Wikipedia:Arbitration/Requests/Case/World War II/Evidence

Main case page (Talk) — Evidence (Talk) — Workshop (Talk) — Proposed decision (Talk) Case clerk: AGK (Talk)  Drafting arbitrator: Newyorkbrad (Talk)

Anyone, whether directly involved or not, may add evidence to this page. Create your own section and do not edit in anybody else's section. Please limit your evidence to a maximum of 1000 words and 100 diffs. Giving a short, concise presentation will be more effective; posting evidence longer than 1000 words will not help you make your point. Over-long evidence that is not exceptionally easy to understand (like tables) will be trimmed to size or, in extreme cases, simply removed by the Clerks without warning - this could result in your important points being lost, so don't let it happen. Stay focused on the issues raised in the initial statements and on diffs which illustrate relevant behavior.

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Arbitrators may analyze evidence and other assertions at /Workshop. /Workshop provides for comment by parties and others as well as Arbitrators. After arriving at proposed principles, findings of fact or remedies, Arbitrators vote at /Proposed decision. Only Arbitrators (and clerks, when clarification on votes is needed) may edit the proposed decision page.

Evidence presented by Communicat

Correlation exists between bad behaviour and POV-bias at WW2 articles

Informal party User:Kirill has expressed below at Locus of Dispute his mistaken view that: "(This) dispute centers on the appropriate weight to be given to minority historiographical viewpoints in World War II and related articles." The "minority" viewpoint he refers to is in fact a majority viewpoint in many non-Western and non-aligned sovereign states. His stated opinion makes evident a position that shares an affinity with Western, particularly American, ideological conservatism in ignoring the positions and conclusions of others.

User:Kirill's subjective belief as expressed about what constitutes a minority position is therefore neither objective nor true, and shows a prescriptive tendency for having people everywhere complying with the normative section of the standard American view. This infringes grossly on WP:CIVIL, which requires that the positions and conclusions of others must not be ignored relative to all interaction on Wikipedia, including discussion with or about fellow Wikipedians.

User:Kirill's view is generally consistent with the views and normative behaviour of the involved parties in this case, based on their own misinterpretions of policy issues as defined by them in terms of a generally homogeneous set based on popularly endorsed but POV-biased Western and/or American beliefs. Such normative determinations on the part of these editors are often conflictual, insofar as different international values are frequently incompatible with one another. The way in which individuals or societies define that which they consider to be of value and in accordance with their normative standards varies considerably between peoples and cultures.

It is unfortunate that User:Kirill has perhaps involuntarily and unwittingly become party to the above evidence, which nonetheless serves its intended purpose of identifying a direct correlation between POV-bias and behavioural problems that are essentially at issue in this case. Communicat (talk)

PS: Arbitrators will note that, in a direct personal attack on me in the comments section, paragraph 5 of workshop page, Kirill has inferred I am "paranoid". His lack of civility is indisputable. Communicat (talk) 20:38, 11 December 2010 (UTC)

Systematic POV-bias exists in World War II and related articles

Wikipedia’s main overview article on World War II relies on a total of 356 references and source attributions reflecting a pro-Western, orthodox/conservative historiographic position. Excluded from this POV-biased list of sources are any and all non-Western, Western revisionist, or significant-minority sources that deviate from the dominant Western historical narrative position that characterizes the existing World War II article. The same applies for the most part to the sourcing (and non-sourcing) of related articles Western betrayal and Aftermath of World War II. This is in gross violation of WP:NPOV.

The effect of this POV-bias has been and continues to place undue weight on the pro-Western orthodox/conservative historical narrative, while any text and source which deviates from that position is swiftly and aggressively reverted, rejected, disrupted and/or obstructed by the parties named. They invariably consider non-orthodox/conservative sources to be “unreliable” and/or pro-communist and/or anti-British and/or anti-American. The end result is a depiction of history as seen essentially from the West, Britain and America in particular, and told in a way that seems intended to be most agreeable to many Western readers. In short: not encyclopedic content but what amounts to what one astute historian has described as “a fireside fairy tale with a happy ending”.

History is not static. It is dynamic. It must be allowed to evolve as more and more reliable research findings and formerly classified official documents gradually enter the public domain. This is where revisionist historians come in, or rather, would be allowed to come in were it not for POV-bias and informal censorship. Not only Russian and Chinese sources are at issue, but also many reliable Western revisionist sources have also been rejected by Nick-D et al, while the respondent parties have raised no similar objection to dubiously sourced and/or completely unsourced original research content, just so long as it’s anti-communist. The Western betrayal article, where my long-running dispute first arose, provides a particularly convincing example of this partisan editing, which I tried to remedy in the face of strident POV-biased opposition.

