Case Opened on 23:47, 25 August 2007 (UTC)
Case Closed on 18:08, 21 October 2007 (UTC)
Case Amended by motion on 14:32, 27 October 2011 (UTC)
Case Renamed by motion on 05:44, 20 March 2012 (UTC)
Case Amended by motion on 05:32, 23 October 2014 (UTC)
Case amended by motion on 00:50, 19 February 2015 (UTC)
Case amended by motion on 23:19, 17 February 2019 (UTC)
Case amended by motion on 22:19, 18 January 2023 (UTC)
Case amended by remedy on 16:30, 20 May 2023 (UTC)
Case amended by motion on 21:15, 4 January 2024 (UTC)
Case amended by motion on 04:34, 27 March 2026 (UTC)
Please do not edit this page directly unless you wish to become a participant in this case. (All participants are subject to Arbitration Committee decisions, and the ArbCom will consider each participant's role in the dispute.) Comments are very welcome on the Talk page, and will be read, in full. Evidence, no matter who can provide it, is very welcome at /Evidence. Evidence is more useful than comments.
Arbitrators, the parties, and other editors may suggest proposed principles, findings, and remedies at /Workshop. That page may also be used for general comments on the evidence. Arbitrators will then vote on a final decision in the case at /Proposed decision.
Once the case is closed, editors may add to the #Log of blocks and bans as needed, but closed cases should not be edited otherwise. Please raise any questions at Wikipedia:Requests for arbitration#Requests for clarification.
Digwuren (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · logs · filter log · block user · block log) is a notoriously abusive POV-pusher and a fierce revert warrior with the record of gross disruption.
The case here is crystal clear. Without spending time going over details of his past disruption and block log (his last one-week block being not even a month ago) it is enough to take a look at Digwuren edits within the last 12 hours. There are a total of 93 edits.
Looking at the edit summaries of his reverts, one sees that he routinely accuses his opponents in vandalism and not by merely using the undo button, but specifically using the vandalism undo option in twinkle:
You are welcome to dig deeper to find more of the same. After the last debacle, he promised to solicit opinions from other editors to rectify the situation. The promise earned him an unblock but he failed to deliver on his promise. He was later reminded of it by an unblocking admin and promised again to rectify the situation with no result to this day.
A devoted revert warrior, he is as of the day of this submission, Aug. 14, 2007, one step under 3RR at Zoya Kosmodemyanskaya, Occupation of Estonia by Nazi Germany, and Alyosha Mirny and this is just the tip of the iceberg.
The disruption would not have reached the current level if he was not receiving a consistent encouragement and support from a small but well coordinated group of editors that feel sympathetic to his fringe POV. Judging from the past record, I believe this encouragement and support is bound to continue. What prompted me to submit this case for arbitration without further wait is the extent of disruption, meatpuppeting in edit wars, discussions of deletion, renaming or ANI, thus effectively bombing those discussions. Just today I noticed a fresh single-purpose account Ptrt (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · logs · filter log · block user · block log) whose entire short activity consists of the support of Digwuren in edit wars followed by the immediate joining of the 5-edit old account to the ANI discussion, once the appearance of a new SPA was mentioned there.
The fact of multiple users editing from the Tartu University from behind firewall makes even a checkuser less than conclusive to sort out this mess. Immediate appearance of the familiar faces at any discussion, board, talk page, edit war that involves Digwuren is mind-boggling. There is also an undeniable evidence of the permanent line of the off-wiki connection among the POV-pushing (even legitimate) accounts as the coordination in synchronous revert warring, talk and board page postings is impossible to explain otherwise. Sure enough, coordinated posting will follow below.
Finally, there is an unprecedented fact of the complaint by the blocking admin that his computer faced the intrusion from Estonia-based IPs during the block period.
This is all too messy and complex for ANI and warrants a more thorough look by the ArbCom members armed with the checkuser tool and experience in dealing with POV-pushers of the most disruptive pattern. I did not even go into Digwuren's edits themselves, which are notorious for extremely blatant pattern of POV-pushing on all fronts, to save space as the ArbCom intervention is clearly warranted by the facts outlined above in their own right. I don't believe there is even a need at this stage to analyze content-wise this tsunami of POV-pushing while Digwuren's friends are to attempt circumventing the discussion of his disruption by presenting it in terms of some global content conflict. This is nothing like the much more complex in assigning faults and finding remedies Wikipedia:Requests for arbitration/Piotrus. The Piotrus' case involves top-notch editors from all sides dangled into their content disagreements and largely revolves around the notion of ethical conduct, also very important but much more difficult to judge or remedy. However, this case is about a clearly disallowed pattern of behavior spelled out very well in our policies and guidelines.
