Wikipedia talk:Mediation Cabal/Cases/2006-06-07 Polish Cabal and myself as its leader

Archives
13 June 2006 – 20 June 2006

This is the second part of an ongoing mediation cabal discussion. To see the first part, please review Archive 1, thanks. --Elonka 23:07, 26 June 2006 (UTC)

Uncivility

It would appear that some people prefer "arguments" like this (see the last green edit) instead of engaging in civil debates. Perhaps such behaviour should be noted at Wikipedia:Wikiquette alerts.--Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus ^Talk 18:33, 13 June 2006 (UTC)

I am very happy with that edit, and there is nothing wrong with it. Comments removed; see this diff if needed Keitei (talk) 00:08, 14 June 2006 (UTC) - Calgacus (ΚΑΛΓΑΚΟΣ) 21:33, 13 June 2006 (UTC)

Then why did you offend me there even though I agreed with you and disagreed with Piotrus there? //Halibutt 22:21, 13 June 2006 (UTC)

Comment removed; see this diff if needed Keitei (talk) 00:08, 14 June 2006 (UTC)

I have also something to say about this. I've witnessed, how Piotrus on May 17, 2006 wrote: "Paranoia is treatable, Calg" [1]. These are clearly offensive words directed at Calgacus and not suitable for someone with administrator responsibilities. Juraune 08:40, 26 June 2006 (UTC)

Elonka's point of view

Elonka's opinion - refactoring discussion

I'm re-posting the first post here for convenience. The "s-word" section I am amenable to removing, so I've tentatively marked it out for now. Piotrus, would that be sufficient, or could you please point out which other parts that you felt were a personal attack, or use any other method you'd like, such as using the <s> and </s> tags to show me how you would like to see the comments refactored? --Elonka 02:55, 20 June 2006 (UTC)

I agree with Shilkanni that no special exception should be made for Polish monarchs. As for Piotrus' contention that he had consensus for the moves, that is incorrect, as can be seen at Talk:List of Polish monarchs/Archive 01. From my point of view, what it seemed was being done, was that a long list of extremely controversial moves were suggested by Piotrus on November 26, 2005, in the middle of the (American) holiday season [2] (meaning that it was likely that many editors were distracted with real-life, and weren't paying close attention to some of the pages). "Consensus" was then artificially constructed within a couple weeks because Piotrus advertised these moves to sympathetic voters (other Polish-speakers) via the Polish Wikipedian's Noticeboard, actions which he has been criticized for in the past, such as when he referred to POV disagreements on Poland-related articles as "vandalism". [3] He then conveniently ignored all objections as regards the Polish monarchs, such as those by JohnK, and rapidly proceeded with the moves in mid-December. Since then, each time one of the moves was challenged, he pointed back at his December "consensus" and tried to declare it a fait accompli. This is part of a history of trying to "conclude" discussions for which there is not yet consensus. [4] , as well as a pattern of providing heavily biased Google tests to try and back up his claims.

Further exacerbation of the problem occurred via a series of abusive actions on Piotrus' part, such as engaging in name-calling [5] and deceptive statements about anyone challenging his conclusions. He also frequently uses the Poland notice board to make "calls to action" to other Poles to engage in Talk page disputes or attack other Wikipedia users [6]. . One individual who raised questions about the Polish issue was accused by Piotrus of a "racist attack" [7]. Another clear example of hypocrisy is when Piotrus threw out an accusation and demand for an apology about any statements that "put in doubt the integrity of other editors" [8], and yet yesterday at Wikipedia talk:Requested moves he accused me of slander [9], and made a further unbased accusation that I was engaging in page moves without consensus, a charge that had been leveled by one of Piotrus' allies during the dispute at Talk:Polish Biographical Dictionary, and which I had already addressed [10].

I have made multiple attempts to talk to Piotrus about my concerns [11]][12], but in most cases this has simply resulted in an exacerbation of the behavior, plus heavy sarcasm, ridicule, and further false accusations. In short, I do not believe that Piotrus' statements about any Poland-related "consensus" are to be trusted, and it may even be worth examining his fitness to maintain status as an admin. At a minimum, I would hope that the Wikipedia community could encourage him to stop engaging in controversial edits on Poland-related articles, as it would seem he may even be violating the spirit of WP:AUTO. --Elonka 19:37, 6 June 2006 (UTC)

I have indicated part which I think should be removed. All said, perhaps the entire post should go, just as we removed them at WP:RM?--Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus ^Talk 00:11, 21 June 2006 (UTC)

Hmm, that's more than I'm willing to remove, unless we can perhaps negotiate other give and take. I've modified the strikeouts though, to include the entire central paragraph, and am willing to proceed with removing that section as a sign of good faith.

Alternatively, I am willing to remove the entire post, and my subsequent post on that page, if you will agree to resign your administrator access.

Alternatively, we can continue discussing things, though I will again caution you that I have a sizable library of items which you probably do not want me to bring up. For example, the fact that you abused your admin powers by repeatedly unblocking other Polish-speaking users (including both Molobo and Halibutt) when they were locked out by other Wikipedia administrators for violating Wikipedia policies. For now though, I am content to focus the discussion on the primary issue of moving many Wikipedia pages from English names to Polish names, without consensus. It would help if you could admit that you did not have consensus, apologize for those moves, and assist with cleanup. But if you would like, we can move on to discussing the specific issue of whether or not you had consensus, at the time that you were claiming that you did.

I am also open to other counter-offers, or we can discuss my post sentence by sentence to see if we can put the various issues to rest. Please let me know your thoughts. --Elonka 20:01, 21 June 2006 (UTC)

My thoughts have not changed from when I elaborated on them above. Your alternative proposal is quite extraordinary: you will agree to withdraw what I view as slander if I basically agree it was not by resiging the powers I have presumably abused? Even if every neutral editor points out I am correct here? Your 'sizable library' does not exist, any examples you can bring will either be misunderstandings or a few mistakes we are all entited too (as you should well known, being blocked from Wikipedia for some time yourself, and such). I have nothing else to 'admit' then what I wrote above, and certainly I will not apologize for the moves I did in good faith with then-present consensnus. On the other hand, your 'friends' are doing quite interesting things, including moving the article after a no-consensus RM debate, and their behaviour is now discussed at Wikipedia:Administrators'_noticeboard/Incidents#Closing_of_a_move_request_poll_-_request_for_review. If you want to find people who are breaking the rules, may I suggest looking over there? I repeat: I have not done anything wrong to show any 'pattern' of negative behaviour, and all of your posts that accuse me of such should be either removed or apologized for. PS. While I am happy you now appreciate the possible benefits of mediation, please try to remember who asked for it in the first place.--Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus ^Talk 08:26, 23 June 2006 (UTC)

Piotrus, can you please try to stick to the current discussion, rather than trying to accuse me of things that other people are doing? Last I checked, we were discussing a post that I had offered to refactor, and was asking you your opinion on that, to either accept one of my offers, or make a specific counter-offer. As for who started this mediation, of course it was you, and I believe the title that you chose makes that very clear. Though I will repeat what I have said before, which is that I wish you would stop using the word "cabal", as I find it personally offensive. --Elonka 16:18, 23 June 2006 (UTC)

I am sticking to the discussion. On topic, I told you earlier which parts of your post I find offensive, and I don't think I can compromise on that, other then note that some parts may be reworded to be note that they are your opinion/suspsicion/etc., not facts.--Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus ^Talk 19:15, 23 June 2006 (UTC)

Okay, which parts would you like to see reworded? --Elonka 19:49, 23 June 2006 (UTC)

I have indicated the fragments, now with underlines to distinguish them from what we have already agreed to be removed. If you want to retain them, fine, I can live with such comments under following two conditions: that you pay attention to portraying them as your opinion, not some 'facts', and that when I deem it necessary I can defend myself pointing out to that mediation case, especially as I see you using those arguments abuout my alleged misbehaviour on new pages and discussions. But as you have indicated you are unahppy with my defence (slander etc.) I would think you'd prefer to drop this issue and remove all of your accusations from that and other pages (you know better then I where have you made them). If you think that you are correct and I am wrong then by all means please seek a 'higher step' of WP:RM. I feel confident that any such procedure will clearly show that I am falsly accused, as all neutral editors (i.e. not involved with content dispute with me) on those mediation pages have agreed.--Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus ^Talk 20:43, 23 June 2006 (UTC)

I am open to reviewing possible new wording for the post. Could you please be more specific as to what you're looking for? Such as to suggest actual wording? --Elonka 06:41, 26 June 2006 (UTC)

Why not stick to the simple plan: you remove your post, I remove my reply (or give you permission to do so)? It would be less time consuming then rewording.--Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus ^Talk 17:08, 29 June 2006 (UTC)

Okay, how about this. In order to speed things up, I will agree to remove some of my posts, if you agree to remove some of yours. Rather than drag this out, I've just made a list below. Sorry about the lack of diffs, but some of these have gotten moved around to archive pages or have gotten juggled by other copy/pastes. Accordingly, I'm just listing them by their current location and datestamp. Piotrus, feel free to add a few more of mine if you'd like, and then once we're both happy with the list, we can remove all of them (I'm also willing to volunteer to do the work, since I realize it's a complicated request). --Elonka 02:01, 30 June 2006 (UTC)

Posts to be refactored

Portal_talk:Poland/Poland-related_Wikipedia_notice_board/Archive_6

• Halibutt : 11:57, 14 April 2006
• Halibutt : 21:53, 23 May 2006
• Halibutt : 00:17, 26 May 2006
• Halibutt : 03:04, 27 May 2006
• Halibutt : 23:06, 30 May 2006
• Piotrus : The "We are a Polish cabal" banner
  • Date?
    • June 3. The big colorful box that you re-added after I'd removed it from the top of the page. --Elonka 18:47, 30 June 2006 (UTC)
      • As I wrote before, the box was a joke. As a compromise, I can agree that it can be moved to WP:BJAODN, provided the link to BJAODN remains in its place.--Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus ^Talk 21:43, 6 July 2006 (UTC)
        • I'm not sure what you're talking about, so go ahead and do whatever it is that you're talking about, and then I'll take a look and see if that's satisfactory. --Elonka 22:13, 6 July 2006 (UTC)
          • Well, as I said, if you don't want the 'warning' to stay in the archive, move it to BJAODN and link it from the archive.--Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus ^Talk 20:06, 10 July 2006 (UTC)
• Piotrus : The "racist attack" comment (01:42, 6 June 2006)
  • I am willing to correct it to 'ethnic attack', as discussed above.--Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus ^Talk 18:30, 30 June 2006 (UTC)
    • Okay. --Elonka 18:47, 30 June 2006 (UTC)
• Piotrus : 03:17, 6 June 2006
  • conditional on removal of 'by the non-Polish majority of the' from Talk:Zygmunt_II_August and 'This article appears to be another example of a recent agenda by Polish nationals to force Polish spelling on various articles' from Talk:Zygmunt_I_the_Old
    • Agreed. --Elonka 18:47, 30 June 2006 (UTC)
• Piotrus : 00:53, 7 June 2006
  • I don't see what is offensive in this pote, please elaborate.--Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus ^Talk 18:30, 30 June 2006 (UTC)
    • You may be looking at the wrong post. I'm referring to the one on June 7. --Elonka 18:47, 30 June 2006 (UTC)
      • Yes. Please elaborate what is offensive in this post?--Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus ^Talk 21:43, 6 July 2006 (UTC)
        • I found the tone offensive, but am willing to withdraw my request on this post, if we can get progress on some of the others that are still in dispute. --Elonka 22:13, 6 July 2006 (UTC)

Talk:Polish Biographical Dictionary

• Piotrus : 15:51, 23 May 2006
  • I don't see what's offensive here, please elaborate. On the other hand, I'd like you to consider the removal of you post from 16:52, 25 May 2006 (I'd remove my reply to it then).--Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus ^Talk 18:36, 30 June 2006 (UTC)
    • Agreed on the removals of the below two messages. As for the above one, it's another one of the rants about the "Polish cabal". As I've said many times, I find the word "cabal" personally offensive. Though perhaps I'm not getting my point across, so let me elaborate: I hate the word, I hate the concept, I hate what it reminds me of. It is deeply, personally, generationally, hatred-inducing offensive to me. I even dislike the name "Mediation cabal", but I manage to keep my revulsion in check -- it's just one of those distasteful things that I have to endure, like walking past an open sewer line. But if there's a post with my name and any kind of implication that I am accusing people of being in a cabal, I would like that post removed, if possible. --Elonka 19:11, 30 June 2006 (UTC)
      • I am willing to withdraw my request for removal of this one, if we can reach agreement on the comment in the below section. --Elonka 22:16, 6 July 2006 (UTC)
• Elonka : 16:52, 25 May 2006
• Piotrus: 17:21, 25 May 2006

Talk:List of Polish monarchs

• Elonka : 21:06, 17 May 2006
• Piotrus : 02:56, 18 May 2006
  • If you remove your post from 21:06, 17 May 200
    • Agreed.
• Piotrus : 03:37, 6 June 2006
  • If you remove the following part of your previous post: "To those who have been moving articles to Polish names without consensus: It is time to stop. The best way to handle things would be to voluntarily admit that this was inappropriate, and help with fixing things. If necessary though, we will just go article by article and prove that there is consensus to move the articles back to their English-language names."--Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus ^Talk 18:39, 30 June 2006 (UTC)
    • Ah, we may have a sticking point here. We may need to set this particular post aside and have a separate debate about the issue of consensus. --Elonka 18:54, 30 June 2006 (UTC)
      • If you feel so, please tell me what's the problem here.--Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus ^Talk 21:40, 6 July 2006 (UTC)
        • In return for me withdrawing my requests on a couple of the posts on other pages, will you please allow this post to be removed? --Elonka 22:19, 6 July 2006 (UTC)
          • As I wrote above, if you want to refactor/remove my reply to your post, you also have to deal with your post that stated it. Your post implies that articles have been moved without consensus, I disagree with that statement.--Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus ^Talk 20:08, 10 July 2006 (UTC)

Wikipedia_talk:Naming conventions (names and titles)

• Elonka : 19:37, 6 June 2006
• Halibutt : 20:13, 6 June 2006
• Piotrus : 23:02, 6 June 2006
  • If you convince Calgacius to remove his posts from 20:00, 6 June 2006 and 23:20, 6 June 2006
    • I have no control over Calgacus. If you want him to remove his posts, that's something that you need to address with him, not with me. However, I am willing to withdraw my request that you remove this post, if you will agree to removal of your post at Talk:List_of_Polish_monarchs, 6 June, 03:37. --Elonka 20:25, 3 July 2006 (UTC)
• Piotrus : 00:07, 7 June 2006
  • Agreed, as it is a reply to your post of 19:37 which you indicated above you are willing to remove.
• Elonka : 18:17, 7 June 2006
• Piotrus : 19:01, 7 June 2006
  • Agreed, as it is a reply to your post of 18:17 which you indicated above you are willing to remove.
• Elonka : 19:10, 9 June 2006
  • For convinience sake, maybe we can refactor the entire section which is OT there?--Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus ^Talk 18:44, 30 June 2006 (UTC)
    • Agreed. --Elonka 19:14, 30 June 2006 (UTC)