Nick-D has prior record of policy-breaching conduct

This case bears a strong resemblance to a previous NPOV dispute involving Nick-D and a user named Blablaaa. In brief, the dispute centred on alleged POV-bias in World War II articles concerning alleged incorrect/flawed/misleading data seen as biased in favour of a pro-British position. The complainant Blablaaa was blocked five times by administrator Nick-D for “uncivil and disruptive behaviour” , notwithstanding a block settings change for unblock abuse. Another administrator, Deskana, voiced serious concerns about the blockings, noting that: “The blocks were done by a WP:MILHIST member, Nick-D, when the articles in question were ones regarding World War 2. It's a pretty standard philosophy here that blocks for disruptive editing should be done by uninvolved administrators …” Another editor said in the same thread that he is "always wary of one admin being the only or major applier of sanctions with one editor without apparent recourse to other opinions or consensus", and Deskana agreed with that.

The effect of the blockings was that Blablaaa was prevented from presenting evidence to support his allegations of pro-British POV-bias. The close resemblance between the Blablaaa case and my own case is self-evident from the fact that, as the .committee may recall, I lodged my original application for arbitration in this present matter on 25 October 2010 The following day, 26 October 2010, Nick-D posted at the AN/I noticeboard an urgent appeal for my blocking by an uninvolved editor. Nick-D’s posting of 10:06, 26 October 2010 (UTC) read: Communicat has a long history of tendentious editing which is forming a significant barrier to progressing articles ...Responding to this clearly disruptive editing is wasting a lot of other editors' time and I ask that he be blocked by an uninvolved administrator. Thanks, Nick-D.

The effects of such a block, had it succeeded, would have been to prevent me from submitting evidence of POV_bias to Arbcom, in the event of the arbitration case being accepted at that time, which it was not.

• Note: Nick-d's assertion quoted above, that my editing was "forming a significant barrier to progressing articles", was completely false. The Aftermath of World War II article I was editing at the time of Nick-d's false AN/I claim of 26 October 2010 had been editorially dormant since 29 June 2010, with no previous active editing or discussion participation at that article by any World War II editor apart from myself. Nick-d's claim was therefor preposterous in stating that my editing was "forming a barrier" to progress. In fact, the very opposite was true. I was progressively improving an unsatisfactory B-class article that had been neglected by World War II editors, particularly Nick-D and the other respondent parties hereto, for a very long time. Communicat (talk) 09:49, 7 December 2010 (UTC)

Respondent parties fail to assume good faith

The respondent parties have cited numerous allegations of misconduct on my part. Most if not all those allegations, (where they are not actual personal attacks in the form of innuendoes), constitute clear evidence of failures and/or refusals on the part of the respondent parties to assume good faith, which in itself constitutes misconduct in terms of WP:AGF. Editors are not allowed to attribute the actions of a criticised editor to malice unless there is specific evidence of malice, viz., that the actions complained of were done willfuly. The respondent parties, in energetically alleging misconduct, have failed to provide any evidence whatsoever of malice and/or willfulness on my part. I am the first to admit that, as a novice, I have made mistakes -- due often to a lack of intuitive grasp of Wikipedia customs, the logic of which I am still in the process of assimilating. Most of my mistakes have been in the first iteraton of an edit, and the whole point of collaborative editing is for mistakes to be identified and corrected accordingly, with improvements being made progressively, and without constant disruption and harrassment in the form unnecessary allegations of wilful misconduct each time an error is spotted. While my mistakes might have been misguided, they were not malicious and should have been treated as such. Everybody makes mistakes, even some of Wikipedia’s most experienced editors. The number of my own mistakes, as reflected in some of the diffs provided by the respondent parties, is not alarmingly disproportionate to total number of 900 edits I have done over an editorially active period of about seven or eight months.