The mess of the egregious POV-pushing and disruption by Tartu-based accounts has got to be sorted out at last with:
If ArbCom has no way of determining the illegitimate accounts, still 2 and 3 above is within its purview if it agrees that the action is needed. --Irpen
Indeed, as Martintg points out, this is a snowjob, starting from absurd accusations and misrepresentations, and ending in Bishonen's hypocritical attempt to present an RFC that she failed (on absurd premises) as suddenly valid now that it suits her cabalistic purposes. However:
All that having been said, let's now go forward with arbitration. It would appear arbitrators have even been so forthcoming as to vote for accepting it even before I returned from my vacation. I guess it underlines my non-involvement. Digwuren 17:23, 25 August 2007 (UTC)
There have been threats of Arbcom from almost the very beginning I and other Estonians now labeled "Tartu accounts" or "Korp!Estonia" became active and I personally am sick and tired of the constant attacks, the accusations and the mindless POV pushing based an national level animosity of certain editors. It needs higher level attention, and it needs it NOW. Lets air this matter for good.
I became active on Wikipedia pretty much on the same time as he did. I've participated in the same "battles". The difference between him and me is that I refuse to follow the examples set by opposition. With the constant name calling("extreme nationalist Estonians", "Korp!Estonia", "socks on wheels" - this I actually found to be funny), constant accusations of vandalism ... no wonder it has rubbed of on someone fairly new to Wikipedia. We tried RFC/U with Petri Krohn, but in spite the overwhelming amount of evidence, the case was rejected because, apparently we had not tried hard enough to make up. I believe this was the turning point of Digwurren. We had tried to do this right, but it did not work. Why bother with being good all the time if the system favors being bad? May it be noted that this is not an excuse, its a reason and as long as the rules are not enforced fairly and equally on everybody, there will be others leaning from current "role models".
The "outside" views are actually views of two camps that voting clearly displays. One side acknowledges that these views are really not outside, the other not. And then there are just plain racist slanderous slurs like this.I worked hard in trying to put it together and I was seriously disappointed with he whole process when it failed.
If it is made clear that this case is also extended here then the two last wishes on my resolution list are handled. That would still leave the constant accusations of some form of "co-operation" between the "Tartu accounts" and the matter of unsubstantiated hacking accusation.
Last modified: --Alexia Death the Grey 09:26, 27 August 2007 (UTC)
I noticed this thread days ago, but thought it wasn't worth of a response. But now the “non-involved” Ghirlandajo has also started commenting and he'll certainly soon be followed by his admirers. As I won't have computer access for some days, I'll better say sth before taking a break. The so-called Korp! Estonia – existence of which no-one has proved, only assumed – is of course blamed here again. The meatpuppetry and Estonian conspiracy accusations have been quite ridiculous in Wikipedia context, for some time I thought they even didn't deserve an answer. The point is certainly not, whether some of Estonians co-ordinate their efforts by e-mail etc. The practice of co-operative editing, incl edit warring, however, is hardly founded by this alleged Korp!. One just look how certain Russia-related articles are 'edit-warred' - first you'll surely see Ghirlandajo there, he'll be joined by Irpen soon (how come that they find each other so easily?) When these two are there, A.Bakharev may join in with his admin tools. (Not to forget Grafikmfr, once a prolific author, who has sadly stopped contributing in fall 2006, but quickly finds, as if by magic, when his brothers-in-arms need his help at reverting or voting (this 'phenomenon' has of course been already noted ) I affirm once again, that to my knowledge, the Estonian users included in this arbcom request, are not personally acquainted and most probably keep track with others only by checking the contributions and the Estonia-related watchlist.