Talk:Zygmunt I the Old

• Elonka : 02:44, 6 June 2006 (removal of sentence, as requested above)

Talk:Zygmunt II August

• Elonka : 02:51, 6 June 2006 (removal of phrase, as requested above)

Without going into too much dispute here, I'd suggest to remove the causes first, not the results. I mean for instance your proposal to remove Piotrus' ironic response to your unsupported allegations, but not the truly offensive remark you wrote there first. Or is there something I'm missing here? //Halibutt 03:32, 30 June 2006 (UTC)

Halibutt, I am delighted that you are participating. I was going to allow Piotrus to add those particular posts to the list, but if you would like to ask for their removal, that's fine too. In return, I will add a few of your own posts that I would like to see removed, how's that? --Elonka 18:12, 30 June 2006 (UTC)

Good point, as far as I am concerned. Cause and consequence. As Elonka notes, feel free to add anything I or Elonka have missed.--Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus ^Talk 18:44, 30 June 2006 (UTC)

Elonka, I expect nothing less. In fact specific links is all I was asking for in this dispute. //Halibutt 19:26, 30 June 2006 (UTC)

Halibutt, Piotrus, may I proceed with refactoring? Or are we stuck somewhere? And if so, where? --Elonka 21:32, 6 July 2006 (UTC)

I have indicated my opinion above. If you have the time and will, feel free to remove my posts I gave you permission to remove, your posts I requested and you agreed and any other your posts that you feel are out of place. I can't speak for Halibutt, though.--Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus ^Talk 21:45, 6 July 2006 (UTC)

Awaiting response from Piotrus or Halibutt . . . --Elonka 19:17, 10 July 2006 (UTC)

I think I have replied rather often to your comments above. But I think that both Halibutt and I prefer to spend our energy editing encyclopedic content. All we wanted was for people to stop offending us in discussions, this seems to have been resolved (at least to some extent), and thus I at least don't see much point in continuing this debate, especially as I think the only other person willing to discuss their actions (you) seem to have mostly reached an agreement with me. I guess we will not get our due apologies from some of the most vocal proponents of the 'Polish cabal' who declined to participate in this mediation (other then to further offend us), but speaking for myself, I have long ago learned that few people have the 'moral fiber' enough to admit they were (or even might ever be) wrong. Or they may still be convinced they were right. I do not care that much as long as their personal attacks do not rise again to the treshold that will disrupt our ability to work on encyclopedic content.--Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus ^Talk 20:15, 10 July 2006 (UTC)

Piotrus, I assume you are not talking about strawmen (or women). Who are these most vocal proponents of the "Polish Cabal", that you hope will give, or would like to get an apology out of? BTW, consider me Old fashioned, but I think you are being a little unnecessarily curt with Elonka, and could be more gentlemanly towards her (even though she doesn't need me to support her; she's a pretty tough cookie). A question and an opinion. Dr. Dan 22:35, 10 July 2006 (UTC)

Calgacus comes to mind, and I consider Ghirla another good example (although I doubt he is reformable). As for being curt - I am sorry, but I increasingly consider this entire case a giant waste of time. It was not my intention to be impolite, but it is my intention to indicate that I consider this mediation (and the need for it) a waste. I joined this project to create content, not to tiptoe around someone's hurt feelings. This entire case forced me to channel hours of my time away from adding encyclopedic content, and most commentators and observers, including the mediator, already wrote that most accusations brought against me by others were false. Did I receive a single apology? A single 'maybe I have been mistaken'? No. And let's not even start on how my request for mediation against personal attacks on me and other Polish editors turned into some kind of trial about me. Doesn't anyone bother look at the examples I provided with the case? I guess not. When I make an error, I apologize (as I have on this page, among other places) and if possible, fix the problem I created, and I expect others to do the same. However it appears some people consider themselves above such things as apologizing, and being able to make errors. You know, one of Ghirla's favourite arguments is that he has created so much content (true) that he is above WP:CIVIL and such (gheez). Sometimes I understand how he feels (although I don't approve his attitude). I hope I have not offended anybody with this post, and I aplogize in advance, but I really, really have articles to write, and this mediation does not seem to go in any useful direction. PS. I hope Elonka understands I mean her well. An article can mean a thousand words. And if not... let's agree to disagree and end it here and now.--Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus ^Talk 23:19, 10 July 2006 (UTC)

Piotrus, I see your point very well and I agree with your desire to create content rather than spend time here. I did not bring up any issues of what I perceive your past, should I call it, errors exactly because I see this as a time waste. Had it even been Halibutt in your shoes, who somehow has an issue with most of my edits, I would still not try to make this a show trial because I think the valuable editors should not be forced to spend time and effort on nonsense. I hope everyone here has learned something. Committed editors should be valued if they create much content. That definitely applies to you, Halibutt, Ghirla and many others (I think to myself as well). Also, they should learn TO take it lightly even when "n00bies" criticize them. For one, I never ever reported any of good ol' editors (no matter how angly I was) to 3RR. Why create extra aggravation? For the same reason, I did not bring any new issues here, while I had several in mind. I just don't think this is worthy of discussion. I was mad at Halibutt too, and not once. I considered an RfC and I am sure so he did. This was not started in the end of the day by either of us for the very same reasons, I think: waste of time and extra unnecessary aggravation. As long as the climate here is tolerable, we should just work together when we can, and vent our grudges to the moon when we can't. Grow a thicker skin. I've seen worse, believe me. The case is different, of course, if we have simply abusive editors. I don't want to call names while some obviously come to mind. Now, everyone realized that this jarring was a waste of time. I hope you will, at least, seize bringing up your favorite RfC of Ghirla here and there every day. That whole thing was a giant waste of time, as I wrote to Halibutt early on.

Let's just close this "mediation" which was turned into Piotrus' RfC.. If one wants to spend time on improving other editors, there are many real problem cases that need to be brought to wide attention for immediate reform and/or ouster. Neither Piotrus, nor Elonka nor anyone here is one of those. Regards, --Irpen 01:35, 11 July 2006 (UTC)

Piotrus, may I remind you that you are the one that started this mediation cabal process, and dragged the rest of us into it? As I recall, you were insistent that you were going to pursue this "all the way to arbitration if necessary". I very reluctantly agreed to engage in this mediation, but now that I'm here, I have been doing my best to discuss things in good faith. I have spent hours of my time over the last month, going through logs to present proof of things that you keep denying, and I have spent even more time trying to find a way to communicate and reach an acceptable compromise.

I do not think that just saying, "I'm done" and walking away is appropriate, since there are too many loose ends. But, though I cannot speak for Calgacus or Ghirla or anyone else that you have concerns about, I can state what actions are required for me to regard my participation in this mediation as concluded. There are two parts here. One is a requirement, and the other gives you a choice of how you wish to proceed:

• First, you must admit that you were moving pages to Polish names without consensus, apologize for the problem, and promise not to do it again.

Second, one or more of the following must occur:

• You resign your adminship; or
• You put your adminship up for re-approval; or
• You continue to negotiate about the above posts that we are considering removing. As a sign of good faith, how about this? It seems like the post that you most want me to entirely remove is this one: [13]. I will agree to the complete removal/refactoring of that one, if you agree to the complete removal/refactoring of this one: [14]. Agreed? --Elonka 19:50, 11 July 2006 (UTC)

That's what I have been talking about. Yes, I started this mediation, but as I feared in the begining it has not resulted in much. I will be curt again: the goal of this mediation was to try to convince some users, including you, that you have been impolite and incivil (to say at least) to Polish editors in general and me in particular. It has apparently failed. The only person of the offending group who decided to take part in the mediation was you, and you seem to be convinced you are the wronged party. While I am willing to 'reach out' and negotiate, please understand that it is I who have been wronged by, among other things, your unfounded accusations (which, at least, seem now to be limited to this page). The fact that you continue to bring up the issue of my admininship even when many neutral observers pointed out that it is irrelevant and I have not done any wrong (same with page moves) just proves to me that you are completly mistaken as to the purpose of this mediation and that your view of your righteousness will not be changed by this mediation. Even so, if you are not willing to offer an apology for your behaviour (defamation), that's unfortunate, but as long as you will defame me and other Polish editors again, I am satisfied that at least one of the goals has been achieved and I see no time in further pursing the apology issue. On that I guess we will have to agree to disagree and continue to work on encyclopedic project. So, to summarize my POV in bullet points:

• Best outcome: Elonka and possibly some others apologize for their behaviour
• Minimal but acceptable outcome: We try our best not to offend each other in the future and if it pleases you we remove few sentences from archives. On that note yes I agree to the removal of both points above.
• Technical note. By 'defamation' I mean statements that 1) a group of Polish editors have acted together to undermine Wikipedia project 2) Polish editors are less valuable to the project then non-Polish (so for example they should not be allowed to vote) 3) that I have abused my admin powers 4) that I have been incivil as a rule, not as an exception.--Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus ^Talk 20:27, 11 July 2006 (UTC)

Look Piotrus, I don't want to restart something that is beginnining to die down, but strangely you aren't letting it die down yourself. Please remember that it was you, who opened this can of worms in the first place. To accuse Elonka of being the sole opponent to some of your rather defensive positions is false. In fact two of the most vociferous editors who disagree with you, Calcagus and Ghirla, bowed out early, and if I'm not mistaken stated that they thought this whole "Mediation" was a joke and would not participate in it. I think if they did, it might have gotten uglier than it has at times. Others that frequently participate in our discussions have put their "two Euro-cents" into the fray too. Even Molobo managed to reassure us about your essentially fair and neutral actions, before he went on "vacation". So to make a long matter short, Elonka has actually done you a favor rather than a disservice, by giving you an opportunity to state your position in this mediation. Imagine if nobody commented at all! It would be like throwing a party and nobody came. And that's sad. My position is quite succinct and simple, English in English-Wikipedia, with ethnic explanations whenever appropriate. Perhaps if there was not a constant jumping into debates and edit discussions by the same people, out of the blue, over and over again (almost to the point of stalking), these suspicions about a Cabal would have been relegated to the back burner much earlier. We all have different temperaments, and are all guilty of taking attitudes, and making remarks, that are in the final analysis wrong and plain goofy. It's just hard for most of us to accept that fact. And much harder for some of us. I just recently ended a three day pissing match with an editor that I have a high regard for, and a great deal of respect for. And the result was nothing more than a huge waste of time, detracting from constructive imput into WK, or leisure time for that matter. We all could use a little more of that. Dr. Dan 03:34, 12 July 2006 (UTC)

I am not letting it die down? Is it me doing elaborate vote recounting? A few days ago I thought this was settled and we were just discussing details of some minor refactoring... Since you bring up Calcagus and Ghirla, let me just note that their refusal of particpate in this mediation only reflects bad upon them, and on a sidenote, one of the Calgacus comments here was removed by mediator for being extremly uncivil, and as for Ghirla and civility, do we even need to go there? I do appreciate that Elonka decided to enter the debate here, it certainly shows her good will. And I agree with you that we are not perfect and our time would be better spent writing articles. So... what are we disagreeing about, if anything, here?--Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus ^Talk 04:44, 12 July 2006 (UTC)

Sockpuppetry in Poland-related votes

As was pointed out at the Administrators' Noticeboard today, there has indeed been vote-stacking on Poland-related articles. Specifically, the following four users have been determined, by User:Mackensen to be sockpuppets that are all being controlled by the same user[15]:

• Logologist (talk · contribs)
• KonradWallenrod (talk · contribs)
• Mattergy (talk · contribs)
• Anatopism (talk · contribs)

I believe that this is hard data which further proves that there has been improper Polish POV-pushing in many votes around Wikipedia, and that each of those votes should be re-examined. I would also point out that Admin Piotrus has frequently worked in concert with Logologist, such as on repeated occasions using his admin access to move Poland-related articles per Logologist's request, or to back up moves that Logologist had started and were then challenged by other users.

I look forward to further comments on the matter. --Elonka 18:10, 23 June 2006 (UTC)

Yes, thank you for pointing that out, I was just about to do it myself. I completly agree that all the votes in whoch L. has taken part should be reexamined and if the results changed, the moves (or whatever) should be done. Nonetheless as many have pointed out I have done nothing contrary to the spirit of Wikipedia policies, all the moves but one were done with majority's consensus, and the one was the first time L. tricked me by saying there was a consensus when there was none. In essence I am as a victim of L. trickery as anybody, and likely even more as his actions have damaged my reputation. Still, this is but a digression to our mediation case, just going to show that you have chosen a wrong person to persecute, Elonka: I am not guilty of either abuse of admin powers of any incivility. You have succeeded in rooting out a real villain here, and I congratulate you on that. Why won't you admit you have been mistaken about me?--Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus ^Talk 19:02, 23 June 2006 (UTC)

Piotrus' abuse of admin powers

I decided to make this section to try and easily present the pattern of behavior that I have observed. I am going to try and limit it to just admin-related actions, and not include examples of (what I perceive as) incivility or deception, since those aren't unique to admins. --Elonka 21:01, 23 June 2006 (UTC)

It is my contention that Piotrus abused his powers by: [16]

• Using admin access to protect Poland-related pages from editing [17]
• Using admin access to protect Poland-related pages from being moved, even though he was actively involved with editing those pages (multiple examples) [18]
• Leaving protection on one Poland-related page for three months [19]
• Deleting pages and forcing through page moves from English titles to Polish titles, without community consensus (multiple examples) [20]
• Reversing actions of other admins, such as removing blocks that were placed on other Polish users (several examples, mostly involving Molobo and Halibutt) [21][22][23]

Response by Piotrus

Let me adress those points. I believe that my explantion should go to show that certain users are vastly exaggerating my mistakes. Let me also note that while I have tried to avoid using my admin powerers to avoid intervening in the content disputes in articles I edit, I see nothing wrong with using them to protect them from vandalism or to do mundane non-controversial tasks, and if the latter later becomes controversial you don't expect me to predict the future, do you? Finally, let me note that I have been the admin for one and a half year now (that is for the accuastion of frequent abuse, etc.). So now let's look at my edits in detail:

• Points 1-3: protect Poland-related pages: 6 times total, counting actions at PLC for 3 instances. 4 out of 6 instances were related to protecting pages from vandalism by banned by the ArbCom for one year. Those are clear cut non-controversial edits related to dealing with vandalism. Nr 5 is protecion of Międzymorze after User:Ghirlandajo moved it to a clearly inflammatory and misleading title 'Polish imperialism'. Soon afterwards, Ghirlandajo, who has a habit of being incivl and offensive to anybody who disagrees with him was subject to RfC and warned by ArbCom to stop his personal attacks (both of which seemed not to have any impact on his behaviour). Given how common Ghirla takes parts in various reverts wars and such I don't think this protection is any more controversial then if I was a frequent editor to article on let's say GWB and then reverted and protected the page after the move to some 'GWB is a warmonger' or other title of that format. Finally, my sixth and last protection was to Władysław II Jagiełło at point where the name what is the good name issue was debated on article's talk page, User:Calgacus was apparently ready to engage in a move revert war instead of trying the talk page or WP:RM; after he moved the article twice - second time to such a name as Jogaila (Władysław II) - I have protected the page from moves until he was ready to sit down and talk. That it was protected for 3 months just testifies to how uncontroversial this protection was - surely if it was controversial the matter would have come up sooner then today. I don't recall that this protection was contested at any time and so I unprotected the article some weeks later when I saw that Calgacus is not likely to move the articles by himself (and honestly I forgot abuout the protection as nobody remined me of it, I guess I could have unprotected the article earlier - if anybody cared enough to remind me about it. Nobody did.). Thereofe when we look at my usage of protect/unprotect tool we see that I have used it 6 times in 15 months, with only one protect being possibly controversial - and even that was 'possibly' only and was not brought up until now in any discussion I am aware of.
• Point 4: As I have discussed this several times on this page and few times on other places, I have simply reverted the series of moves done during discussion (and I believe eveon one RM) on various pages, where the users doing the moves did not bother to even fix the double redirect. When they did not reply to me, I had the choice of fixing all the double redirects or reverting the moves. Given that their moves were controversial and they did not seemed to care about double redirects (which in some cases affected all links to the moved articles), I simply reverted their moves. I see nothing controversial about this action, although next time I will ask some other admin to do it, although I don't look forward to wasting other admin's time with something I can well do myself. Because those users have moved about 20 articles, this move/delete indeed takes quite a lot of my move/delete page, but considering this was done once in my 1,5 career I don't see that if forms a pattern - and besides, I stand by the view that it was not controversial in the first place.
• Point 5: First, let's look at Halibutt. He was blocked twice and unblocked by three admins. I was not involved in the first instance for which the blocking admin admited it was a partial mistake, and in the second instance the issue was debated on 3RR page, as it involved various issues like Gdansk Vote and POINT. At first I believed that the blocking admin was unaware of how Gdansk Vote gives some people immunity from 3RR. After we went into it in details I agreed that in that case it is more of a WP:POINT case and the block was reinstanted. I don't see that such discussion constitutes any ground for me abusing my powers, as I believed in good faith that the block was an error due to little known exception provision in GV. As for Molobo, as one can cleary see in the block/unblock log, I unblocked him on 4 occasions, on each of those my reasoning was not contested by the admins involved in the block. On the contrary, unproper admin behaviour was evident in the action of the blocking admins, who where engaged in the content dispute with Molobo and blocked him not for a 3RR but in the first 2 cases for a very general 'disruption of Wikipedia' (read: disagreeing with them in content dispute) and in the 3rd case the block didn't even give a reason (block 'to have time to review Wikipedia policies' is one of the lamest excuses for blocking someone I have seen). I don't recall very well the details of my 4th unblock of Molobo but as you can see it was not contested - IIRC it was an error in reporting a 2RR as a 3RR. As an ending note, the count of my use of block/unblock tool shows that I use it in 80% to block vandals, and that I do a controversial unblock every 3 months, with none in the past 7 months.

Therefore if this is all evidence you can bring I think it is clear I am not guilty and that any accusation of me abusing my admin powers with some 'threatening pattern' is slander and I deserve an apology for it.--Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus ^Talk 01:33, 24 June 2006 (UTC)

Request that Piotrus resign his admin access

Piotrus, I know that you take great pride in your administrator access, and your involvement with Wikipedia. I also believe that you have done many good and worthy things on Wikipedia, which are deserving of praise. However, I also believe that when it comes to matters that involve Poland-related pages, that you have repeatedly used your administrator access to improperly push your own POV. I believe that this is an ongoing problem that has lasted for many months. I believe that multiple attempts have been made by many different users to try and point out to you what was going on, and get you to change your ways. However, I do not believe that you have taken these comments to heart. It is my belief that you still believe that you are in the right in this matter, and that everyone else is in the wrong. Further, I believe that given the opportunity, you will continue to misuse your admin powers to push your own POV.

I have given a great deal of thought to this situation over the last few months. I have pondered what to do, such as whether to file an RfC or RfAr, to bring up every single individual issue on your talk page, or to present the pattern at WP:ANI.

While investigating options, I saw that you had added your name to Category:Administrators open to recall (which I have to admit, I found a very classy thing to do). This means that if several users politely ask you to resign your administrator access, that you may choose to voluntarily resign. The specific guidelines of this are to place the request on your talk page, but for now, I am choosing to keep it here behind the scenes, on this Mediation page.

Please trust that I do not take this action lightly, and that I only ask this with great sadness. If other users agree, then they too can add their names to this list. After that, the decision is yours.

• Elonka 21:01, 23 June 2006 (UTC). I am sorry Piotrus, but I think that it is best if you resign your adminship.
• I second Elonka's demand. Regardless of anything else, these unblocks quoted in the section above are simply revolting... And of course, they always happen to be abusive... :) Piotrus, maybe you should stop protecting revert-warring users (even if they're Poles), because honestly, it does more harm to you than to everyone else... :( -- Grafikm ^(AutoGRAF) 22:21, 23 June 2006 (UTC)Demand withdraw, see below. I consider Piotrus' evidence and his promise to not mess with Molobo's block as sufficient for me.-- Grafikm ^(AutoGRAF) 18:22, 24 June 2006 (UTC)
• Second, per Elonka and my own experiences. --Francis Schonken 06:26, 24 June 2006 (UTC)
• Third. I have been busy lately and have not been doing major edits, so excuse my lateness. It is my opinion that Piotrus did not carry himself in the proper manner befitting an administrator. Charles 02:31, 12 July 2006 (UTC) I am withdrawing my vote and would like to read as neutral, but with the note that Piotrus did make a mistake that must acknowledge when or if necessary. While his actions were not befitting of an administrator, I understand and feel that he regrets them and will follow proper procedure from now on. Charles 04:19, 12 July 2006 (UTC)

Commentary

I am afraid I must disagree, Piotrus is a very neutral and constructive admin, that doesn't abuse his powers in any way. Changing articles names is often done by admins, and I don't think its any kind of abuse. Elonka's actions seem on the other hand exaggeration for the sake of conflict and dispute alone(as was the case previously in regards to other users may I presume looking at the block?). Sadly it also contributes to the negative prejudice against Polish users on Wiki by spreading the belief in "Polish Cabal" -a very negative prejudice based on ethnic lines which frankly I find repulsive to say the least. To tell the truth the whole discussion here by Elonka seems to me without any merit or significance, no serious charges were given, and it really looks like Elonka is just trying to discuss for the sake of discussion alone. Concluding I believe that there is nothing for Piotrus to be ashamed of, and certainly nothing justifying such drastic action as his resignation. Elonka is free to ask fro RfC and later for RefArb if she wants to pursue the matter further. Right now I believe no serious accusations were made. --Molobo 21:30, 23 June 2006 (UTC)

Grafikm isn't exactly neutral in regards to issues of nationality as seen here, [24] where he claims : Since quite some time, there was a strong nationalistic uprising on Wikipedia, originating from various Warsaw Pact countries and former Soviet Republics, including but not limited to Ukraine, Poland and Baltic states. Quite a few editors thought it would be extremely funny to perform some POV-pushing and bend history in their own way, sending USSR history in the mud to please their new political masters. Nationalist uprising on Wikipedia from Warsaw Pact countries? Please their new political masters ? This was directed at contributors that don't want word liberation attributed to actions of Soviet Union in Central and Eastern Europe. Piotrus also isn't fond of such terminology and contributed ot articles about Soviet atrocities and crimes. Does Grafikm believe we have some political masters ? And who are they ? --Molobo 22:29, 23 June 2006 (UTC)

I have worked with Grafikm before on some Stanisław Lem related articles and he struck me as a rather reasonable contributor few weeks ago. On the other hand, looking at the edit you quote I feel somewhat apprehensive to trust the judgement of somebody who seems to value the USSR history, well-known for being writen by propaganda specialists, more then the independend and peer-review history written in most of the former Eastern Block post-1989. That said, I should stress then he is probably no less neutral here then you are, Molobo :) Nonetheless, thanks both of you for your input, although I'd like to ask Grafikm to elaborate on how my behaviour has been 'revolting' and 'always happen to be abusive'. More details, less generalization, would be nice (and mind you that I have explained the reasons for my admin actions above).--Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus ^Talk 01:58, 24 June 2006 (UTC)

First of all, the sentence quoted by Molobo was deliberately chosen quite strong, in order to show that I take this matter very seriously. Second, the lesson of history is unfortunately that once an empire collapses, the gouvernment that comes next attempts to justify all their problems by "reasons" such as "it was their fault, because...". In the case of URSS collapse, this trend can be observed all over former Warsaw Pact, including Russian Federation. Moreover, the same phenomenon could be observed in 1917 after the collapse of the Russian Empire and even in the 17th century after the Romanov house came to power. Some researchers even think now that the whole idea of Dark Middle Ages was a deliberate attempt to blacken past history in order to brighten the Renaissance.

Consequently, a point of view from both pre-1989 and post-1989 is, in my opinion, biaised, just not in the same way. The former is indeed, more often than not, communist propaganda, but the latter is, again more often the not, deliberate attempts to blacken former history in order to brighten the present one. I do not value URSS history, but I hate pointing URSS as the Devil, which sounds quite Reagan-ish. Sure, URSS was what it was, but blackening it further won't arrange things.

So, what consequences does it have for the Wikipedia? Well, a quite important one: pointing post-1989 sources as the absolute truth is something one should avoid. Instead, an article must be constructed as to integrate information from both categories of sources, not just one (see the current attempt at doing so in the article Georgy Zhukov). And both of these must be presented with a neutral eye and with their respective bemols. That's the idea, don't you agree? -- Grafikm ^(AutoGRAF) 16:24, 24 June 2006 (UTC)

I see. I'd suggest that you may want to be careful with strong statements - reading your elaboration here I can't but agree with you. Certainly the post-1989 sources are no 'absolute truth', and we can find trends to paint some issues in white and black, in various publications (some Polish and Russian I am most familiar with come to mind). Nonetheless I think there can be no doubt that on average, post-1989 publications in the countries of Eastern Bloc are more reliable then pre-1989 publications. Would you agree with this generalization?--Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus ^Talk 20:07, 24 June 2006 (UTC)

While the changing of the blocking periods was improper and should have been discussed with the originating administrator first, I have not been convinced that Piotrus has done anything deserving of the removal of administrator capabilities. I think Piotrus should strongly consider not using administrative abilities with Polish-related articles or users until things have calmed down; instead he could focus on admin duties which are backlogged. I realize that Elonka has personally felt offended by certain discussions of the last several months, especially since she uses her real name here, but I have not seen accidentally offensive dialogue from Piotrus (who uses his real name as well), let alone deliberately offensive text. It seems from my point of view that Elonka's statements have been just as damaging to Piotr's reputation as his was to hers; in my mind two wrongs don't make a right. Maybe I'm being naïve, but it would be ideal if the involved parties could simply apologize and move on. Olessi 23:13, 23 June 2006 (UTC)

I certainly would not mind. If he apologizes for what he did, just as he apologized in Ghirla's RFC previously, I think we can move on :))) -- Grafikm ^(AutoGRAF) 23:48, 23 June 2006 (UTC)

What *exactly* would you like me to apologize for? And btw, to which apology of mine do you refer so I can have a point of reference? I am perfectly willing to apologize for things I have done, but so far in this mediation I don't see anything that I have done to offend Elonka (also I see quite a few of her stamements that damage my reputation). But if a neutral party - perhaps our mediator, Kate? - would point me where I have erred, I'll be sure to apologize for that. I am of course happy to review evidence brought by any non-neutral party, but so far Elonka's evidence seems to be to be anything but, and no other person brought any evidence (on the other hand, I see users commenting that I am not guilty of the things Elonka acusses me off). On the sidenote, it would be nice if Ghirla would apologize for his hundreds of offensive remarks and disruptive edits (see the RfC and ArbCom warning above). It would be really beneficial if a a fraction of the energy some users spend here would be directed to dealing with vast incivility as displayed by that (and some others) editors. --Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus ^Talk 01:43, 24 June 2006 (UTC)

I'm refering to this part of Molobo's RFC (it was Molobo's not Ghirla's, sorry for being mistaken). As for what, as I said here I'm ready to move on if you apologize for the abuse of your admin powers (I'm refering specifically to your unblock button abuse, not the related content disputes or something else) and if you promise that you won't attempt to contest Molobo's block, which is, all content dispute considerations set aside, rightly deserved just because of his countless 3RR violations. -- Grafikm ^(AutoGRAF) 12:49, 24 June 2006 (UTC)

First, thanks for bringing this nice example. I have once indeed made a mistake and reported Ghirla for 3RR when he has not done this, and of course that deserves an apology. Unlike him I tend to chose my words carefuly and so I decided that he is not a vandal as I once called him, and I apologized for this to him to. He has of course not replied, and his campaign of incivily, personal attacks, slander and use of profanities continues every day (just look at his contribs). Still, I hope that proves that I am ready to apologize for every mistake I made, no matter what the issue is - assuming I have something to apologize for. I don't think I have anything to apologize to with regards to my unblocks, IIRC in every single case I contacted the involved admin and discussused the issue at some Admin page. Or let me correct myself: I was incorrect in the case of Halibutt unblock and I believe I have apologized for this. Would you like to elaborate on what else should I apologize for? Second. I don't intend to contest Molobo's block. He was warned and he 'had it coming'. Maybe we will be better off, although I fear we will be swamped by his equivalents like Ghirla (who most certainly 'has it coming', too). But that is another issue.--Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus ^Talk 16:30, 24 June 2006 (UTC)

Following evidence presented by Piotrus and his promise to not constest Molobo's block, I withdraw my request. I think that now that Molobo is blocked, we can try and find a consensual solution to our disputes. -- Grafikm ^(AutoGRAF) 18:21, 24 June 2006 (UTC)

Thank you. I am glad we have cleared that matter up. Now hopefully we can go back to the main issue in this mediation, i.e. that I was accussed unfairly by certain users and deserve an apology for those accusations. As you will note, the entire 'Molobo affair' is just a recent digression and is mostly off-topic to the main issue addressed by that mediation--Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus ^Talk 19:25, 24 June 2006 (UTC)

You're welcome :) I really hope we can overcome all this affair. As for the main matter of this mediation (page moves and so on), I have no insight about it and therefore cannot say anything. :) -- Grafikm ^(AutoGRAF) 19:49, 24 June 2006 (UTC)

Well, it is basically the same issue as the admin part you looked at above. Certain users said that I abuse my admin powers (and was uncivil, and few other things, up to an inculding running a 'Polish Cabal'), and continued to repeat those accusations on various pages (pages, arguments and incivility varied from user to user). On this mediation case I asked that the accussers cite evidence and addressed what was presented. Would I be correct in saying that you have familiarized yourself with part of the discussion related to 'abuse of admin powers' and find me not guilty?--Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus ^Talk 20:07, 24 June 2006 (UTC)

I would say that evidence presented by Elonka cannot really be qualified as abuse given your explanations. Nevertheless, I cannot testify for parts I'm not familiar with obviously, like all these page moves things and discussions on Polish wikiboard. I also appreciate your constructive attitude on Irpen's RFC... :) -- Grafikm ^(AutoGRAF) 09:02, 26 June 2006 (UTC)

The question of Polish POV-pushing

I've been continuing to think about the fundamental disagreement here, which caused Piotrus to even start this Mediation in the first place. I am continuing to try to assume good faith, so, at the risk of spinning into a straw man argument, I'd like to try and present what I see as both sides of this disagreement, at least from my and Piotrus' point of view.