Enlarged scope and short time limitation sets filing party at distinct disadvantage

This dispute has been allowed to fester and escalate unchecked over a period of seven or eight months active editing. Comprehensive presentation of my evidence is practically impossible, since respondents with the approval of Arbcom have substantially broadened the scope of this case to include matters of general user conduct, and it has set a comparatively short time limit for evidence to be produced in that respect. In addition to the core NPOV issue, I am now expected to present complete evidence relative to both my own conduct as alleged by the parties concerned, and the misconduct of those other parties themselves Even if I was prepared to do so, it would take me at least a month to sift through literally thousands of edits and scores of thousands of words in order to locate, review and collate all pertinent facts, and then condense all that into a mere few hundred words. Communicat (talk) 16:35, 6 December 2010 (UTC)

(Arbitrator note: A time extension of 10 days and a reasonable length extension have been granted. Newyorkbrad (talk) 01:18, 8 December 2010 (UTC))

It is true that a 10-day extension of time has been granted. It is also true this extention of time has resulted in a flood of additional allegations from the involved and other parties. It is further true that, even before this flood of additional allegations arrived, I stated that I would require an extention of at least one month if fairness and proportionality are to apply to this case. The consequent flood of additional allegations has not eased my position.

As for (text) length of evidence, a fair and reasonable allotment of space would be that which is proportionate to the combined length of all the submissions made by the involved parties in particular and the others in general. Those submissions already run into several thousand words. I repeat: the enlarged scope and short time limitation is precedurally unfair and it sets me at a distinct disadvantage in this case. Communicat (talk) 10:34, 13 December 2010 (UTC)

This is an intractible content dispute

It is asserted here that it is not the role of Arbitration Committee to settle good-faith content disputes among editors. In response, editor Fifelfoo has expressed disbelief that this "principle" will assist current issues. I endorse that belief. I also contend that this case does not represent any good-faith content dispute, and I further note some contradiction as to the stated role of Arbitration Committee.

According to arbcom's Method, as declared elsewhere, cases "can and have ranged from user misconduct to large-scale disagreements over article content."

Newyorkbrad has asserted that Arbitration Committee's members are not selected for the purpose of content dispute and may or may not have any expertise in the subject matter of the particular dispute, but adds "Sometimes a decision will recognize that extraordinary dispute resolution mechanisms need to be invoked when an editing dispute has become truly intractible ..."

On the basis of such unresolved issues as raised for example at this typical long, unresolved and ambiguated discussion thread,and elsewhere, it is clear that editing disputes concerning World War II and related articles have become truly intractible, and extraordinary mechanisms need to be invoked.

Changing the locus of the dispute will resolve nothing. Unpleasant and unresolved content disputes will predictably keep resurfacing, even long after I've gone, if extraordinary mechanisms are not invoked to address the systematic POV-bias, bad-faith content issue which is really at the centre of this current case, even or especially if parties are attempting to obscure and evade it.

It is reasonable to surmise that, given Arbcom's stated capacity limitation, and if extraordinary mechanisms are not invoked, the only way for Arbcom to be rid of this bad-faith content issue would be to get rid of the complainant. Communicat (talk) 12:00, 13 December 2010 (UTC)

Note: The "Aftermath" thread refered to above was ambiguated by Nick-D to section titled

Renewal causing considerable disruption of relevant talk thread.

For the duration of the above ambiguated discussion, which last several weeks, the only edit done by me to World War II article article was on October 10 after extensive discussion and preparation on the talk page. This was blindly reverted by Nick-D two hours later. I was allwed to made just one edit in all of September with similar results. Nick-D then filed a complaint against me on AN/I noticeboard alleging "tendentious editing" shortly after I had already withdrawn from the WW2 discussion and moved on to edit a separate article to which Edward 321 then wikihounded me, (which resulted in my original and subsequently declined application to Arbitration Committee).

As user Petri Krohn noted at AN/I: If any conclusions can be drawn from the edit history (of the WW2 article), it is more indicative of edit warring and stonewalling by Nick-D. It seems that the content issues are mingled with some kind personal antipathy against Communicat. These dissenting editors are now extending the dispute to new articles they have never before been involved with. -- Petri Krohn (talk) 11:18, 26 October 2010 (UTC) Communicat (talk) 15:40, 13 December 2010 (UTC)

Involved parties fail to recognise principle of WP:VERIFY

Involved parties raised strong objections to my editorial addition at Aftermath of World War II of a topic concerning America's post-war contingency plan, codenamed Dropshot, for a nuclear attack on Russia. Their objections were later referred by party Edward321 Habap to Neutral Point of View Noticeboard where it appears to have died a natural death. None the less, the incident sheds light on the editing "rationale" of the involved parties. They objected purely on the grounds of personal beliefs to the effect that the US "never actually intended to carry out the plan," so the topic must be excluded from the article (and indeed it has since been deleted by Edward321). Yet WP:VERIFY rules clearly that The threshold for inclusion in Wikipedia is verifiability, not truth (i.e) whether readers can check that material in Wikipedia has already been published by a reliable source, not whether editors think it is true.