Now to Digwuren. I absolutely agree with Martintg and Sander Säde, who are much more experienced here. I'd add that I am not surprised at all that a competent user like Digwuren may sometimes over-react in case of provocations by his opponents. After all, if obvious vandals or trolls, proud blackhundredists (cf. this 'statement' !) or self-described National Bolsheviks are allowed to troll in Estonia-related articles, don't be surprised if one is sometimes uncivil when dealing with legitimate accounts or doesn't follow all the guidelines you have discarded long time ago. So that, first look into mirror, dear cartel USSR forever!, or how we're going to call you. Erik Jesse 06:02, 19 August 2007 (UTC)
I've got quite a clear evidence, which i'd be presenting to The Committee to look at it, re attempts of intrusion of my laptop back on late July 2007 exactly when Digwuren (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · logs · filter log · block user · block log) was blocked by me for a week. I'll not in any case post them at the evidence page as it contains personal data and i am not silly to divulge it in public. What strikes me more is the way Digwuren talks about my location. I quote from their statement above: ...is that there's a good chance it's somewhere in or near Morocco... which is technically very very accurate. I do mention that i am based in Morocco but that's all. I've never declared that i also edit sometimes from a neighboring country even if it is true. Evidence of the places from where i edit would be shown to The Committee as well. So what led Digwuren to guess about that very particular fact?
Well, in brief. I was the admin who blocked Digwuren back on July 2007 as well as 2 other users which i'd identify as the "other side" in what follows.
Timeline
Now i see that [User:Digwuren] is threating to file a RfC on me. No problem of course. What is odd is why Digwuren want us to wait until my potential RfC to talk about my alleged admin abuse. Isn't this the right place? -- FayssalF - Wiki me up® 07:14, 27 August 2007 (UTC)
I agree with the objections against the behaviour of Digwuren. I personally experienced his agressive and uncivil behaviour. He reverts promptly edits he does not approve without reacting on a motivation on the talk page. If he reacts his statements are rhetorical and often sarcastic. Otto 18:57, 28 August 2007 (UTC)
1) This matter concerns all disruptive editing related to Estonian-Russian ethnic conflict, particularly those who edited regarding the Bronze Soldier of Tallinn controversy. Any editor reasonably believed to have engaged in disruptive editing may be noticed in and evidence may be presented regarding them. If evidence is presented regarding an editor, they should be noticed in.
All numbering based on /Proposed decision (vote counts and comments are there as well)
1) Wikipedia is a reference work. Use of the site for political or ideological struggle accompanied by harassment of opponents is extremely disruptive.
2) Wikipedia users are expected to behave reasonably and calmly in their dealings with other users. Insulting and intimidating other users harms the community by creating a hostile environment. Personal attacks are not acceptable.
3) Wikipedia works by building consensus through the use of polite discussion. The dispute resolution process is designed to assist consensus-building when normal talk page communication has not worked. Sustained edit-warring is not an appropriate method of resolving disputes, and is wasteful of resources and destructive to morale.
4) Editors are expected to keep their cool when editing. Uncivil behavior by others should not be returned in kind. Casual allegations of poor wikiquette are considered harmful; such concerns should be brought up in appropriate forums, if at all.
5) In cases where all reasonable attempts to control the spread of disruption arising from long-term disputes have failed, the Committee may be forced to adopt seemingly draconian measures as a last resort for preventing further damage to the encyclopedia.
1) The current dispute revolves around various topics in Estonian history—particulary post-World War II history—and is essentially a part of the broader long-term disputes prevalent over the entire range of articles dealing with Eastern European history.
2) Alexia Death (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · logs · filter log · block user · block log) has engaged in a variety of disruptive behavior, including sustained edit-warring (, , , , , , , , , ) as well as incivility, personal attacks, and assumptions of bad faith (, ).
3) Digwuren (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · logs · filter log · block user · block log) has engaged in a variety of disruptive behavior, including sustained edit-warring (, , , , , , , , , , ) and attempts to interfere with Wikipedia process (, , ), as well as incivility, personal attacks, assumptions of bad faith, and repeated attempts to use Wikipedia as a battleground (, , , , , , , ).
4) Irpen (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · logs · filter log · block user · block log) and Piotrus (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · logs · filter log · block user · block log) have a long history of personal disputes. Their interaction since Wikipedia:Requests for arbitration/Piotrus has continued to be confrontational.
5) Irpen (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · logs · filter log · block user · block log) has engaged in personal attacks, incivility, and assumptions of bad faith (, , , , , , , ).
6) Petri Krohn (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · logs · filter log · block user · block log) has engaged in a variety of disruptive behavior, including sustained edit-warring (, , , , , , , , , , , ) as well as incivility, personal attacks, assumptions of bad faith, and repeated attempts to use Wikipedia as a battleground (, , , , , ).
7) RJ_CG (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · logs · filter log · block user · block log) has engaged in sustained edit-warring (, , , , , ) as well as incivility, personal attacks, and assumptions of bad faith ().
8) Suva (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · logs · filter log · block user · block log) has engaged in incivility, personal attacks, assumptions of bad faith, and repeated attempts to use Wikipedia as a battleground (, , , ).