From Piotrus' side (and again, I am trying to assume good faith here), it seems that he believes that there have been a series of ethnic slurs against Poles on Wikipedia. He believes that there have been other nationalities who have been pushing their own POVs in certain Poland-related articles, and so the Poles on Wikipedia have been "pushing back" to try and keep articles fair.

From my side (which is easier for me to articulate) I have seen what looks like an organized effort by several Polish speakers to inappropriately push their own POV in several articles, especially as regards article naming. Various recent events have tended to "prove" this to me, specifically:

• One Polish editor (Molobo) was recently locked out indefinitely for a series of personal attacks, POV-pushing, and 3RR violations on Poland-related articles.

• Another Polish editor (Logologist) was recently discovered to have been using multiple sockpuppet accounts in order to influence page-renaming votes on Poland-related articles.

• A Polish admin (Piotrus) seems to have a demonstrated pattern of using his admin access to protect the actions of various Polish editors, including the above two, such as by reversing lockouts, deleting redirects, moving articles, or putting admin "protection" on various Poland-related pages to prevent anyone else from moving them. The admin also has a history of generating lengthy proposals to rename large numbers of Poland-related articles, and then referring to those (unapproved) proposals to engage in move wars or edit wars, again, almost always on Poland-related articles. In fact, he has practically no history of ever working on articles that are not Poland-related. When he has been challenged about his activities, he has reacted with great defensiveness, sometimes resorting to name-calling and false, exaggerated, or unrelated counter-accusations.

Because of the above actions involving multiple non-consensus page moves to Polish titles, many other (primarily non-Polish) Wikipedia editors are now wading through what they regard as a tedious and frustrating bureaucratic process of re-debating and re-naming each of the dozens of articles that were affected. This has been regarded by many editors as a colossal waste of their time, and many editors are now grumbling about "the Polish problem". These comments seem to have made various Polish editors even more defensive about their nationality, and even more convinced that they are being unfairly attacked.

Things became further confused as the Polish editors started repeatedly referring to themselves as a "cabal" that was out to "take over the world", but at the same time they were quite vocally complaining about how other editors were referring to them as a cabal, and complaining that this was another improper ethnically-based attack.

This problem has also been amplified by certain non-Polish editors who indeed have been issuing occasional bad faith attacks, including the use of abusive edit summaries, calling certain Polish editors "trolls", and suggesting that Polish editors should not even be allowed to vote on Poland-related articles. This seems to have caused some of the Polish editors to then regard anyone questioning the Polish POV, as being guilty of the same sorts of attacks as the more abusive editors, and therefore "fair game" for personal attacks from the Polish editors, since they seem to feel it necessary to defend themselves from ethnic prejudice.

In summary:

• Certain Polish editors feel strongly that they are the wronged parties, that they have been the innocent recipients of multiple personal attacks and accusations, and are deserving of apologies for everything.

• Many non-Polish editors feel that certain Polish editors have been paranoid and hyper-defensive, have been forcing their own Polish POV on many articles, and have been causing many messes that need time-consuming cleanup by the rest of the Wikipedia community.

Piotrus, would you say that the above is a fair summary of events up until this point? --Elonka 19:34, 26 June 2006 (UTC)

Don't know if appropriate, but wanted to add also the following: what I think I also understand (in my attempt to understand motivations, like Elonka did above) is that for many at some point in time this really looked like a good solution: let non-native English speakers each for themselves make the best of the articles they feel most related with. I've read many defenses, for various reasons, for that system, and I do think some good reasons can be given. But in the end, it doesn't work: for all language-related topics, there are a few of them also related to other languages, and then it ends up in factionalism to draw the topic to one language or another. Well, then you get all the problems we've seen. "In English Wikipedia all topics belong to English" seems the only reasonable approach. --Francis Schonken 00:18, 27 June 2006 (UTC)

Sorry Elonka, but IMHO you're missing the point completely. The above comment suggests that you're still thinking in extremely nationalist terms. Poles this, Poles that... come on, we're a bunch of people, not a single organism. In your campaign of accusing the "Polish community" of many things you apparently forgot that you accuse particular people and not some Moloch. It's not a problem between "Polish editors" and "non-Polish editors". It's a problem between Elonka and Piotrus, or perhaps Elonka + some others versus Piotrus. And why not name it a conflict between "Elonka" and all the rest of the community? It would be as accurate as your description above.

In your summary above you've stated that what you see as the "Polish" part of the problem is that certain Polish editors feel strongly that they are the wronged parties, that they have been the innocent recipients of multiple personal attacks and accusations, and are deserving of apologies for everything. My, partially tongue-in-cheek, reply would be well, by repeating the nationalist theories and dividing the community onto Polish and non-Polish users you're doing it again. Get the idea?

Also, you continue to accuse Piotrus of nasty things, yet fail to provide evidence. It's simply unfair, both to him and to the rest of us here. I'm a Pole myself and I feel it's definitely offensive when someone suggests I'm not neutral just because I was born in Warsaw and not in, say, Honolulu. My advise would be to start discussing particular issues with diffs and links, rather than repeating your old story of Piotrus this or Piotrus that. Come on, either list your arguments and let him defend his good name, or apologize and let's forget the whole issue. It's as simple as that. //Halibutt 01:48, 27 June 2006 (UTC)

Halibutt, don't forget that I'm Polish too.  :) --Elonka 05:08, 27 June 2006 (UTC)

I am sure he didn't forget. And I am sure we would like to read your reply to the points he raised. In the meantime, my reply to your summary is below.--Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus ^Talk 05:31, 27 June 2006 (UTC)

I am afraid I cannot call your summary good. First of all, I am amazed that you see the Polish editors as pushing some particular (Polish POV) - but apparently see them as the exception to the rule, as apparently according to your descriptions those POVed Polish editors are facing some neutral bunch of perfectly NPOV editors. Second, the fact that one Polish editor has been blocked for his 3RR warring, and another (although I am not sure if Logologist is not actually an American of Polish descent, like yourself) was found to be using sockpuppets (both action I condemn) certainly is not enough to prove that there is some Polish cabal at work. Two black sheep do not represent the dozens of Wikipedians listed in Category:Polish Wikipedians, Category:Wikipedians in Poland, Category:User pl-N or Portal:Poland/Poland-related Wikipedia notice board. Third, you again state that "A Polish admin (Piotrus) seems to have a demonstrated pattern of using his admin access to [abuse them]", a charge which I have responded to in detail above and which all the users commenting here so far (after my reply) seem to have considered I am innocent of (and we are still waiting for your reply to my defence). Fourth, I see nothing to be ashamed in being engaged in discussions related to naming conventions, and as described in my point three I have most certainly not been involved in any 'move wars'. Fifth, your statement that "he has practically no history of ever working on articles that are not Poland-related" is just another one of the false and completly mistaken statements that you use, and one that I can use to illustrate the average 'merit' of your aguments best: please consider how a person who Elonka describes as having "practically no history of ever working on articles that are not Poland-related" have written most of Featured Articles like Max Weber and Sociocultural evolution, significantly contributed to Blitzkrieg, written Good Articles like Anthony Giddens and recent DYKs like Merton Thesis and Obliteration by incorporation (apologies if this seem like a 'brag list', but I want to present evidence (samples, I can bring scores of others)). Sixth, your accusations of my behaviour when challenged (resorts to name-calling, etc.) are again (like most of your other accusations) lacking evidence (and I would be suprised if you can present more then few exceptions to the rule, let's say 2-3 per every year I have been on Wiki (as I wrote above, human makes mistakes, and I am not perfect)). But any evidence you can present is exception to the rules of my behaviour. Seventh, I have not heard any grumblings about "the Polish problem", others then from a few editors who are constantly trying to introduce their nationality POV into Wikipedia, and recently maybe two or three editors who are unhappy about the naming scheme of Polish monarchs (again, exceptions to the rule in the scale of Wikipedia in general). Eight, another one of your mistakes (accidental, I asumme...) is that you mistake the chronological order of the 'Polish cabal' argument: some Polish editors started to refer to themeseves as a 'cabal' only after they have seen this word used to their suprise by some people (often in what could be called 'etnnicity attacks'). I find it ironic that some of those people have then turned aroud and started complaining that when Polish editors jokingly refer to themselves as a 'Polish cabal' they are hurting their own (presumably) feelings by being derogatory to themselves (pretty strange logic, as far as I am concerned). Ninth, I can certainly agree that the problem has been amplified by some editors who clearly enjoy attacking Polish editors. On the bright side, this group is very small, on the bad side, I am amazed that such few words of condemnations are spoken against those editors, while a simple attempt to defend oneself generates long pages like this one. In summary, I stand by the summary I have written on the main page of this mediation. Little has changed: while you (Elonka) have agreed to delete a few of your offensive remarks, other editors who have offended me and many other Polish editors still speak malicious things about us without as much as second thought about WP:CIVIL and related policies. I certainly hope that the mediators will finally comment on this, as I am afraid we are not doing much progress here.--Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus ^Talk 05:31, 27 June 2006 (UTC)

Speaking of bright sides, certain can of worms comes to my mind now. Long time ago I remember there was a similar problem with a bunch of editors who loved to assume bad faith and offend people basing on their Polish ancestry. After some chatter we had with Piotrus, Balcer and perhaps others, we decided that starting RfC's and other such procedures in every case someone is uncivil would be a waste of time and efforts and that perhaps there is a way to solve it outside of the whole wiki-judiciary process. The result was far from what we expected and had some quite bad implications (especially for yours truly), but the idea seemed fine back then. However, as it has been turned down by an enormous number of people perhaps we could return to the idea of zero tolerance?

I mean: every time someone speaks of a Polish conspiracy - we start a RfC. A mention of brainwashed POV-pushing Poles or some other personal attack based on racism - new RfC. Unsupported allegations of breaking the rules - RfC. Slander - RfC. How does it sound? //Halibutt 06:39, 27 June 2006 (UTC)

Halibutt, no offense meant, but no one is innocent in this affair, so if some people want to return to such a policy, they will get a bunch of RfCs on their back as well. Pulling a trigger in cases like that won't resolve any problems. -- Grafikm ^(AutoGRAF) 07:59, 27 June 2006 (UTC)

Yes and no. I know I am not being uncivil. Halibutt is not being uncivil. I know not a single Polish editor who is acting uncivil. We don't have much to be afraid. As for Halibutt's idea, I'd just add that first, we should ask the offending user to apologize/refactor his comment (in the place it was made and on his talk page). And following WP:DR asking for mediation first is good custom, too (this is basically what I am doing here, after all).--Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus ^Talk 16:06, 27 June 2006 (UTC)

I was not talking about you Piotrus. -- Grafikm ^(AutoGRAF) 16:20, 27 June 2006 (UTC)

Oh. About whom, then? I think I lost this thread :) --Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus ^Talk 16:30, 27 June 2006 (UTC)

Nobody in particular. But since things got pretty hot on several talk pages, if memory serves, there was quite a few excesses. I do not, however, want to seek personal attacks everywhere so that's why I said I won't even bother to investigate these matters further since I have better things to do. -- Grafikm ^(AutoGRAF) 16:37, 27 June 2006 (UTC)

Note on Polish monarchs naming

From my experiences, I would say that one of problems is that any person with a nationality comes from the usages of that language and culture. It is not necessarily bad faith, at least when the person keeps it in check and does not push blindly. But it tends to mean that the usages, the familiar terms used in that culture and language are coming to subvert English. Of course, one can say that sometimes English usage itself is not fsir. Certainly many English usages were developed from English POV: British princesses married abroad suddenly are not necessarily first name + England, or something corresponding, here, but they may be first name + married title, even in case where our naming convention clearly requires to use pre-marital country designation and forbids use of married titles/names (witness Sophia of Hanover, a married country designation, when fairly she should be at Sophia of the Palatinate or something corresponding). English usage does not treat always others fairly. And the reason the majority cites when pushing that POV to us others is "common English usage". BUT, the same happens all the time by editors from othr than Anglophone cultures: a Swede is often a bit more familiar with using surnames for royals, because that happens in their languag (kings Vasa, Bernadotte, Bonde, "av Hessen", Holstein-Gottorp; they had several kings who actually had a surname, a rather rare thing in royalty circles). I believe, upon my experiences, that the Polish culture has more tendency to use nicknames in conjunctions with all sorts of monarchs. It somehow comes through from several edits, moves and opinions of several Poles here. But it should be clear to those people that it i mostly an un-English custom, and therefore should be kept in check. Additionally, we have the WP requirement of NPOV - and if I have understood some writings correctly, endorsing nicknames may easily be POV of some historical camp. I certainly would not like to endorse that a certain king was "the Sleazy", another "the Bad", "the Simpleton", whereas one was "the Great", "the Good", "the Brave". I believe there are several good reasons behind the naming convention of using firstname + regnal number + of + country of each and any monarch. Because that pushes much less POV than endorsing perceptions what were personal characteristics of the individuals in question. But also because that is the usual English way. Perhaps those centuries of impassionateness has developed English to avoid non-systematical names. I am saying that everything is presumably well if a foreigner editor keeps his/her own cukture and own language usages in check, not assuming that English shares same customs, alleviations and usages. Sadly, it seems that this case has partly sprung from not being able to keep in check those usages familiar to Poles from Polish usage, but having actually pushed them over English~usages and our manual of style. Marrtel 08:36, 27 June 2006 (UTC)

In good faith, if I am may add. Your arguments against using the alternative naming scheme for Polish monarchs are pretty good, I'd recommend you post them here. It would be likely wasted here, as the naming of Polish monarchs is mostly off-topic issue we are discussing here (this mediation is about the behaviour of certain users).--Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus ^Talk 16:06, 27 June 2006 (UTC)

Response from Keitei

As a mediator I'm generally encouraged to be neutral, and so I have been, but my opinion has been called for several times. So I will give it!