The published source Anthony Cave Brown is a reputable author/historian, the publisher is also reputable, and the source is verifiable as conveyed by the reference. Moreover, the source is a secondary source, since it includes the author's comments and analysis of the primary document to which it relates. So, on the basis of those criteria, the source conforms in all major particulars with the rule of WP:VERIFY. But, typically, the involved parties wanted nothing of that, and this was long before subsequent and opportunistic allegations of plagiarism were made.

It is relevant to note also at the same POV noticeboard thread, the closely related good-faith contribution of astute editor User:Paul Siebert concerning nuclear first-strike strategy. His contribution was intended cleary towards improvement of the Aftermath article, but in the event it was disparaged and dismissed out of hand by the involved parties in their opposition to neutral and accurate improvement of the historical article. I believe such opposition to and subsequent exclusion of User:Paul Siebert's contribution was due solely to that contribution, like my own, being construed by the parties on the basis of their personal beliefs to be implicitly anti-American. As a result of which the article suffers from a notable instance of bias through ommission, nor is this an isolated example. It reflects the type of systematic POV-bias that is practised regularly by the involved parties. Communicat (talk) 13:14, 13 December 2010 (UTC)

Infringement of WP:CITE#SAYWHEREYOUGOTIT was in error and unintentional

I admit that I contravened WP:CITE#SAYWHEREYOUGOTIT in the strict sense of the rule. My contravention was, however, not intentional, willful or in bad faith. Communicat has the express permission of Stan Winer the author/copyright holder of the book Between the Lies (2004 edn), to freely use material from the book either with or without attribution. That consent from the copyright holder is sufficient to protect Wikipedia against any and unlikely claims or copyright violation in the legal application of the term. Due to my inexperience at Wikipedia, however, I was unaware of Wikipedia's own interpretation of "copyright" in terms of WP:CITE#SAYWHEREYOUGOTIT.The author/copyright holder in question has consented to the unrestricted release of his 2004 online edition of the work into the public doman. This will be done in terms of the appropriate license being clearly stated on the freely downloadable version of the work at the Canadian-based website www.coldtype.net, which is not a fringe or advocacy site. Coldtype's policy rationale is stated as providing "The best of writing from around the world". Coldtype.net is administered by a respected figure in media circles who is currently on vacation. The license will be uploaded by the webmaster at earliest opportunity after Xmas holidays. Communicat (talk) 11:52, 14 December 2010 (UTC)

Edward321's claim is unfounded regarding image copyright theft

Edward321 in his posting of 16:38, 10 September 2010 (UTC) at COI Noticeboard, stated that Stan Winer/Comminicat is claiming to be the copyright holder for an image that appears to belong to the International Institute of Social History. The allegation was repeated on 11 September 2010 at AN/I Noticeboard where Edward321 expressed "strong doubts that Winer is the actual copyright holder for the picture (of former South African Prime Minister JB Vorster)." At no time did Edward321 himself contact the International Institute of Social History (Netherlands) to inquire about or establish copyright ownership of the image. Had he done so, as I advised him to do, he would have found that the Institute of Social History had Winer's consent to use the image freely. Edward321 then cast similar aspersions of image copyright theft/violation in a his pre-filing statement to Aribtration Committee during the course of my original Arbcom application two months ago.

It is true I used the GNU (Self) license template I when I first uploaded the image stating Winer as the copyright owner, thinking that "self" could be taken to mean not only "myself" (i.e. communicat) but also "himself" (i.e. Winer). The license, with the help of an unsigned senior editor, was subsequently changed to the appropriate Historical Image/Fair Use licence. Never the less, Edward321, while "outing" me in claiming conflict of interest, continued his allegations of copyright theft from Institute of Social History. He has never apologised or retracted, nor has he contacted the Institute of Social History.

