Ashapochka

Hi! Nice to meet you here again.--AndriyK 14:50, 15 November 2005 (UTC)

Hey, man. In truth I should have come here more often. But the mess neocommies and pseudo "internationalists" make of Ukraine-related articles is very disheartening indeed. They are still one too many and much too aggressive. Well, anyway, I meant to say, I am on your side here whenever I can help and keep up your fighting! --ashapochka 15:17, 15 November 2005 (UTC)

Arbitration

Ashapochka, I am sorry if you were unjustly placed in the likely sockpuppet suspect list. Personally, I never thought you were one. Besides, I see it as a positive sign when more contributors for Ukrainian topics come to en-Wiki be it from Maidan, which I am reading myself, or anywhere. It's the revert wars foot-soldiers that I have a problem with. If I remember correctly, we spoke at one of the article's talk pages and our discussion was civil and devoid of personal accusations, even though we disagreed.

However, re your phrase: "I do not believe the arbitration arguments against him based on his renaming activities hold any water."Please note that the issue of what names should be used is a separate one and an issue at hand is AndriyK's behaviour. He took it upon himself to move articles without discussing it with others and using a bad-faith trick to make his moves irreversible is completely inexcusable. Some of his moves I find sensible (Putivl → Putyvl, Mongol invasion of Russia → Mongol invasion of Rus', Nalyvaiko, Bohun, etc) and these moves would have found the support in community anyway. In fact, I was about to propose the Mongol invasion move myself and just haven't yet got to it. We can have the nomenclature discussion separately, if you like, and there is even now a new proposal for the standards being hammered out. I can send you a link to the relevant discussion, if you are interested. The issue here is not the merits of this or the other name but bullying and cheating. Don't hesitate to ask at my talk page or email me if you need more.

Finally, I thought you might be interested, that there exists a Ukraine portal at Wikipedia, created my several Ukrainian editors (myself included) who take interest in the topic. Despite being called "anti-Ukrainian" by fringe nationalists like AndriyK and Andrew Alexander, I do love my country and wrote much for many topics before having to deal with Andriy's mess started to take up so much of my time. Please see my user page if you would like to read and correct my articles. There was a lively, although small, community of Ukrainian editors here of which myself and Mzajac where the most active ones. Also, largely thanks to Sashazlv we even have one Featured Article in en-wiki on a Ukrainian topic (the Hero of Ukraine). Also, Ghirlandajo and Mikkalai, despite being labeled by AndriyK, contributed a wealth of information to Ukrainian topics. With Ghirlandajo, I had particularly many differences over issues, because he writes mostly from the Russian perspective while I write from a moderate Ukrainian one. However, we always resolved the differences in cordial discussions and were able to come up with the reasonable solution.

In any case, I would like to welcome you again and feel fee to ask if you have any questions. You can also email me using "email this user" link where you can write in Ukrainian or in Russian if you prefer. Regards, --Irpen 19:25, 24 November 2005 (UTC)

Irpen, thank you for your welcome and the apologies, and it is definite as my time allows I will contribute more materials concerning Ukraine to the English Wikipedia. I also keep track of the Ukrainian portal here. I certainly appreciate the effort wikipedians like yourself put into adding the useful and important information about Ukraine. As for the arbitration, I can sincerely tell you how I see the present situation: you had your point and AndriyK had his point in various discussions concerning Ukrainian articles, there was room enough to for you and him to come to a compromise and reflect your "moderate" view and his "nationalistic" one as you would call it. Knowing the true meaning of the term "Ukrainian nationalism" which is "to love land and people of Ukraine and live and die for their freedom", it is nothing but a compliment. But the problem is however valid (or not) his arguments might be he is always greatly outnumbered by his opponents, and the arbitration process has manifested it with the ultimate clarity: 11-to-1. His behavior you do not like is the natural consequence of the outnumbering. I believe there is the only honorable solution to this situation, namely, you and him (and the rest of us) should work out a sort of agreement on such things, recognizing the fact modern Ukraine is what it is the independent state, the country with the Ukrainian tradition, language, history and these are not subtradition, sublanguage, subhistory of any other country. On the other hand the interrelations and inter-influences of Ukraine and Russia, Ukraine and Poland were historically and remain immense in the today's world and they must be given the proper place within the contents of the relevant articles. And in any case the facts however bad or good for the image of either of the countries must not be deliberately erased, reverted, hidden or manipulated with. --ashapochka 21:35, 24 November 2005 (UTC)

More on RfAr

Dear Ashapochka. I started to write some responses that involve me personally at this RfAr, but, unfortunately, my time for today is up, and I did not get to your comments. Please do not interpret my lack of response to your statements as unwillingness to discuss. I will provide my comments at the earliest possible opportunity. Perhaps some of my comments to Andrew Alexander will shed some light on my point of view for you. I am joining Irpen in my apologies for incorrectly identifying you as a sockpuppet. Sincerely, —Ëzhiki (erinaceus amurensis) 02:18, 25 November 2005 (UTC)

Dear Ezhiki, I certainly appreciate and accept your apologies. --ashapochka 16:14, 25 November 2005 (UTC)

Ashapochka, I will write more later but let me just say that the definition of nationalism you gave is different from the dictionary definition. As per Webster

na·tion·al·ism

loyalty and devotion to a nation; especially : a sense of national consciousness exalting one nation above all others and placing primary emphasis on promotion of its culture and interests as opposed to those of other nations or supranational groups

This is a little different than being ready to die for freedom. I will respond with more later. Regards, --Irpen 03:59, 25 November 2005 (UTC)

Well, that is not the only available definition of course. This one is taken from Етнічний довідник(Лариса Аза, Едуард Афонін, Людмила Васильєва и др.) Націоналізм – світоглядний принцип, найбільшою мірою притаманний передовим представникам народу, що виборює своє право на розбудову власної держави, тобто прагне перетворитись на націю. Для XX ст., особливо його другої половини, це широко розповсюджене явище, зумовлене крахом світової колоніальної системи. Після розпаду СРСР у серпні 1991 р., націоналізм, як один із способів розвитку світової співдружності народів, вступив у свій черговий етап.