Piotrus' admin abuse (accusations)

1. Using admin access to protect Poland-related pages from editing
2. Using admin access to protect Poland-related pages from being moved, even though he was actively involved with editing those pages
3. Leaving protection on one Poland-related page for three months
4. Deleting pages and forcing through page moves from English titles to Polish titles, without community consensus
5. Reversing actions of other admins, such as removing blocks that were placed on other Polish users (several examples, mostly involving Molobo and Halibutt)

Related response

1. I don't think that it's unreasonable that Piotrus, as an admin who pays attention to Poland-related articles, protect articles which may normally need protecting. He alleges that all of these were normal needed protection. Protection as a whole is very controversial, and I don't find it unusual that this is viewed as controversial. Whether or not it was really needed, or if he was paying close attention and protecting before it escalated (who can say whether it would), he protected the page for reasons he doesn't see as POV pushing reasons. The fact that it was related to Poland reflects more on his watchlist than his POV.
2. He says he protected this particular page as a way to get more discussion. This is a tactic one uses often at Uncyclopedia; however, at Wikipedia, in the future I'd suggest he ask another admin do it. I know it's lame to make other people do what you can do yourself, but it ensures that you aren't abusing powers, and convinces other people of it as well. At the least, asking another admin's opinion before protecting is also a good idea.
3. I can relate to forgetting to unprotect most definitely. I think this one example can be excused, as an absent-minded mistake. He shows no reluctance to unprotect, and admits he could've unprotected earlier.
4. Double redirects are hell (basically one searches for something and gets redirected to a redirect page). It's confusing to readers and very annoying for administrators to clean up. Perhaps Piotrus shouldn't have dealt with ones he was active in, but he says he was cleaning the redirects instead of just plain move warring. That takes time and effort. Would it have been equally controversial or more controversial if he'd just reverted all the moves? I couldn't say, but I don't think cleanup necessarily reflects on his POV. Regardless, he probably should have discussed it first, perhaps after agreement from at least two other editors?
5. This one I take offense at. It's not that they were Polish users, it's only natural he'd be wiki-friends with and pay attention to Polish users; it's the unblock summaries. References to "admin abuse" aren't good unblock summaries. I don't think this is something he should desysop over, but I think it is something he should definitely refrain from doing in the future. If you're going to unblock, discuss it somewhere, and then unblock with "misunderstanding: see this talk page" or something of the sort. Better yet, get the blocking admin to unblock. Generally people follow a "discuss first, act afterwards" policy, so blocks are instated for a reason, even if you disagree. If it's an accidental block for 2 reverts instead of three, the block isn't that long, for one, and for two, put a note on the talk page, with diffs, and then link to that in the unblock summary. Overall, I don't think he's done this enough that I'd be too concerned about future abuse, but I'd caution Piotrus to use more tact in the future.

Overal opinion

I don't think Piotrus is POV pushing. He is interested in Poland-related articles and thus uses his admin powers on them. I don't think it's bad that he does that; it's not much of a solution to force all the admins to do janitorial work on subjects they especially aren't interested in. It's also a matter of what one's watchlist contains; he's Polish and probably knows about Poland-related stuff, edits and watches those pages. Basically, it's understandable.

As far as page moves go, both Piotrus and Elonka are Polish, and therefore more or less equally interested in Poland-related stuff; however, Elonka didn't grow up in Poland, specifically in the Polish educational system, which probably uses the Polish names in its classes (correct me if I'm wrong, this seems a fairly simple assumption). Therefore, I wouldn't be surprised if the English names didn't sit well with him; it's weird to call something or someone one thing all your life, and then have everyone decide that's wrong. And on the one hand, the Polish people have the right to call their monarchs whatever they like, but on the other, this is the English Wikipedia, and there has to be some consistency that will make sense to English speakers. Anyhow, I understand both positions and I don't know if I could say which I'd prefer.

Which brings me to the next point. You both are right. And you both are wrong. According to m:Don't be a dick, "Note also that being right about an issue does not mean you're not being a dick. Dicks can be right — but they're still dicks." I'm not calling Piotrus a dick, but the same principle applies for somewhat offensive users. What you are saying could very well be right, but you aren't going about it the best way. Elonka is objecting to the way Piotrus goes about saying things as much as she is objecting to what he's done. Piotrus returns that he isn't going to apologize because he was right; however, one can be right and be a dick, and one can apologize for incivility or seeming incivility and retain... rightness. Being right doesn't excuse incivility. Elonka may or may not be overreacting to this. I understand that people who aren't the most polite and friendly people are difficult to work with; however, this may taint everything he does, make it that much worse. I think a clearing up of behavior would make the dispute seem a little less... severe.

Conclusion

This is a big mess :] but you knew that already.

I think that Piotrus is doing understandable acts in a less than friendly manner. He may get defensive when people react to the way he does things. I think that at least with Poland-related things, he should make an effort to be nicer and more transparent. A little more discussion here, a little more civility there. As for what he should apologize for, I don't think it's the acts themselves, but the way he said things. Snubbing a few people here and there makes enemies eventually. As long as he doesn't repeat the said offensive, generally unwise actions (unilateral protection, unilateral page moves cleanup, and offensive unblocking), I don't believe that he should be desysoped. Hopefully these are, as he says, just human error. Should he repeat, I'd be concerned.

I respect that Elonka is trying to understand both sides of the debate. I think that she has a hard time trusting Piotrus' intentions and probably has good reason. I think that their personalities clash quite a bit at times, which makes it more difficult to compromise. I understand that the track record is not so good. Perhaps in future discussion, she can try not to jump to conclusions about intention, while he is trying to be nicer. I don't know if that'll negate the personality differences, but it'd be a step in the right direction. I could suggest that you avoid each other, but that can be more difficult to orchestrate and leaves bad feeling. I think that Elonka is right to object to some of Piotrus' actions; even if he wasn't wrong, voicing concern and discussing prevents either widespread bad feeling or doing nothing when he is very wrong.

I think in conclusion, it'd be best to take into account the differences, forgive all of what's happened, and move on. If something of the sort happens again, I'd say go straight to ArbCom and I'd help you get there. I think that if you both try to work with each other, and know that another wrong action won't be overlooked, things could move forward.

I also hope that wasn't just a rambling mess and actually makes some sort of conclusion. If not, I can get more opinions. :] If nothing really can be done through discussion, though, I will do what I can to get you an ArbCom case quickly. Anyhow, here's hoping! --Keitei (talk) 17:37, 28 June 2006 (UTC)

Well said, Keitei. Your diplomacy skills are superb, and I found your response wise, thoughtful, and tactful. I agree with much of what you said, and thank you for offering a useful additional perspective on events. --Elonka 18:05, 29 June 2006 (UTC)

Comment by Piotrus

Thank you, Keitei, for your opinion; we dearly need opinions of neutral editors here. Considering what you wrote, I will repeat that I am willing to apologize for any specific action that seemed impolite or offensive, if such a specific action is presented before me. I will also repeat that I had never commented anything with the intention of offending anybody, and I will here aplogize in general to anybody who might have been offended by any of my edits. I would also like to ask Keitei if she could comment upon that issue: have some people been incivil to me or Polish editors in general in the related discussions? I.e. do I have the right to ask some people to be more civil and apologize for some comments, or am I overreacting?--Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus ^Talk 18:43, 28 June 2006 (UTC)

I think they have been incivil to you. I don't think any of it is intentional, on the part of any editor, and that this is not a dispute among trolls, but instead among good people who don't get along splendidly. I couldn't say for sure where it starts, but I think maybe somewhere someone (maybe you for you tend to be on the blunt side) says something which isn't necessarily mean, but doesn't really sit well with someone else and it builds up off of that, increasing and increasing, until everyone has forgotten why they're mad, but "knows" the other is in the wrong. As for the other users who haven't been agreeable to mediation, I do think they can be and are being incivil, but I couldn't say why or what they're ticked off about. I can say that to prevent future occurances of mass misunderstanding, it's my opinion that a little bit of tact goes a long way. (Sorry if I'm being presumptuous, just trying to help)

As for apologies, probably every side has been incivil at some point and owes apologies; of course whatever you think is best is best, but I'm unsure that specific instance explanation and then apology is most effective at this point. However, if that will solve the issue, by all means do. But if a "I've been mean and I didn't mean to be, I'm sorry" would suffice, then I say leave it at that. Hope that helps... --Keitei (talk) 19:21, 28 June 2006 (UTC)

Sock Puppet Gate

Because I like you, and would prefer to take you at your word, rather than not, I return to this very important and delicate issue brought up by Elonka. You seemed to dismiss it earlier "as a digression". There has been further inspection of correspondence between the involved parties, and I would like to ask you, if at any time, both as an administrator and a person with considerable computer skills, if you thought something was amiss? In short, if you thought something just didn't seem right? Did your invitation to the user:Mattergy, to participate in the voting on Wladyslaw Jagiello(talk archive 5), one day after you wrote to him a Welcome to Wikipedia Greeting, seem appropriate. And although, I'm not convinced that there is a "Cabal", these concerns are hardly digressions; your thoughts on my questions, please. If true, would they suggest a cabal? And thank you, I appreciate that you and Molobo went to user:Logologist's talk page and chided him severly for his erring, but so far unrepentant and unapologetic ways. Thank goodness you didn't block him or use you powers to punish him. Dr. Dan 04:43, 29 June 2006 (UTC)

I am not sure if I undestand all of what you are saying, but as for Mattergy, I did not find him overly suspicious, and by 13th June when I sent him a msg he was already voted on one Polish name RM and talked on several monarchs page. Since I had him freshly on mind after welcoming him a day ago I probably noticed him on some other page and sent him an invitation to a vote his contributions would indicate he would be interrested in. Asking editors whom one think may be interested in to take part in the votes is a common practice, just as posting information about votes and other issues on noticeboards and similar sites. As for cabal, will some people just go read WP:CABAL and cabal. Either there are scores of cabals (=wikipedia organizations) on Wiki or there is none. None of which seem a problem to me.--Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus ^Talk 05:56, 29 June 2006 (UTC)

It is inappropriate to invite people so new to our community to participate in policy discussions of this sort. New people should be acclimated to the project and our culture before they start to shape either. There's a good reason that new people's contributions to such discussions are usually ignored, and it exposes people to unpleasantness when they have to see that. --Improv 14:29, 29 June 2006 (UTC)

Mattergy has been acive on Wikipedia for two months before I invited him to the voting, I'd think two months is 'old enough'. And he has already shown interest in voting and using talk pages. On the other hand, your comment should be carefuly read by some people critical of my behaviour and supporters of the 'Polish Cabal idea', who don't shy from inviting users 1 day old to support their voting.--Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus ^Talk 16:53, 29 June 2006 (UTC)

Piotrus, you say you don't understand all of what I'm saying. I should hope that Improv, made it more clear to you. Let me make it even clearer. My problem was you "Welcomed him to Wikipedia", on one day. And "invited" him to vote, the next day. I too welcomed user:Mattergy to Wikipedia, but it was on the talk page of the Wladyslaw Jagiello "poll". Calcagus followed up with a question to me, if I thought it was a "sock". Unfortunately, it turned out to be so. Dr. Dan 14:46, 29 June 2006 (UTC)

You are not making much sense, Dan. As I said above, when I invited Mattergy I did not think he was a sock. PS. Note that my invitation sent to several users was only a reaction to the 'other side' in the vote sending quite a few (and as the Orionus example show, some questionable) invitations to the vote themselves.--Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus ^Talk 16:53, 29 June 2006 (UTC)

I'll try to make more sense. Perhaps it's my not understanding of all of the functions of an Administrator at WP. Is part of their function to have a reaction to "the other side" in a vote, and send out invitations to editors that they perceive to be on "their side"? Just what do you mean by the other side? Is neutrality in these type of issues, expected, of an Administrator? Would some people think you might be a leader in a cabal, because of an attitude shown by remarks like these? Dr. Dan 17:50, 29 June 2006 (UTC)

Dan, I think that neither welcoming other users not inviting them to vote does require use of any special admin powers. An administrator, when not using the admin tools are just normal wikipedians. Neutrality is expected of an administrator only when he is preforming his admin chores, otherwise everyone is allowed to be as biased as I am or even more. Hope that helps (am I a member of the cabal now, too ? ;-) --Lysy^talk 19:16, 29 June 2006 (UTC)

No Lysy, You're not a member of the cabal, too. If you want to work at it though, be my guest. Right now you need to understand the concept of an "Expression Puppet", it's different than a "sock puppet". Check out Ventriloquism.

Piotrus, I was hoping for an answer from you. Specifically what you meant by "the other side". Inviting people to vote is fine. Btw, I admit I was wrong, you did'nt invite the sock puppet user:Mattergy, to vote the next day, you invited him to vote minutes after "welcoming" him to WK. I'm learning to be a proficient nitpicker (wherever did I learn that from). So Piotrus, when you say that Mattergy didn't seem overly suspicious, does that mean he struck you as being a little suspicious, or not suspicious at all? Dr. Dan 21:02, 29 June 2006 (UTC)

Few things that should be obvious to anybody who is not nitpicking at someone's else comments to the point of WP:POINT. Number one: if I take part in a discussion, it means I am joining certain side and that there are other sides whom I don't join. Number two: administrators are perfectly allowed to chose sides, as long as they don't use their admin powers in a way that puts the non-admin users at a disadvantage. Number three: I see nothing wring with welcoming a user and giving him some additional links he may find useful, be it to a wikipedia policy, wikiproject, a vote or anything. Number four: I already told you that I did not find Mattergy suspicious, unlike some, I am not prone to paranoia and I tend to approach new users in good faith. EOT, as far as I am concerned.--Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus ^Talk 22:23, 29 June 2006 (UTC)

Thanks for your most satisfactory explanation. I was hoping of hearing it from you. Dr. Dan 22:39, 29 June 2006 (UTC)

I'm going to venture a bit off-topic here, because this particular subject interests me a great deal. I agree, figuring out just how admins were perceived within the Wikipedia culture, was one of the things that was difficult for me to grasp as well. My own background is in multiplayer games, where I have been a professional online community manager for over 15 years (think Jimbo level, or maybe one below). I'm also a founding member of the Online Games group in the International Game Developers Association, and a senior editor of White Papers on the state of the industry (some of my work is even cited as a source in Wikipedia).

In most game cultures, "administrators" are seen as semi-staff. Game admins routinely have access to additional tools, and along with this access, are expected to maintain a much more strict standard of behavior -- since they receive free accounts in order to help manage the paying accounts, they are generally expected to act as customer service representatives, meaning that they are required to be extremely civil to non-admins, take fair and appropriate action when policies are being violated, and maintain neutrality at all times.