As regards any Conflict of Interest on my part, there has been none, nor have I been sanctioned in consequence of Edward321's unfounded claim at COI Noticeboard. My association with copyright holder Stan Winer has never been promotional or self-serving, but is purely in the interests of the free flow of information. Communicat (talk) 17:18, 14 December 2010 (UTC)

Note: Free usage and distribution consent was given to the British Anti-apartheid Movement (London) by the image copyright holder Winer, which then gave the image to Dutch Anti-apartheid Movement, which in turn gave the image to Institute of Social History, which Edward321 ultimately neglected to contact before making his repeatedly reckless accusations of copyright theft. Communicat (talk) 20:25, 14 December 2010 (UTC)

Claim of plagiarising Russian source has been blown out of proportion

Parties have given evidence of plagiarism regarding Russian source Yefim Chernyak's work Ambient Conflicts: History of Relations between Countries with Different Social Systems, Moscow: Progress Publishers, 1987. The claims in this regard, while technically true, have been blown completely out of proportion. My very brief extract, still in early stage of iteration and quoting Chernyak, was properly sourced to Chernyak, while the remainder of the brief extract pointing to other sources, which I did check, still required rewording and summary, as is usual with Wikipedia editing. I would indeed have had time and opportunity to do precisely that, had it not been for parties Habap and Edward321 wikihounding me in tandem, continually harrassing me, and completely disrupting my edits. Further successful disruption was provided by Nick-D in the form of an RS/I noticeboard referral concerning the disputed use of Russian historial Chernayk as a reliable source, and then an unrelated two-week blocking that stemmed from accidentally mispelling a user name.

It is notable that the Chernyak source, which has managed surprisingly to survive the current wave of deletions and all the initial objections and controversy surrounding my use of it, has now set a useful precedent in being the first and only Russian source to have ever managed to become a reference in a World War II-related article.

The comment of RS/I editor Fifelfoo with regard to Chernyak is also notable in response to Nick-D's referral as quoted here below:

Books published under totalitarian regimes discussing the views of their ideological opponents can't be assumed to be free of censorship, and better sources should be available for the material in question. Nick-D (talk) 10:17, 1 December 2010 (UTC)

To which RS/I editor Fifelfoo replies:

The problem isn't confined to "totalitarian" regimes, in itself a problematic and US biased theoretical construction of social ordering. Fifelfoo (talk) 10:53, 1 December 2010 (UTC)

Further information posted by me at the same thread provides conclusive evidence of "non-authoritarian" viz., covert American-sponsored use of disinformation and subversive propaganda that was passed off as "reliable" and supposedly independent information throughout the Cold War years. Communicat (talk) 14:02, 16 December 2010 (UTC)

Involved parties have exhibited a pattern of misconduct

The involved parties, singly or collectively, have established a clear and consistent pro-Western, POV-biased pattern of harrassment, disruption and failure to engage in constructive discussion. These have not been random or isolated events; they are systematic and structural. The individual instances are many and varied, and they are too numerous and complex to detail here, given the obvious constraints of space and time, and also my inability (due to newbie inexperience) to figure out how Wikiblame works. In any event, diffs alone do not convey any proper sense of context. But at least some typical and revealing examples are possible within the bounds of those constraints:

Edward321 has engaged repeatedly in wikihounding, stalking me to dormant start-class or B-class articles on which he had never worked previously, and then harrassing and disrupting my own efforts aimed at reviving and improving the articles. The Aftermath of World War II article, for example, was in a very poor state prior to my involvement in improving it. Prior to my editorial involvement at the article in late October/early November 2010, discussion had effectively been dormant for about 18 months since 01:43, 28 April 2009 (UTC). On 13 October 2010, I posted notice at Aftermath article discussion thread marked "Renewal", stating my intention to revive, reorganise and improve the article in line with specific suggestions that I posted while at the same time inviting "friendly and polite" collegial discussion and participation. There was generally no response for a couple of weeks, and in particular no response by Edward321, so I then commenced first-iteration edits on my own, which Edward321 then promtly reverted without discussion.

Edward321 had earlier done exactly the same thing with a separate and similarly dormant article I'd started working on, and which Edward321 had never worked on previously, namely History of South Africa. With that article too, I'd posted notice of intending to revive and improve the article, which had similarly become dormant and was in a very poor state. Edward321 also raised unfounded objections and made false allegations of copyright theft concerning an image I'd uploaded, which similarly had a harrassing and disruptive effect. An independent senior editor later verified that my edits were accceptable and accurately sourced.