9) Ghirlandajo (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · logs · filter log · block user · block log) has engaged in personal attacks, incivility, and assumptions of bad faith (, , , , , ).
10) Sander Säde (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · logs · filter log · block user · block log), formerly editing as DLX (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · logs · filter log · block user · block log), has engaged in incivility, personal attacks, and assumptions of bad faith (, , , , , , ).
Note: All remedies that refer to a period of time, for example to a ban of X months or a revert parole of Y months, are to run concurrently unless otherwise stated.
2) Digwuren (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · logs · filter log · block user · block log) is banned from Wikipedia for a period of one year.
5) Petri Krohn (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · logs · filter log · block user · block log) is banned from Wikipedia for a period of one year.
8) All editors are warned that future attempts to use Wikipedia as a battleground—in particular, by making generalized accusations that persons of a particular national or ethnic group are engaged in Holocaust denial or harbor Nazi sympathies—may result in the imposition of summary bans when the matter is reported to the Committee. This applies both to the parties to this case as well as to any other editor that may choose to engage in such conduct.
11) Any editor working on topics related to Eastern Europe, broadly defined, may be made subject to an editing restriction at the discretion of any uninvolved administrator. The restriction shall specify that, should the editor make any edits which are judged by an administrator to be uncivil, personal attacks, or assumptions of bad faith, he may be blocked for the duration specified in the enforcement ruling below. Before the restriction shall come into effect for a particular editor, that editor shall be given an official notice of it with a link to this decision.
Amended by motion |
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12) Eastern Europe and the Balkans, broadly construed, is designated as a contentious topic. |
12) Eastern Europe and the Balkans is designated as a contentious topic.
x) All articles and edits in the topic area of Lithuania history during World War II (1933-1945) and the history of Jews in Lithuania are subject to a "reliable source consensus-required restriction."
0) Unless otherwise specified by the Arbitration Committee, should any user violate a restriction imposed directly by the Committee, that user may be blocked as an arbitration enforcement action. Such blocks must be logged in the arbitration enforcement log.
0) Appeals and modifications |
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This procedure applies to appeals related to, and modifications of, actions taken by administrators to enforce the Committee's remedies. It does not apply to appeals related to the remedies directly enacted by the Committee. All active arbitration enforcement actions may be appealed. Only active restrictions may be appealed, and all labelled enforcement actions (including ones alleged to be against policy) must be successfully appealed under the applicable arbitration enforcement appeals procedure before they can be modified. Unless otherwise specified by the Arbitration Committee, the following procedure governs arbitration enforcement appeals. An editor may:
Appeals submitted at AE or AN must be submitted using the applicable template. Only the restricted editor may appeal an editor restriction. Any editor may appeal a page restriction. A rough consensus of administrators at AE or editors at AN may specify a period of up to one year during which no appeals (other than an appeal to ARCA) may be submitted. While asking the enforcing administrator and seeking reviews at AN or AE are not mandatory prior to seeking a decision from the Committee, once the Committee has reviewed a request, further substantive review at any forum is barred. The sole exception is editors under an active sanction, who may still request an easing or removal of the sanction on the grounds that said sanction is no longer needed, but such requests may only be made once every six months, or whatever other period the Committee may specify. Changing or revoking an enforcement actionAn administrator may only modify or revoke an enforcement action if a formal appeal is successful or if one of the following exceptions applies:
A formal appeal is successful only if one of the following agrees with revoking or changing the enforcement action:
Any administrator who revokes or changes an enforcement action out of process (i.e. without the above conditions being met) may, at the discretion of the Arbitration Committee, be desysopped. Standard of review On community reviewUninvolved administrators at the arbitration enforcement noticeboard ("AE") and uninvolved editors at the administrators' noticeboard ("AN") should revoke or modify an arbitration enforcement action on appeal if:
Arbitrators hearing an appeal at a request for amendment ("ARCA") will generally overturn an arbitration enforcement action only if:
References
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Superseded by an alternate sanction passed 14 to 0, 14:32, 27 October 2011 (UTC) |
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12)
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Superseded versions, later all superseded by motion |
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Pages which relate to Eastern Europe or the Balkans, broadly interpreted, are placed under discretionary sanctions. Any uninvolved administrator may levy restrictions as an arbitration enforcement action on users editing in this topic area, after an initial warning.