In Wikipedia, by contrast, admins are a very different beast. They are, as Lysy pointed out, basically normal users who just have extra tools. They are not expected to treat non-admins with any deference whatsoever (indeed, many do the opposite), and the only times that admins are expected to be neutral, is when they are doing specific admin things, such as deleting/moving/protecting pages, and blocking or unblocking users in regards to the breaking of various Wikipedia policies. However, the policies that are enforced, are not enforced in a consistent way, and as an added complexity, the understanding of which policies are "important" vs. which ones are ignorable, seems to be a kind of tribal knowledge that is not documented anywhere, but just needs to be gained by experience and observation. For example, the 3RR rule is an absolute quantifiable "break it and you're locked out on the spot" policy. However, the policies on civility and no personal attacks are generally treated as nothing more than suggested guidelines and not as policy, and so, since there are rarely any enforced consequences, those "policies" are routinely violated. The only times that I have ever seen anyone locked out for incivility or personal attacks, are in cases of extreme and/or prolonged abuse (and even then, sometimes it's dicey if the abuser is friends with various admins, in which case the new user who issues a complaint is sometimes more likely to be locked out than the longtime user who was issuing the initial attacks).

As for the specific policies governing administrator behavior, figuring out which ones are enforceable seems to again come down to a case of understanding the Wikipedia culture. For example, though the Administrator policy pages clearly state "forbidden" actions (such as, don't protect a page that you're involved in editing), that policy seems to be regarded more as the "civility" policy, meaning that it's regarded as little more than a guideline. When it comes to reversing lockouts though, that one tends to get feathers more ruffled, and most admins will quickly speak up and agree that that policy is one that's more enforceable.

Speaking for myself and how I manage my own communities, I tend to see a policy as a policy as a policy, which means that breaking any policy should result in more or less the same result (exceptions do of course exist, but they're exactly that, exceptions to the rule, and not the general modus operandi). Further, rules in my own games about civility are extremely important. Any staff member who is documented as being rude to a customer, is going to be a non-staff member very rapidly. But, these kinds of situations differ from community to community, and Wikipedia has the right to manage its community differently from how game communities are managed. So, speaking for myself, the Wikipedia community management has definitely been a puzzle, as I figure out the different rules and language here! But, I like puzzles, and have cracked a few famous ones in my day. I'm confident that I'll get this one figured out too, eventually. :) --Elonka 20:23, 29 June 2006 (UTC)

Thanks for your imput. I know writing this kind of edit, takes a lot of time and work. I would like to get a better response from Piotrus. Afterall, he started this aticle, or was it the proficient nitpicker, Halibutt? Dr. Dan 21:02, 29 June 2006 (UTC)

What better responce would you like to get from me? Let me remind you that I started this mediation in responce to series of incivility and personal attacks against me and other Polish users by some other users. Calling somebody a 'proficient nitpicker' may be treated as an insult, btw. If you would like to have a discussion about sockpuppets of Logologist, why not talk to him? I am really not sure what your aim is, but it seems to me to be quite OT for this discussion.--Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus ^Talk 22:23, 29 June 2006 (UTC)

Your summary is pretty good. And I certainly agree that it can be a confusing puzzle. I have one hint that may help you with understanding what makes Wikipedia different: WP:IAR. Coupled with some other policies like WP:AGF this seems to work pretty well. --Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus ^Talk 22:23, 29 June 2006 (UTC)

No offence taken as I basically call myself that way on my user page :) It was one of the nick-names I got while working on a number of mods for games by Paradox Entertainment, a job that involved lots of nit-picking. :) EOT //Halibutt 01:20, 30 June 2006 (UTC)

There was never any offense meant. Piotrus, if you looked at some of the beautiful User Pages, that people design, you might have known that proficient nitpicker was not meant to insult anyone, it was an ironic compliment, in fact. Maybe you're getting a little touchy, yourself. Besides my edits were written together, and the time frames got mixed-up before I pushed the save page button. I've since gotten your answer, and told you it was dostateczny (sic). Dr. Dan 01:57, 30 June 2006 (UTC)

The issue of consensus

It appears that one of the core disagreements here, is whether or not Piotrus had consensus to move articles from English titles to Polish titles. He says he did. I say he didn't. There's also an issue about whether it was Piotrus that was moving the articles, or whether it was other people moving them, and he was just following along and cleaning up redirects. So, let's take a look.

First, consensus:

From: Talk:List of Polish monarchs and Talk:List of Polish monarchs/Archive 01:

Support (and proposal initiated by) Piotrus (talk · contribs) 26 November [25]

Support Logologist (talk · contribs), also on 26 November [26] (Note: confirmed sockpuppeteer)

Support Appleseed (talk · contribs), 18 December [27]

Oppose - Dahn (talk · contribs), 19 December [28]

Oppose - John Kenney (talk · contribs) (aka john k), 19 December [29]

Oppose - Gabbe (talk · contribs), 21 December [30]

Support Khrystene (talk · contribs), 22 December [31] (Note: First post on 12/12/2005, and this was only the second article she had participated in) [32]

Oppose - Halibutt (talk · contribs), 22 December [33]

Oppose - Elonka (talk · contribs), 8 January [34]

Oppose - Calgacus (talk · contribs), 29 January [35]

Oppose - Szopen (talk · contribs), 29 January [36]

Oppose - Francis Schonken (talk · contribs), 29 January [37]

Oppose - Milicz (talk · contribs), 10 February [38]

Oppose - Gryffindor (talk · contribs), 17 May [39]

Oppose - Shilkanni (talk · contribs), 6 June [40]

Oppose - Srnec (talk · contribs), 6 June [41]

Oppose - AjaxSmack (talk · contribs), 13 June [42]

The actual moves

There are many moves to discuss, but I am going to take two representative batches. One set done by Piotrus on December 28, and another set done in late April / early May. --Elonka 20:48, 11 July 2006 (UTC)

December 2005 page moves

All of the following moves were accomplished by Piotrus in December 2005 [43]. Some of them required him to use his admin access to delete redirects. The cited justification is the discussion at Talk:List of Polish monarchs. However, as of December 28, those supporting the moves were Piotrus, Logologist, Appleseed, and Khrystene. Those opposed were Dahn, JohnK, Gabbe, and Halibutt. In other words, there was not consensus for the moves. --Elonka 20:48, 11 July 2006 (UTC)

14:48, December 28, 2005 Piotrus (Talk | contribs) moved John II Casimir of Poland to Jan II Kazimierz Vasa (rename as per Talk:List_of_Polish_monarchs#Naming) (revert) 
14:47, December 28, 2005 Piotrus (Talk | contribs) moved Talk:Wladislaus IV of Poland to Talk:Władysław IV Vasa (rename as per Talk:List_of_Polish_monarchs#Naming) (revert) 
14:47, December 28, 2005 Piotrus (Talk | contribs) moved Wladislaus IV of Poland to Władysław IV Vasa (rename as per Talk:List_of_Polish_monarchs#Naming) (revert) 
14:46, December 28, 2005 Piotrus (Talk | contribs) deleted "Władysław IV Vasa" (delete per renaming (see Talk:List_of_Polish_monarchs#Naming) content was: '#REDIRECTWladislaus IV of Poland' (and the only contributor was '82.35.34.11')) 
14:43, December 28, 2005 Piotrus (Talk | contribs) moved Talk:John III Sobieski, King of Poland to Talk:Jan III Sobieski (rename as per Talk:List_of_Polish_monarchs#Naming) (revert) 
14:43, December 28, 2005 Piotrus (Talk | contribs) moved John III Sobieski, King of Poland to Jan III Sobieski (rename as per Talk:List_of_Polish_monarchs#Naming) (revert) 
14:43, December 28, 2005 Piotrus (Talk | contribs) deleted "Jan III Sobieski" (delete per renaming (see Talk:List_of_Polish_monarchs#Naming) content was: '#REDIRECT John III Sobieski, King of Poland') 
14:42, December 28, 2005 Piotrus (Talk | contribs) moved Talk:Henry IV of Silesia to Talk:Henryk IV Probus (rename as per Talk:List_of_Polish_monarchs#Naming)) (revert) 
14:42, December 28, 2005 Piotrus (Talk | contribs) moved Henry IV of Silesia to Henryk IV Probus (rename as per Talk:List_of_Polish_monarchs#Naming)) (revert) 
14:41, December 28, 2005 Piotrus (Talk | contribs) deleted "Henryk IV Probus" (delete per renaming (see Talk:List_of_Polish_monarchs#Naming)content was: '#REDIRECT Henry IV of Silesia') 
07:06, December 22, 2005 Piotrus (Talk | contribs) moved Stanislaw Modzieliewski to Stanisław Modzieliewski (Polish diactrics) (revert) 
07:06, December 22, 2005 Piotrus (Talk | contribs) moved Zdzislaw Marchwicki to Zdzisław Marchwicki (Polish diactrics) (revert) 
06:50, December 22, 2005 Piotrus (Talk | contribs) moved Władysław Mazurkiewicz to Władysław Mazurkiewicz (serial killer) (will create a disambig at Władysław Mazurkiewicz) (revert) 
06:40, December 22, 2005 Piotrus (Talk | contribs) moved Wladyslaw Mazurkiewicz to Władysław Mazurkiewicz (Polish diactrics) (revert) 
10:58, December 19, 2005 Piotrus (Talk | contribs) moved Augustus II of Poland to August II the Strong (move as per consensus at Talk:List_of_Polish_monarchs#Naming) (revert) 
10:57, December 19, 2005 Piotrus (Talk | contribs) moved Mieszko I of Poland to Mieszko I (move as per consensus at Talk:List_of_Polish_monarchs#Naming) (revert) 
10:57, December 19, 2005 Piotrus (Talk | contribs) deleted "August II the Strong" (delete redirect before a move (see Talk:List_of_Polish_monarchs#Naming)) 
10:57, December 19, 2005 Piotrus (Talk | contribs) deleted "Mieszko I" (delete redirect before a move (see Talk:List_of_Polish_monarchs#Naming)) 

April 28, 2006 moves

On April 28, Shilkanni attempted to move some of the Polish monarch articles back to English names, but Piotrus engaged in a move war with her, moving articles back to Polish names, this time citing his unapproved proposal at Wikipedia:Naming_conventions#Polish_monarchs [44]. It should be pointed out that at Talk:List of Polish monarchs, it was now clear that there were over twice as many people opposed to the moves, as in support. I know that Keitei wants me to try and assume good faith, but it seems a reasonable inference on my part that Piotrus was well aware that he no longer had consensus at Talk:List of Polish monarchs, which is why he decided to cite a different location for consensus this time, even though it was clearly an unapproved proposal, with no clear discussion about "should articles be moved to Polish names" anywhere in the talk page of that proposal. --Elonka 20:48, 11 July 2006 (UTC)

• 11:46, May 1, 2006 Piotrus moved Talk:Jadwiga Angevin to Talk:Jadwiga of Poland over redirect (rv my own move, see also talk page)
• 11:46, May 1, 2006 Piotrus moved Jadwiga Angevin to Jadwiga of Poland over redirect (rv my own move, see also talk page)
• 10:49, May 1, 2006 Piotrus moved Smigly Wilno to Śmigły Wilno (diactrics)
• 10:27, April 29, 2006 Piotrus moved Talk:Jadwiga of Poland to Talk:Jadwiga Angevin over redirect (as per Wikipedia:Naming_convention#Polish_monarchs)
• 10:27, April 29, 2006 Piotrus moved Jadwiga of Poland to Jadwiga Angevin (as per Wikipedia:Naming_convention#Polish_monarchs)
• 10:27, April 29, 2006 Piotrus deleted "Jadwiga Angevin" (Deleted to make way for move.)
• 18:58, April 28, 2006 Piotrus moved Talk:Vladislaus I, Duke of Poland to Talk:Władysław I Herman over redirect (Wikipedia:Naming_convention#Polish_monarchs)
• 18:58, April 28, 2006 Piotrus moved Vladislaus I, Duke of Poland to Władysław I Herman (Wikipedia:Naming_convention#Polish_monarchs)
• 18:58, April 28, 2006 Piotrus deleted "Władysław I Herman" (Deleted to make way for move.)
• 18:57, April 28, 2006 Piotrus moved Talk:John II Casimir of Poland to Talk:Jan II Kazimierz Vasa over redirect (Wikipedia:Naming_convention#Polish_monarchs)
• 18:57, April 28, 2006 Piotrus moved John II Casimir of Poland to Jan II Kazimierz Vasa (Wikipedia:Naming_convention#Polish_monarchs)
• 18:57, April 28, 2006 Piotrus deleted "Jan II Kazimierz Vasa" (Deleted to make way for move.)
• 18:57, April 28, 2006 Piotrus moved Talk:Casimir III of Poland to Talk:Kazimierz III the Great over redirect (Wikipedia:Naming_convention#Polish_monarchs)
• 18:57, April 28, 2006 Piotrus moved Casimir III of Poland to Kazimierz III the Great (Wikipedia:Naming_convention#Polish_monarchs)
• 18:57, April 28, 2006 Piotrus deleted "Kazimierz III the Great" (Deleted to make way for move.)
• 18:56, April 28, 2006 Piotrus moved Talk:Casimir II of Poland to Talk:Kazimierz II the Just over redirect (Wikipedia:Naming_convention#Polish_monarchs)
• 18:56, April 28, 2006 Piotrus moved Casimir II of Poland to Kazimierz II the Just (Wikipedia:Naming_convention#Polish_monarchs)
• 18:56, April 28, 2006 Piotrus deleted "Kazimierz II the Just" (Deleted to make way for move.)
• 18:55, April 28, 2006 Piotrus moved Talk:Casimir I of Poland to Talk:Kazimierz I the Restorer over redirect (Wikipedia:Naming_convention#Polish_monarchs)
• 18:55, April 28, 2006 Piotrus moved Casimir I of Poland to Kazimierz I the Restorer (Wikipedia:Naming_convention#Polish_monarchs)
• 18:55, April 28, 2006 Piotrus deleted "Kazimierz I the Restorer" (Deleted to make way for move.)
• 18:54, April 28, 2006 Piotrus moved Talk:Vladislaus II, Duke of Poland to Talk:Władysław II the Exile over redirect (Wikipedia:Naming_convention#Polish_monarchs)
• 18:54, April 28, 2006 Piotrus moved Vladislaus II, Duke of Poland to Władysław II the Exile (Wikipedia:Naming_convention#Polish_monarchs)
• 18:54, April 28, 2006 Piotrus deleted "Władysław II the Exile" (Deleted to make way for move.)
• 18:53, April 28, 2006 Piotrus moved Vladislas I of Poland to Władysław I the Elbow-high (Wikipedia:Naming_convention#Polish_monarchs)
• 18:53, April 28, 2006 Piotrus deleted "Władysław I the Elbow-high" (Deleted to make way for move.)
• 18:52, April 28, 2006 Piotrus moved Talk:Sigismund III of Poland to Talk:Zygmunt III Vasa over redirect (Wikipedia:Naming_convention#Polish_monarchs)
• 18:52, April 28, 2006 Piotrus moved Sigismund III of Poland to Zygmunt III Vasa (Wikipedia:Naming_convention#Polish_monarchs)
• 18:52, April 28, 2006 Piotrus deleted "Zygmunt III Vasa" (Deleted to make way for move.)
• 18:51, April 28, 2006 Piotrus moved John I of Poland to Jan I Olbracht (Wikipedia:Naming_convention#Polish_monarchs)
• 18:51, April 28, 2006 Piotrus deleted "Jan I Olbracht" (Deleted to make way for move.)
• 18:50, April 28, 2006 Piotrus moved Talk:Sigismund II of Poland to Talk:Zygmunt II August over redirect (Wikipedia:Naming_convention#Polish_monarchs)
• 18:50, April 28, 2006 Piotrus moved Sigismund II of Poland to Zygmunt II August (Wikipedia:Naming_convention#Polish_monarchs)
• 18:50, April 28, 2006 Piotrus deleted "Zygmunt II August" (Deleted to make way for move.)
• 18:50, April 28, 2006 Piotrus moved Talk:Sigismund I of Poland to Talk:Zygmunt I the Old over redirect (Wikipedia:Naming_convention#Polish_monarchs)
• 18:50, April 28, 2006 Piotrus moved Sigismund I of Poland to Zygmunt I the Old (Wikipedia:Naming_convention#Polish_monarchs)
• 18:50, April 28, 2006 Piotrus deleted "Zygmunt I the Old" (Deleted to make way for move.)
• 18:39, April 28, 2006 Piotrus moved Talk:Casimir Jagiellon to Talk:Kazimierz IV Jagiellon over redirect (rv move, see Wikipedia:Naming_convention#Polish_monarchs)
• 18:39, April 28, 2006 Piotrus moved Casimir Jagiellon to Kazimierz IV Jagiellon (rv move, see Wikipedia:Naming_convention#Polish_monarchs)
• 18:39, April 28, 2006 Piotrus deleted "Kazimierz IV Jagiellon" (Deleted to make way for move.)
• 18:36, April 28, 2006 Piotrus moved Talk:Henry IV, Duke of Poland to Talk:Henryk IV Probus over redirect (see Wikipedia:Naming_convention#Polish_monarchs)
• 18:36, April 28, 2006 Piotrus moved Henry IV, Duke of Poland to Henryk IV Probus (see Wikipedia:Naming_convention#Polish_monarchs)
• 18:36, April 28, 2006 Piotrus deleted "Henryk IV Probus" (Deleted to make way for move.)
• 18:34, April 28, 2006 Piotrus moved Vladislaus III, Duke of Poland to Władysław III Spindleshanks over redirect (please refrain from moves until decision is reached at Wikipedia:Naming_convention#Polish_monarchs)
• 18:32, April 28, 2006 Piotrus moved Talk:Vladislaus of Hungary and Poland to Talk:Władysław III of Varna over redirect (please refrain from moves until decision is reached at Wikipedia:Naming_convention#Polish_monarchs)
• 18:32, April 28, 2006 Piotrus moved Vladislaus of Hungary and Poland to Władysław III of Varna (please refrain from moves until decision is reached at Wikipedia:Naming_convention#Polish_monarchs)
• 18:32, April 28, 2006 Piotrus deleted "Władysław III of Varna" (Deleted to make way for move.)
• 18:30, April 28, 2006 Piotrus moved Talk:Vladislas IV of Poland to Talk:Władysław IV Vasa over redirect (the name is discussed at Wikipedia:Naming_convention#Polish_monarchs, see also talk page)
• 18:30, April 28, 2006 Piotrus moved Vladislas IV of Poland to Władysław IV Vasa (the name is discussed at Wikipedia:Naming_convention#Polish_monarchs, see also talk page)
• 18:30, April 28, 2006 Piotrus deleted "Władysław IV Vasa" (Deleted to make way for move.)
• 16:27, April 28, 2006 Piotrus moved Talk:Michael of Poland to Talk:Michał Korybut Wiśniowiecki over redirect (rv move, see talk for explanation)
• 16:27, April 28, 2006 Piotrus moved Michael of Poland to Michał Korybut Wiśniowiecki (rv move, see talk for explanation)
• 16:27, April 28, 2006 Piotrus deleted "Michał Korybut Wiśniowiecki" (Deleted to make way for move.)

