking you again: Please either remove your uncivil remarks towards me, refactor them, or apologize for them at the locations where you made them. As another option, I am willing to remove my own comments towards you, at the locations where the incivility occurred. You can remove/refactor all of your comments in that section at Wikipedia_talk:Requested moves, I will remove mine, we can delete the section entirely, and put this one specific charge of incivility, at least, to rest. Is this acceptable? --Elonka 17:07, 15 June 2006 (UTC)
- Never say never... I said 'I am never uncivil'? Where? Nobody's perfect, but I certainly claim that any uncivil behavior you can find will be an exception to the rule. I stand by my accusation of slander. You are taking few exceptions to the rule of my behaviour (everybody makes mistakes and I am not claiming I am 100% perfect), misinterpret some of my other actions or make mistakes yourself (like you claimed that I moved most of the kings articles in Dec where in fact it was not me) and using those few pieces of "evidence" of varying quality you make a case that I am generally uncivil and abuse my admin powers. As far as I am concern this is slander and I deserve an apology from you for that. Just as you I am here under my real name and such insults, especially when they expand to include other good editors (like logologist with the moves, or halibutt and balcer with the Cabal issue) are disruptive. If you remove your accusations form a page, I will remove my complains - although I am not a big fan of refactoring and I think that simply saying here 'I made a mistake, I apologize' and 'I accept, I withdraw my complains' would be sufficient. To preserve the logic of discussion I suggest striking out the comments we want to remove instead of deleting them (<s> </s>). I am willing to apologize for every uncivil comment I made to you (and feel free to treat *this* as a general apology for any insults I am at the moment not awere of, I never intended to insult you anywhere), and if you show me where I have been uncivil towards you I'll apologize for that, however at the moment I believe I am more of the wronged party and I deserve an apology for the 'being genrally uncivil, ruling the cabal and abusing admin power' accusations. --Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus Talk 17:26, 15 June 2006 (UTC)
- I have removed both of my comments from the discussion at Wikipedia talk:Requested moves.[19] If you remove all of your comments from that section as well (or give me the goahead to do it, since it's a bit of a pain to refactor properly, but I'm willing to handle it), I will agree to consider this particular charge of incivility closed. --Elonka 17:55, 15 June 2006 (UTC)
- I have crossed out the parts of my discussion there which are no longer relevant, feel free to 'refactor' them with link to archives if you feel crossing out is not enough. If only all of our past mistakes could be erased so easily... but I think we are making some good progress here.--Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus Talk 18:54, 15 June 2006 (UTC)
- Done, and thank you. So, your turn now. Please choose any comment that I have made which you regarded as a hurtful and untrue personal attack, and we can discuss our next step. --Elonka 04:57, 16 June 2006 (UTC)
- Could you go over your edits at Wikipedia_talk:Naming_conventions_(names_and_titles) and see what do you think can be refactored now? I believe this is the most visible page which was affected by the 's-word' issue. Especially the posts from 19:37, 6 June and 18:17, 7 June.--Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus Talk 16:21, 16 June 2006 (UTC)
- Done, and thank you. So, your turn now. Please choose any comment that I have made which you regarded as a hurtful and untrue personal attack, and we can discuss our next step. --Elonka 04:57, 16 June 2006 (UTC)
- I have crossed out the parts of my discussion there which are no longer relevant, feel free to 'refactor' them with link to archives if you feel crossing out is not enough. If only all of our past mistakes could be erased so easily... but I think we are making some good progress here.--Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus Talk 18:54, 15 June 2006 (UTC)
- I have removed both of my comments from the discussion at Wikipedia talk:Requested moves.[19] If you remove all of your comments from that section as well (or give me the goahead to do it, since it's a bit of a pain to refactor properly, but I'm willing to handle it), I will agree to consider this particular charge of incivility closed. --Elonka 17:55, 15 June 2006 (UTC)
- Never say never... I said 'I am never uncivil'? Where? Nobody's perfect, but I certainly claim that any uncivil behavior you can find will be an exception to the rule. I stand by my accusation of slander. You are taking few exceptions to the rule of my behaviour (everybody makes mistakes and I am not claiming I am 100% perfect), misinterpret some of my other actions or make mistakes yourself (like you claimed that I moved most of the kings articles in Dec where in fact it was not me) and using those few pieces of "evidence" of varying quality you make a case that I am generally uncivil and abuse my admin powers. As far as I am concern this is slander and I deserve an apology from you for that. Just as you I am here under my real name and such insults, especially when they expand to include other good editors (like logologist with the moves, or halibutt and balcer with the Cabal issue) are disruptive. If you remove your accusations form a page, I will remove my complains - although I am not a big fan of refactoring and I think that simply saying here 'I made a mistake, I apologize' and 'I accept, I withdraw my complains' would be sufficient. To preserve the logic of discussion I suggest striking out the comments we want to remove instead of deleting them (<s> </s>). I am willing to apologize for every uncivil comment I made to you (and feel free to treat *this* as a general apology for any insults I am at the moment not awere of, I never intended to insult you anywhere), and if you show me where I have been uncivil towards you I'll apologize for that, however at the moment I believe I am more of the wronged party and I deserve an apology for the 'being genrally uncivil, ruling the cabal and abusing admin power' accusations. --Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus Talk 17:26, 15 June 2006 (UTC)
Sorry for my absence, I was giving a talk in Wisconsin [20], but am back and digging through backlog now. Piotrus, are you referring to these two posts? [21] and [22]? The first one, as I recall, was posted by me in reply to your accusing me of slander, and you accusing me of never providing "specific" evidence [23]. The second was in response to your filing the mediation request without notifying people where to find it. Are those the specific ones you want to discuss? --Elonka 00:11, 20 June 2006 (UTC)
- Yes, they are.--Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus Talk 02:21, 20 June 2006 (UTC)