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The case Wikipedia:Requests for arbitration/Digwuren is renamed to Wikipedia:Requests for arbitration/Eastern Europe. For the new title of Eastern Europe, WP:ARBEURO and WP:ARBEE are created as shortcuts. For the purposes of procedure, the index of topics with an active discretionary sanctions provision will be updated with the new title, but previous references to the Digwuren decision do not require to be updated. The rename of the Digwuren case to Eastern Europe is only for clarity in reference, and does not invalidate any previous action or pending sanctions taken under the provisions of this case.
On 11 February 2015, Coffee (talk · contribs · blocks · protections · deletions · page moves · rights · RfA) blocked an editor relying on the discretionary sanctions provisions for Eastern Europe. As a discretionary sanctions block it was out of process as the editor had not been pre-notified of discretionary sanctions for the topic. Accordingly, the prohibitions on modification do not apply and the block may be modified by any uninvolved administrator. Coffee is advised to better familiarize themselves with the discretionary sanctions provisions before using this process again.
Superseded by motion |
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At Amendment II in Eastern Europe, Eastern Europe is replaced as text by Eastern Europe or the Balkans. Remedy 3 in Macedonia is superseded by this amendment.
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Eastern Europe or the Balkans, broadly construed, is designated as a contentious topic.
Each reference to the prior discretionary sanctions procedure shall be treated as a reference to the contentious topics procedure. The arbitration clerks are directed to amend all existing remedies authorizing discretionary sanctions to instead designate contentious topics.
As an alternative to Wikipedia:Arbitration/Requests/Enforcement, editors may make enforcement requests directly to the Arbitration Committee at Wikipedia:Arbitration/Requests/Clarification and Amendment.
Clerks are instructed to add a new section, entitled "Reliable source consensus-required restriction" to the Enforcement section of the Arbitration Procedures with the following text:
The Committee may apply the "Reliable source consensus-required restriction" to specified topic areas. For topic areas with this restriction, when a source that is not an article in a peer-reviewed scholarly journal, an academically focused book by a reputable publisher, and/or an article published by a reputable institution is removed from an article, no editor may reinstate the source without first obtaining consensus on the talk page of the article in question or consensus about the reliability of the source in a discussion at the Reliable Sources Noticeboard. Administrators may enforce this restriction with page protections, topic bans, or blocks; enforcement decisions should consider not merely the severity of the violation but the general disciplinary record of the editor in violation.
Remedy 5 of Antisemitism in Poland is superseded by the following restriction:
All articles and edits in the topic area of Polish history during World War II (1933-1945) and the history of Jews in Poland are subject to a "reliable source consensus-required restriction".
Wikipedia:Requests for arbitration/Eastern Europe is amended to include the following restriction:
All articles and edits in the topic area of Lithuania history during World War II (1933-1945) and the history of Jews in Lithuania are subject to a "reliable source consensus-required restriction."
Clerks are instructed to link to the Arbitration Procedures in the two restrictions above and are empowered to make other changes necessary to implement this new enforcement procedure.
Because contentious topics and the extended-confirmed restriction are broadly construed unless otherwise specified, the following are amended by removing the words broadly construed
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Remedy 4 of Palestine-Israel articles 4 and remedy 14 of Pseudoscience ("Definition of the 'area of conflict'" and "Contentious topic designation", respectively) are amended by removing the words broadly interpreted
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This motion is for the sake of consistent language only. It does not change what is covered by the above remedies and motions.
Any block, restriction, ban, or sanction performed under the authorisation of a remedy for this case must be logged at Wikipedia:Arbitration enforcement log, not here.
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List of editors placed under editing restrictionAny block, restriction, ban, or sanction performed under the authorisation of a remedy for this case must be logged in this section. Please specify the administrator, date and time, nature of sanction, and basis or context. Unless otherwise specified, the standardised enforcement provision applies to this case. All sanctions issued pursuant to a discretionary sanctions remedy must be logged at Wikipedia:Arbitration Committee/Discretionary sanctions/Log.
List of editors placed on noticeOn 3 May 2014 Arbcom established a new method of notifying for discretionary sanctions which is explained at WP:AC/DS#Awareness and alerts. All notices given prior to the May 2014 cutover date expired on 3 May 2015. New notices are to be given using {{Ds/alert}} and they expire one year after they are given. No new notices should be logged here. The following notifications are therefore expired, and kept for reference purposes only:
Log of blocks and bans2007Log any block, ban or extension under any remedy in this decision here. Minimum information includes name of administrator, date and time, what was done and the basis for doing it.
2008
Log of article-level discretionary sanctions
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