The real issue of consensus (Piotrus reply)

No, Elonka, my moving the pages is NOT the main issue here, it is yours and some users accusations that ) a group of Polish editors have acted together to undermine Wikipedia project 2) Polish editors are less valuable to the project then non-Polish (so for example they should not be allowed to vote) 3) that I have abused my admin powers 4) that I have been incivil as a rule, not as an exception, examples of which I have linked on the main page of this mediation. I have alraedy discussed the move issue here, much of that in the discussion you have archived. To summarize: among moves I did there have been ONE in which I was misled (by Logologist) as to what the consensus is, I moved the page against the consensus, was informed of my mistake and revert the move. I have also reverted the moves done by an editor who did not participate in ongoing discussion nor fixed the double redirects he created. I most certainly don't see how my actions would give you any arguments to criticize my behaviour, but nonetheless you have argued (and keep on doing so) that I did. In addition, you are doing what can only be described as 'twisting' the evidence (to say the least). Let's consider moves of the 28 December. First of all, there was no clear vote as you portray above, and you are putting words (and votes!) in the mouths of editors! For example, you write that User:Dahn has opposed the move. This is simply not true. I will reproduce them here, to show others what your 'evidence' really is:

I am an outsider of sorts, but I'd suggest switching all the names to the closest English version for the first name. My oppinion is that the family names (where appliable) should have diacritics, with possible exceptions for "international" families such as Bathory and Vasa. I noticed you do not make much use of redirect (which I have just learned how to use myself), and you instead do "name withot diacritcs|name with diacritcs" in the link. Using redirect will save you a lot a trouble, but it will also consume time. I'll be glad to help in any wayDahn 19:22, 19 December 2005 (UTC)

I don't think that Wiki rules can actually cover this topic per se. You are using redirect (mea culpa - after all, I'd 've been able to see it just by looking at the top of the page, doh! me :) ), and you do mention all the names possible on the page itself, so it seems to me what you are spending so much time on is the name of the page itself. Don't get me wrong, but I cannot see much point in that (and I'm willing to bet that if you type X Waza and the name of the page - that has Waza as an alternative in the nomenclature - happens to be Vasa, you do not have much of a problem. Now, if you're concerned about the names on the page, and their order, might I suggest this:

1. all possible English versions (if there are any), no matter how much they are used in comparison with Polish etc., but ordered according to occurences within English alternatives (if one of those happens to be Polish, it goes in the next category)

2. all possible names in the country the monarch ruled most.

3. next in line as term.

If these happen to be problematic, then you have: 2, 3, 4, etc, if need be, according to the alphabetical order of the names of languages used. Having posted this, I accept the risk that I may be considered insane :).Dahn 20:34, 19 December 2005 (UTC)

First of all, Dahn does not vote; he states his opinion but neither does he support or object to the move. Second, while he seems to prever to use English first names, he supports the use of surnames with Polish diactrics. So it's hard to say whether he would support or oppose the move of 'Michael of Poland' to 'Michał Korybut Wiśniowiecki'. Personally I am willing to trade the English first name for the use of diactrics in surnames of nicknames, but this is OT. The bottom line is that he has not objected to the move, so your evidence (and logic) above is false and misleading. Another example:

I'd Oppose, but now that you already started... Halibutt 22:22, 22 December 2005 (UTC)

To me that looks like an abstain vote. And while John K and Gabbe indeed voiced criticism in the discussion section and assuming good faith I think you can count them as somewhat opposed, they did not vote in the voting section of the page (Talk:List_of_Polish_monarchs/Archive_01#Proposal) and only Gabbe noted that he objects to the move, john most common comment was that 'I see nothing wrong with the old title' - which seems to me to be closer on 'abstain' then 'object'. The voting section is by the time of the 28 December 3:0 for move. If we count people in discussion, we have 4 support, 1 oppose and 3 abstain. Even if you count John as opposed, that's 4 support to 2 opposes (66,6% in favour) and at Wikipedia:Consensus it is noted that 60% (supermajority) is good for some decisions. However you want to look at it, that's majority for support (the stats are even better for the first moves (19 and 22 Dec), and it shoud be noted, majority of users actively contributiong to content expantion of those articles. In retrospective I admit that the move should be advertised on WP:NC page, not only on a List of Polish monarchs page but your interpreation that it was done without consensus is plain wrong.

As for Shilkanni move, it has been discussed over and over, with no neutral observer supporting your interpration of my wrongdoing. Shilkanni moved the pages when the debate was going on, did not post any explanation and did not fix the double redirects. Has she fixed the double redirects, I would likely not have reverted her. Since she did not, and fixing the redirects is more work then reverting her moves, and for most users it meant they would have trouble finding the relevant article, I reverted her, just as I'd revert any newcomer to Wikipedia who did some edits with good intentions but unfortunately due to her unfamiliarity with moving procedure did more damage then good. And although by that point there was no consensus for my original move, there was also no consensus for its reversal, and what I did was no different from an RM admin preventing moves during the RM voting. I disagree with your view that "it was now clear that there were over twice as many people opposed to the moves" (especially as you seem to count the slightest abstain as oppose). Have a fact: the close RM moves on some recent Polish monarchs pages have shown the camps are not even divided 50/50 (not to say about 66/33), there are several camps each arguing over various parts of the names. If indeed there would be 'twice as many opposers', then the result of this RM or that would be 'move' instaed of 'no consensus'.--Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus ^Talk 22:00, 11 July 2006 (UTC)

PS. Again, let me remind you that this mediation is not about my moving pages, but about your defamtion of me using misinterprations and flimsy evidence, of which your portrayal of Dahn's comment as a clear 'object' to my porposal is a perfect example.--Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus ^Talk 22:02, 11 July 2006 (UTC)

Piotrus, I'm sorry, but to say that JohnK's comments were unclear because he didn't specifically "vote", is absurd. He's been one of the most outspoken opponents of your moves, from the very beginning. You need to re-review Wikipedia policies, specifically at Wikipedia:Consensus, especially the section entitled "Consensus vs. supermajority". Consensus is not built by voting, consensus is built by the opinions of the editors who are discussing the issue. A poll is only used as a tool to determine people's opinions -- it's a test. It's not a binding vote, where you can disregard someone's opinion because they forgot to bold a certain word. I also disagree with you that Dahn was "abstaining" as you put it. His words were clear that he supported English names, not Polish. --Elonka 23:42, 11 July 2006 (UTC)

And in that discussion at that time it looked to me like we have rebutted most of the arguments opposed to the moves, plus none of the discutants voted to oppose the moves, left us talk messages, started a RM, or done anything to indicate they were strongly opposed to the move. You know, I find it amazing that you are trying to interpret a debate which you were not a part of it, and which none of the participants cared about enough to bring back themselves. I was there, I took decision based on the facts and views I had then, and my opponents did not deem my behaviour uncivil or abusive. And as I said majority was in favour of the moves, not opposed. Dahn argued for redirects, wrote useful comments but he did not oppose the moves. You are interpreting his motives for him and putting him (and John too) in some vote you invented: they did not vote oppose in the vote on that page. Most of your agruments are based on Elonka's view on what other have done or thought (!), instead of what has really happened. The fact is your evidence is nothing but, and it has been said by others commentators of this thread. And please, ask the people involved in those discussions tho speak out here, instead of trying to become some kind of 'defender of abused by Piotrus'. Your logic is bizarre and only strenghtens my points that you were defaming me based on a collection of exceptions and misinterpretations. If you disagree, I feel that we need to ask our mediators for another round of comments, although I was rather satisfied with #Response from Keitei.--Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus ^Talk 00:45, 12 July 2006 (UTC)

I most certainly objected to the moves at the time. I haven't gone through a look at my contributions in this period, but I think if you look at all my contributions on this subject back in December, it's fairly clear that I was strongly opposed to the move. I may have initially expressed myself mildly ("I don't see what's wrong with the old title,") but I don't see how it could be anything but clear that I was opposed to the moves, and that my opposition on several of the articles was expressed before the moves took place. I'm willing to believe that my objections were not purposefully ignored, but were rather not noticed until after the move took place, if that is what happened, but I did object.

In terms of what's generally gone on here, even though I did object, I don't think that this really qualifies Piotrus's actions as bad faith. This kind of stuff happens all the time (look at Talk:Constantine XI for a rather odd discussion that ended with all the Byzantine Emperor articles getting moved, despite an initial vote which showed no consensus whatsoever for such a thing.) People have strong views about silly things, and we get into silly arguments about them. Nobody was acting in bad faith here, and Piotrus was not trying to implement a conspiracy. I think everyone involved in this mess ought to take a step back and calm down. john k 00:32, 12 July 2006 (UTC)

Hi John; welcome to our discussion and thanks for your comments. Yes, I know you were opposed, but at that time you were in minority, and we have discussing the issue for weeks. I think we tried to address of all your objections then, but we (I) thought that minority of objections should not stop the majority which wanted change and so we carried out the moves. It was only afterwards that more people joined in and our once-majority for the moves evaporated - but in the end we are still mostly deadlocked, with none of the factions now able to gain clear majority for most of the newly proposed moves.--Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus ^Talk 00:45, 12 July 2006 (UTC)

Piotrus, please stop posting deceptive statements. Many of the disputed moves have been reverted, with near unanimous community opinion:

• Zygmunt I was moved back to Sigismund I [45]
• Zygmunt II was moved back to Sigismund II
• Zygmunt III was moved back to Sigismund III
• Kazimierz I was moved back to Casimir I[46]
• Kazimierz II was moved back to Casimir II [47]
• Kazimierz III was moved back to Casimir III [48]
• Kazimierz IV was moved back to Casimir IV [49]

And there are many others, too, but I'm not going to waste time at the moment digging up the diffs, plus it'll be confusing to show some of the votes since there was so much sockpuppetry voting by Logologist[50] [51] And yes, there are still some minor disagreements, like about whether a particular page should be at Sigismund I of Poland or Sigismund I the Old, but on the issue of Polish v. English names, the consensus is extremely clear. Why can't you admit this? There was not, and is not, consensus to mass move articles from English names to Polish names. --Elonka 01:13, 12 July 2006 (UTC)

Elonka, please stop making deceptive statements. I am tired of showing the erros in every single piece of the 'evidence' you present, so I will only deal with one. Zygmunt I was moved to Sigismund I, but you conviniently forgot to mention that so far our replacemend of 'of Poland' with 'the Old' seems to have met with community approval. The cases are far from clearly cut, and while there is now little support for all parts of my moves, parts of them seem to be supported, and there is much opposition regarding moving many kings to the names exactly as they were before my moves. So stop trying to portray this like 'Piotrus vs. the rest of community'.--Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus ^Talk 03:38, 12 July 2006 (UTC)

Piotrus, wikipedia is supposed to run based on consensus, not a (quite possibly temporary) majority rule system. In instances where a widely participated in vote has occurred, I can accept that it sometimes makes sense to just go with the majority. But when such a small number of people have weighed in, a "majority" is pretty meaningless. Any dissent should mean that people take a step back and think about it for a while, rather than pushing ahead. john k 01:44, 12 July 2006 (UTC)

The step was taken, the situation thought about, and then the articles were moved after several weeks of discussion which seemed to end in a stalemate with slight majority for move. In retrospective, would I do so again? No. But did I do anything wrong? I don't think so, most certainly I have not broken any clear rule, I did not abuse my admin powers, and I have acted in good faith.--Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus ^Talk 03:38, 12 July 2006 (UTC)

(I apologize in advance if the following comments are confusing or misinterpret; I haven't slept much but I do want to keep this from escalating again.) It looks to me that in this section, the moves cited were "wrong", but that Piotrus moved them under the impression that there was consensus. I haven't looked at the timeframe of the voting pages, but perhaps this could be avoided in the future by allowing more time for opinions to be expressed? (Edit conflict: maybe not; might be a bit more complicated) I also think a wider audience being brought in is a good idea. It seems only natural that Piotrus defend his intentions, and the first round of moves looks misguided, but nothing more. The second round probably should have been discussed more, and double redirects cleaned by editing them to point to the current page and not moving things around. So I think overall, Piotrus meant well, but that the moves themselves were unwise/wrong/disruptive, for which an apology could be issued. It doesn't seem to me that Piotrus was trying to force his POV, but in the future he should take a closer look at consensus and perhaps ask someone else to evaluate if the vote evaluation is under 70-80% and thus more ambiguous.