In consequence of Edward's wikihounding, harrassment and disruption, I requested an abitration case, and Edward321 promptly ceased harrassing me. But he was quickly replaced by involved party Habap, who continued the wikihounding and disruption where Edward321 had left off. Habap had similarly not participated in any prior discussion or previous work on the article. Given the alacrity with which these two parties have been monitoring and invigilating all my edits and postings, it is impossible that they were unaware of my earlier posted invitation for interested parties to participate in friendly and polite pre-editing discussion.

Edward321, in particular, has exhibited very aggressive antipathy towards me, including at least one known instance of deleting aggressively an entire discussion thread that I had posted at World War II main overview article. Following the intervention of editor Paul Siebert, the deleted thread was reinstated and Edward321 later claimed it had been deleted "by accident". He never did apologise to me. The thread in question had criticised Nick-D for tendentious refactoring and questionable sourcing.

The behaviour of Nick-D, for his part, is typified by an incident that happened on 5 August 2010. I had three days earlier identified specific and major problems at the lead paragraphs of the main WW2 article and accordingly proposed suitable changes, without receiving any response from User:Nick-D or anyone else. So, after failing to receive any feedback, I labouriously fixed the problems, only to have the edit reverted promptly by User:Nick-D, who also splattered prominent dispute and NPOV tags over minor differences, still without engaging in any discussion.

User Hohum observed immediately after Nick-D's reversion: I have to say I was astounded to find that nothing leapt out at me as particularly poor about Communicat's recent edit ... (Hohum ^@) 19:44, 6 August 2010 (UTC) -- Communicat (talk) 12:26, 15 December 2010 (UTC)

Low-level selection of article content is conducive to conflict

Informal party Fifelfoo, in his evidence below, has rightly drawn attention to and criticised the shortcomings of "high order creation and structuring of article content" in the World War II and related articles. To that submission I would add that the World War II and related articles are meant to be military history articles, and as such they should properly adhere to the fundamental and generally accepted primary military history principle and methodology of providing knowledge and insight about the military strategies, strategic objectives, strategic failures, and strategic analyses of the belligerents involved, all of which is conspicuously absent from the WW2 and related Wikipedia articles. The very long WW2 article section titled Course of the war for instance, makes no reference whatsoever of the individual strategies of the belligerents. Had proper encyclopaedic content been provided, it would have necessitated a strict NPOV approach, which is not the approach adopted, and the parties to this case are/were among the then active editors compiling that section.

The result is what unsigned editor has described in relevant talk as "a blur of explosions". Such a "blur of explosions" reflects the low order creation and structuring of the article, which is inconsistent with what is meant to encyclopaedic content. This raises serious concerns about the practical competence of some ostensibly experienced military history editors, predominantly the formal parties here involved, and to which the cause of most of my content and behavioural disputes may be traced, in conjunction with the bad-faith content issues of POV-bias as alleged.

One recent editing dispute at the Aftermath of World War II article provides an exemplary case in point. I had initiated an article section near the top of the article giving prominence to post-war military strategy, under section title "Military strategy". This was disrupted and undone by party Habap on the grounds that it had "nothing to do with strategy". The relevant text as reliably sourced and provided by me read in part:

British Foreign Secretary Ernest Bevin hoped in particular "to detach Albania ... by promoting civil discontent, internal confusion and possible strife"[37], while Churchill considered the Balkans as a whole to be strategically important to Britain's post-war imperial interests. He saw the Balkans as a flank from which to thwart or threaten Russia.[38] And The Russian intelligence service KGB believed that the Third World rather than Europe was the arena in which it could win the Cold War.[48] Moscow would in later years fuel an arms buildup in Africa and other Third World regions, notably in North Korea. Seen from Moscow, the Cold War was largely about the non-European world. The Soviet leadership envisioned a revolutionary front in Latin America. "For a quarter of a century," one expert writes, "the KGB, unlike the CIA, believed that the Third World was the arena in which it could win the Cold War." [49]

I was in the process of supplementing the above with other material concerning post-war nuclear strategy, which was then disrupted by the parties, with additional disruption in the form of a one-week blocking, which was then extended for a further week . None the less, it is abundantly clear the above text relates directly to military strategy, which Habap and others were and still are apparently unwilling or unable to recognise, and which motivated me in part to institute this present Arbcom case. The text on strategy, viz., the lifeblood of any military history article, has meanwhile been deleted in toto by Edward321 who has instead substituted a long, rambling and essentially irrelevant section about rape, of all things.