Головною в націоналізмі є ідея державності та незалежності, самостійності. Але держава — не самоціль, а форма й засіб організації повноцінного життя народу. Народ, у свою чергу, — це не тільки корінний етнос, а й усі етнічні меншини. І дійсний (а не змішаний із шовінізмом, з його намаганнями довести виключність та зверхність "своєї" зростаючої етнонації) націоналізм обстоює право на, державність усіх (як корінних, так і некорінних) етнічних угруповань народу. Коли мета перетворення певного народу на державну націю вже досягнута, націоналізм тим самим остаточно» виконує свою історично-конструктивну роль і від нього має залишитися лише патріотизм.

Moreover I specifically mentioned Ukrainian nationalism exactly for this reason: there are one too many semantical variations in the general case. Why did I choose the semantics above? Very simple - I look at what the most prominent people calling themselves Ukrainian nationalists meant by the term [1] and so when talking about the concept I would not mix up the mental picture with any irrelevant things. So you see it's not that simple. And yes many tens of thousands of Ukrainian nationalists meant exactly "live and die" (and proved it), see also uk:Українська Повстанська Армія#Присяга вояка УПА. And no, it is not propaganda on my part :), I don't give a damn about any sort of propaganda, I just like to see the big picture. --ashapochka 16:14, 25 November 2005 (UTC)

I prefer to stick to the general definition and I doubt thar Ukrainian nationalism should be given any different treatment. In any case, this is a purely terminological dispute and we don't need to have it here.

By AndriyK's and Andrew Alexander's nationalism I meant the classical definition of nationalism and I stand by my words. I never said that about you or other editors. In fact, among Ukrainian editors there are several guys more "ukrainophile", so to speak, than myself and this does not hurt our cooperation. OTOH, I am ukrainophile enough to object and correct many statements about Ukraine in en-wiki being made by editors who write from a Russian and/or Polish and/or Romanian perspective. The vast majority of them are not nationalists and, both, Halibutt and Ghirlandajo, are not nationalists, I can assure you. Whatever much you trust my judgement, I thought I just say it anyway.

I hope you will keep showing up around here and, if you keep an eye on Portal's boards, you will alwayd find plenty of interesting things to do. --Irpen 19:54, 25 November 2005 (UTC)

Needless to say, I do not share your opinion of AndriyK and Andrew, and in many respects my vote goes to them, but of course "this is a free country, bro" --Heat, and there is no prejudices on this side against personal opinions :). Sure thing, I will show up more often whenever my work schedule permits. Let us hope, we, Ukrainians, will find the common ground and cease to fight each other or any good and true folks at all. --ashapochka 21:32, 25 November 2005 (UTC)

Of course, you are free to be supportive to AndriyK even being aware of his fraud that myself and Ezhiki documented in our arbcom statements. Let's just say that we agree to disagree on this and move on.

I have a suggestion for you. Above, we discussed the topic of Ukrainian nationalism and your view that it has some features that makes it unique from other nationalisms is an interesting one although I disagree. Would you consider starting to work on an article Ukrainian nationalism in Wikipedia? This controversial topic is a lucky one because it has an excellent academic review in the book by Andrew Wilson, a respected scholar: "Ukrainian Nationalism in the 1990s". This is the publisher's link to the book: http://www.cambridge.org/uk/catalogue/catalogue.asp?isbn=0521574579

If you get your hands on the book, you will have more than enough material to write a stub or even more. Let me know if you are interested and/or would like me to help. I could probably get this book too through a library or something, but since my view is that any nationalism is inflamatory, I was not interested much. Maybe I was mistaken. Let me know, what you think. Regards, --Irpen 18:42, 26 November 2005 (UTC)

In fact, your suggestion comes in the nick of time. I've been thinking about trying for such an article here and in the uk:wikipedia myself. It could dwell on the works of our (Ukrainian) theoreticians of nationalism and, thank you for the link, on the researches of it by conscientious foreign historians. If written soundly this article should add up much to the understanding of the notion by people. Well, now is as good time as any to start working on it, so I am beginning to gather and review the sources, and will try to get me the book you mentioned as well. --ashapochka 19:41, 26 November 2005 (UTC)

Arbitration accepted

Wikipedia:Requests for arbitration/AndriyK has been accepted. Please place evidence on Wikipedia:Requests for arbitration/AndriyK/Evidence. Proposals and comments may be placed on Wikipedia:Requests for arbitration/AndriyK/Proposed decision. Fred Bauder 02:26, 28 November 2005 (UTC)

AndriyK RfAr closed

The AndriyK RfAr has been closed. Until by consensus he has agreed to a suitable and mutually agreed naming convention using the guideline Wikipedia:Naming conflict, AndriyK is prohibited from moving pages, or changing the content of articles which relate to Ukrainian names, especially those of historical interest. AndriyK is banned for one month from Wikipedia for creating irreversible page moves. Andrew Alexander, AndriyK, and MaryMaidan are warned to avoid copyright violations and to cooperate with the efforts of others to remove copyright violations. Ghirlandajo is warned to avoid incivility or personal attacks.

On behalf of the Arbitration Committee, Kelly Martin (talk) 04:57, 27 January 2006 (UTC)