I can ask a few other mediators whom I trust to look at this also if some more neutral perspectives would help. If you wish to close the mediation, you are welcome to at any time. Mediation is just trying to work together and if the desire is no longer there then it's 'closed'. Let me know if there's anything I can do to help. --Keitei (talk) 03:51, 12 July 2006 (UTC)

As I wrote above, if Elonka can assure me that she will not make further comments indicating I am generally uncivil or abusing my admin powers, or indicating the existance of some 'Polish cabal', I would consider this settled. As for the moves, I have made them in good faith but given how much trouble they caused, I would not do so again under similar circumstances.--Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus ^Talk 04:50, 12 July 2006 (UTC)

Piotrus statement regarding the moves and other issues

After exchanging several emails with Elonka, and looking at this page, it appears that the issue of December moves needs to be summarized. So: I understand now that in December, the existence of consensus to mass-move pages from Polish names to English names was disputable. It seems I was acting more under WP:IAR then WP:CON. I apologize for any confusion, and will do my best to better interpret consensus in the future. I hope this clears up this matter.--Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus ^Talk 19:10, 14 July 2006 (UTC)

Apology

Piotrus, thank you. And for my part, I agree that I genuinely want both of us to be able to get past this.

I also want to say, that I know that being an admin can often be a thankless job. It's obvious that you care deeply about the Wikipedia project, and have put an enormous amount of energy into many many articles. For that, you should be commended. I also believe that in general, you are a very civil, constructive, and hard-working editor. I think that you usually use your administrator tools responsibly, and I apologize if any of my comments made it look like I thought you were always misusing admin access, since that was not my intention.

I would also like to say, in regards to some comments that you received from other Wikipedia editors about recent conflicts, that I found some of their comments to be occasionally inappropriate, uncivil, unfair, and at times downright cruel. Please rest assured that I do not in any way support such incivility, and for what it's worth, I apologize, on behalf of the community, for any emotional pain that those attacks caused. I also apologize to you for any comments which I have made, which you found hurtful. It was not my goal to cause you pain, but simply to speak up and indicate that I had concerns about some recent actions.

Ultimately, I believe that both of us share a common goal, which is the improvement of Wikipedia. I also believe that at times, conflict can be a useful thing, as long as it is done in a constructive and good faith way. There is a subtle difference in English, between the words "group", and "team", with the difference being how well that the individuals of each of those entities can work together towards a common goal. What turns a group into a team? I believe that one of the most important parts of the process, is conflict, and the individuals learning about ways to handle that conflict and move forward. A group of people can fall apart when faced with differences of opinion, and turn towards attacking each other. However, in a team, when conflict occurs, the individual members of the group figure out ways of working through that conflict, and they, and the team as a whole, usually come out stronger on the other side. It is my hope that through this mediation process, that we have both learned better ways of communicating with each other, so that if conflict arises in the future, we will be better able to work through it. In short, it is my honest desire that you and I can find ways to work together in an atmosphere of mutual respect, as co-members of the Wikipedia team. --Elonka 20:14, 14 July 2006 (UTC)

Thank you. I think we have solved most of our issues, just one thing remains: do you still stand by your request that I should resign my adminship?--Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus ^Talk 04:13, 17 July 2006 (UTC)

Response to Dr. Dan

Molobo. I warned him many times on Gadu-Gadu to moderate his behaviour, and I left him messages on talk pages from time to time regarding his behaviour, like here or here. I was more stern on GG and often told him to back off or wind down, as I didn't want to leave pernament record on his talk pages. In the end it apparently wasn't enough. As for my 'regular unblocking of him', I did it on four separate occasions. I don't remember all the cases, but IIRC my unblocks were not disputed, and most of them were done by User:Wiglaf, who was involved in content disputes with Molobo (thus should not block him himself...), and blocked him 1) without leaving any information on his talk pages regarding the reason and 2) in block summary cited 'disruption', a vague and controversial block reason, especially from sb involved in content dispute. Or just consider the 'reason' for block Wiglaf used once: 'to have time to review Wikipedia policies' (!). While I do not support many of Molobo's actions, I unblocked him just as I would any user who was blocked in such a case; when an admin blocks a user he is involved in a content dispute with for 'disruption', it smells to me like a case of 'admin abuse'. I strongly believe that admins should be responsible to the community, 'with great power comes great responsibility' and unchecked admin behaviour is one of the few things that may destroy this project. Just thinking of what would happen if admins could block users 'to have time to review Wikipedia policies', with no need to further explain their actions anywhere, makes me terrified. Please note I never unblocked Molobo for a 3rr violation, which eventually proved his undoing. As for my perception that I was called the leader of the cabal, I do not have time to review all the relevant posts and see which of them created this impression, but if you read the ones I quite in the 'What's going on?' section of my mediation request, you will see that I am accused of putting 'calls to action' for other Polish editors; this fragment alone, to me, implies that some view me as a leader - after all it is a leader who calls followers to actions, doesn't he?--Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus ^Talk 04:13, 17 July 2006 (UTC)

Please understand, that my remarks to you on the article page are not an accusation, but an explanation of where this perception of a "Cabal" arose and why it came about. If you are satisfied with your response, I say let sleeping dogs lie. Unfortunately, the main parties believing that there is, or was a "Cabal" won't partake in the matter. They have made it clear that this mediation is a farce, and will not give it a hearing. C'est la vie! Dr. Dan 04:33, 17 July 2006 (UTC)

I thought your remakrs were questions addressed to me, so I replied to them above, hopefully in a satisfactory manner. I think most of my issues with Elonka have been resovled, and as for those who declined to talk, well, it only reflects negatively on them. C'est la vie, certainement. But yes, I think this mediation is winding down.--Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus ^Talk 20:17, 17 July 2006 (UTC)

Hey Piotrus, but please! Blocked by participant of an edit conflict? Ghirla lately was blocked by a participant of an edit conflict too and you spread all over pages on Wikipedia how deserved that block was. Note, that I mostly stayed out of this page and did not bring up issues I have with some of your actions in the admin's capacity, because I really think that this whole thing is a waste of time and instead of starting your own RfC, which this mediation has become, you should grow a thicker skin when someone, be it Elonka, myself or anyone expresses mixed feelings over the things you do. I really don't see why this should be dragged. May I suggest that we all stop posting at this page, let it die its death and behave all like civilized people with the difference of opinions. We mostly do just that anyways. --Irpen 05:05, 17 July 2006 (UTC)

Well, Ghirla should have been blocked by another admin, but he deserved the block for his behaviour, one way or another.--Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus ^Talk 18:47, 17 July 2006 (UTC)

... while Molobo should not have been blocked and Piotrus did the right thing by wheel-warring, specifically, the blocks of certain editors.

Piotrus, I start having trouble in finding the wikispace free from your anti-Ghirla spats. Lets see now:

• talk space: check
• user talk space: check
• wikipedia space: check
• wikipedia talk space: check
• portal/portal talk space: check
• edit summaries: check

Did I miss anything? Can we now all get to editing? I am sure there will be much less controversial moves and wheel-warring from now on and skins grew thicker. --Irpen 19:05, 17 July 2006 (UTC)

Irpen, in case you forgot, let me refresh your memory: it was you to bring the case of Ghirlandajo here. Don't blame Piotrus for responding to your accusations. I might equally bring some case against you on some talk page and then, when you respond, answer in an irritated tone that "we should focus on editing". //Halibutt 19:41, 17 July 2006 (UTC)

Get your memories straight before refreshing others, Halibutt. This is who brought Ghirla here. --Irpen 19:45, 17 July 2006 (UTC)

You mean brought his usual series of personal attacks here, which were identified as such by the mediator. After which Ghirla declined to participate in the mediation. I am not sure what you are trying to prove, Irpen, other then that Ghirla seems to be unable to communicate with other editors with regards to WP:CIVIL. And yes, he is incivil in all namespaces, and thus many editors are critical of him there.--Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus ^Talk 20:10, 17 July 2006 (UTC)

No, Piotrus, I mean bringing up Ghirla's unrelated RfC and unhappiness about him to this page. Also, please do not call every entry that criticizes you a personal attack. That's a straw man argument. --Irpen 23:56, 17 July 2006 (UTC)

Irpen, I am afraid it is you who is fond of straw men. I bring Ghirla RfC where it is appopriate, and since the issue of his civility was raised, I think it was related here. And I apploud you for taking time to look through all of my entries that concern criticism of my person and determining I called every single one of them a personal attack. You do have some lists and statistics to back up this claim, of course?--Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus ^Talk 00:00, 18 July 2006 (UTC)

Nope, not every entry. I mean only this page. Your calling other's criticizing you as "attacking" is unwarranted and actually deflects the argument.

Now, don't get me wrong. I think you are a great editor and it is much more pleasant to work with you than with many others on the article's disagreements. I said that here, and I said that before.

Your admin activity is a totally separate issue. Adminship is a huge burden and you made some mistakes carrying it. No big deal, if you ask me, but Elonka was furious about certain page moves. That was an issue to discuss and mediate. Personally, I care about Polish monarch's articles just enough to vote at the WP:RM poll and take it easy if my preferred version looses the vote just as long as the anglicized names I use in the articles I write or edit are not "corrected" into something neither I nor most readers can read or pronounce. I don't care how the articles themselves are called. Therefore, I stayed out of this "mediation". For whatever reasons, this mediation about your being right or wrong in moving pages turned itself into the RfC on yourself, first as an admin and later in general. I still stayed out, if you can notice.

But I could not just watch when issues started to be brought up that were totally unrelated to the initial controversies which where page moves, wheel-warring over "friend's blocks", attempts to keep Molobo able to disrupt and perhaps another thing or two. Like, what does Ghirla have to do to all that? I brought up the terribly damaging blocks of distinguished editors like yourself, Lysy, Ghirla and Mikka only to see you saying, that Ghirla's block was right on the mark.

I suggested earlier that you should not perceive criticism as an attack on your integrity. Right now, for instance, Lysy is directly questioning my integrity on a totally unrelated matter. Should I start a mediation and have him, myself and a whole bunch of people spend time on that too? I don't think so. Same about this one. We all know each other well enough to know whose good faith to assume and whose good faith to question. Your friend Halibutt collides with me at a dozen of pages daily and calls me this or that on occasions. I still know that he is simply opinionated (and stubborn) but well-meaning and honest person. I even supported his RfAdm, even after the infamous Volodarka, which still gives me trembles, and spoke about his great qualities many times.

We all know each other well here and that some things won't change. I am prepared to hear more criticism of myself and so should be others. In the end of the date, we certainly have a more comprehensive Wikipedia, thanks to all these disagreements. --Irpen 00:27, 18 July 2006 (UTC)

First, I do not refer to all or even majority of criticism of my person as personal attacks, as you have agreed with me above. But some of it is, including all Ghirla's comments on this page, and this is not only my opinion but that of our mediator, and I think Elonka herself agreed that some comments by other editors related to this mediation fall under personal attacks. Second, Ghirla's recent block is unrelated to this mediation, other then being a proof that his uncivil behaviour (which is related to this mediation) is common and affects not only myself. Third, Ghirla is one of the users whose actions I have seen as a series of personal attacks, unfortunately he did not saw it fit to participate in this mediation, but that is his loss. And Irpen, I am sure you see the difference between civil discussion about certain disagreements - like the one we are having now - and, for example, saying that the other person is "the most problematic admin in Wiki [...] that he should have been defrocked months ago; [that he] unleashed a series of nightmarish revert wars on dozens of article [and for whom] Wikipedia is little more than a Polish propaganda machine and that he is not interested in NPOV editing" or replying to concerns raised on one's talk page by removing them with the following edit summary: "mv a bunch of offensive trolling from a user who is not allowed to post on my talk page, because I don't talk with him". Or do you think that such behaviour is acceptable and normal?--Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus ^Talk 02:03, 18 July 2006 (UTC)

I don't think such behavior as normal. I think that was an overstatement. I also think that your saying "whose actions I have seen as a series of personal attacks" is an overkill too. However, a user is entitled to have an opinion on who is the most problematic admin at wiki and stating so is not a PA.

Most importantly, I commented on your dragging your criticism of Ghirla into this page long time after his initial statement to which you already responded at once when it was posted. Then, you bringing your issue about Ghirla to this page again long time after that (as well as to WP:AN and other pages) totally without merit.

In no way this affects the original issue that brought about this whole mess: page moves. The discussion over the moves diverged into discussion over other issues like wheel-warring. Ghirla is not in the picture of this all and I don't see him getting into this picture.

The bottomline is that unlike many others you want to be an admin. People say you at least erred on occasions while applying the exclusive admin tools. This is hard to dispute. But I don't see a big deal in this either. Maybe that's because, as I explained above, I don't care how the Polish kings articles are titled if no one is correcting the anglicized name in other articles, Molobo is gone too and, after this thread at WP:AN there won't be any attempts to resolve editing disagreements by trying to get an opponent blocked as it mostly was to this day anyway. --Irpen 02:27, 18 July 2006 (UTC)

There is a heat wave in the U.S., at the moment (35 degrees C, and heat index of 40 degrees C), and I'm not sure if my ceiling fans need lubrication, or the usual "squeaking noise", I hear, is from Molobo's replacement/surrogate, stirring up the pot (and I don't mean Irpen or Piotrus), but I want to make a pertinent comment to all of this tommorrow. I have just returned from the hospital and don't have the energy tonight, to give it my Spin. Please bear with me, and stay tuned. Dr. Dan 03:40, 18 July 2006 (UTC)

nie ma żadnego cabal

Sprawiać przyjemność ignorują ten cały numerować strony. To nigdy istniał.

(From http://www.poltran.com/pl.php4 translator)

²³¹₉₁Pa (chat me!) 08:38, 25 November 2009 (UTC)