Also excluded from Edward321's extensive revision of the edits that I had initiated, is any mention of the abandonment by the West of its post-war denazification programmes, and the related, patriotically embarrassing recruitment by the American CIA of former Nazis and Nazi collaborators. Habap, for his part, and in addition to the specific instance concerning intellectual dishonesty relative to military-strategic matters as described above, has also been embroiled in unecessarily argumentative editorial incidents that raise additional concern about his intellectual grasp of relatively simple concepts. This includes his apparent misunderstanding of the term "civil administration", which he somehow manages to equate solely with land reform, to the exclusion of all other civil administrative functions such as customs and excise, health services, law enforcement, tax revenue collection, and so on. In a separate but related dispute, where I have pointed out in talk interactions with him that some published sources contradict themselves relative to military history of the Korean War, he has twisted the argument around in his evidence to say that "communicat's" sources contradict what "Communicat" is saying. And so on. The provision of diffs in this and other respects is pointless, because the diffs would be insufficient to provide any comprehensive sense of context, and the Aftermath of World War II discussion page needs to be read in its entirety if any judicious assessment of the above disputes is to be properly arrived at.

All the above relates essentially to questions concerning the high order creation and structuring of article content, as contrasted by the low order application of editor "common knowledge" based on untested assumptions that are a received condition rooted in Western, Cold War assumptions, and which have become settled and unquestioned premises in the minds of some military history editors, predominantly the formal parties hereto, and in particular party Habap. His increasingly tedious and argumentative reasoning has been and is still based on the perception of an implacable Soviet foe hellbent on taking over the world. But as historian Tim Weiner has detailed in his book Legacy of Ashes, the British and American intelligence had no accurate idea whatsover during the defining years of the Cold War as to what the Soviet Union's strategic objective really was, if any.

A further impediment to the high order structuring and organisation of military historical content, and editorial conflict stemming from this impediment, relates to prohibition on the use of primary sources. Primary documents represent the highest order literary source in any historical work, yet the use of primary sources has been studiously avoided and/or disallowed by Nick-D and other active editors. Even Winston Churchill's voluminous History of the Second World War has been disallowed by Nick-D on the grounds that it is a "primary source" and primary sources are "not allowed", which IMO is sheer nonsense. That is not what the rules state.

These are the kinds of content issues that give rise to conflict at the World War II and related articles, and they require extraordinary dispute resolution mechanisms and/or the intervention of a neutral and properly qualified arbiter, perhaps someone of the calibre of Fifelfoo and/or unsigned senior editor who has also given evidence in this case. Communicat (talk) 11:21, 16 December 2010 (UTC)

Parties concur as to existence of gross POV-bias

At the close of evidence (more or less), none almost none of the parties have addressed in any way the core issue of NPOV as emphasised at the commencement of my statement. Namely: that of nearly 400 source references at World War II article, all of them reflect orthodox Western positions, to the total exclusion of non-Western, Western revisionist, and significant-minority positions. This constitutes gross POV-bias in contravention of Wikipedia rules on NPOV. All the parties, with the exception only of Hohum and the filing party, have completely circumvented and/or ignored that issue. Their emphatic silence on this central allegation of POV-bias at World War II and related articles signifies concurrence that there exists gross POV-bias at World War II and related articles. This closing statement by filing party is not wikilawyering. It is a statement of indisputable fact. 13:29, 17 December 2010 (UTC) Communicat (talk) 13:31, 17 December 2010 (UTC)

Hohum's 'evidence' serves a useful purpose

Uninvolved party Hohum, in his 'evidence' below, provides a useful example of how some parties distort the facts in this case. Hohum, in his 'evidence', attempts to deny that unfair rejection or obstruction of article content as provided by me has ever taken place. In fact, Hohum was one of the first editors to start disrupting and obstructing my edits, as happened back in April, for instance, at article Strategic bombing in World War II. Hohum attempted to obstruct a contribution by me that cited reliable source Max Hastings, a reputable British historian, concerning the aerial bombardment of German civilians. The pretext upon which Hohum attempted to obstruct that particular contribution, was that it represented allegedly "one sided conclusions from elderly sources which have been investigated far more fully in more recent years by historians of note. (Hohum @) 19:58, 2 April 2010 (UTC).

When challenged by me to specify the so-called historical information "investigated far more fully in more recent years by historians of note", Hohum was unable to respond. That incident provides a useful and typical example of how, when content displeases WW2 editors because the content does not shine a favourable light on the Anglo-American war effort, it is vigorously objected to on the flimsiest of pretexts which cannot be justified when challenged. This endemic POV-biased practice is confined not only to non-Western sources, but to well-respected British historians such as Hastings, should they happen to deviate from the already mentioned "fireside fairy tale with a happy ending," which passes for history at World War II article. Communicat (talk) 15:38, 17 December 2010 (UTC)

Much the same happened later, with contributions I made regarding the atomic bombings of civilians at Hiroshima and Nagasaki. Both Edward321 and Nick-D raised objections and resisted inclusion of the contribution, which Nick-D reverted with Edward321's support. My edit had been based on a respected source, stating that 370,000 survivors of the atomic explosions were afflicted with radiation sickness after the war. Edward321 claimed my citation and the figure it had provided had been "cherry-picked" and was exaggerated. He claimed: You (communicat) have provided a source for the long-term effects of radioactivity in Hiroshima and Nagasaki. The Japanese government appears to use significantly lower numbers. Edward321 (talk) 13:32, 20 October 2010 (UTC), and he then referred me to a source which, upon checking, was found to provide an official figure that was even higher (i.e. 420,000) than the one contributed by me and which Edward321 and Nick-D had rejected as "cherry-picked" and "too high". Needless to say, that particular NPOV contribution, like most others, never made it into the article, because it did not paint what might be described as an romantic picture of American aerial bombarment in WW2. Communicat (talk) 17:07, 17 December 2010 (UTC)

Many NPOV/RS references were provided and then rejected/reverted/obstructed

"Uninvolved" administrator Georgewilliamherbet, in his intervention four months ago, claimed: If this were purely about historical disputes and you had provided adequate high quality references and resources to the dispute we would not be here. In reply, I then posted a list of NPOV and highly reliable reference sources from a wide spectrum, which had by that time been submitted either as supporting text references in various contexts and/or in support of various relevant discussion topics with a view to suggested textual changes, improvements etc. All of these below (not in alphabetical or order of importance) were obstructed/disparaged/ and/or rejected out of hand. (To save time and possibly more wasted effort, ISBNs and page nrs are not shown but are available if necessary):

• Stewart Richardson (ed.),The Secret History of World War II: Wartime Letters and Cables of Roosevelt, Stalin, and Churchill, New York: Richardson and Steirman, 1986,
• Tom Bower, Blind Eye to Murder: Britain, America and the puging of Nazi Germany, London: Andre Deutsch 1981
• Christopher Simpson, Blowback: America's Recruitment of Nazis and Its Effects on the Cold War, London: Weidenfeld and Nicolson 1988,
• Richard Harris Smith, OSS: Secret history of the CIA, Berkeley: University of California Press 1972,
• Philip Snow, The Fall of Hong Kong: Britain, China, and the Japanese Occupation, Yale University Press: 2003.
• Association of Asian Studies, "Anti-Japanese Movements in Southeast Asia during World War II". (1996) Abstract
• Yoji Akashi, "MPAJA/Force 136 Resistance Against the Japanese in Malaya, 1941-1945".
• Association of Asian Studies. Abstract (1996) Abstract
• Frank Kitson, Low Intensity Operations: Subversion, Insurgency and Peacekeeping, London: Faber, 1971.
• Spenser Chapman, The Jungle is Neutral, London: Chatto and Windus, 1948;
• Ian Trenowden, Operations Most Secret: SOE, the Malayan Theatre, London: Wm Kimber, 1978
• Bradley F Smith and Elena Agarossi, Operation Sunrise: The Secret Surrender. New York, 1979.
• R Harris Smith, OSS, Berkely: University of California Press, 1972, pp.114-121
• Y Larionov, N Yeronin, B Solovyov, V. Timokhovich, World War II Decisive Battles of the Soviet Army, Moscow: Progress 1984,
• Gar Alperovitz, "How Did the Cold War Begin?" in Walter LaFeber (ed.) The Origins of the Cold War 1941-1947, New York: John Wiley 1971;
• Alexander Werth, Russia at War 1941-1945, New York: Avon 1965:
• Norman Davies, Europe at War 1939-1945, London: Macmillan 2005;
• DF Fleming, The Cold War and Its Origins: 1917-1960, New York: Random 1961
• Mao Zedong, Guerrilla Warfare (online link to US Military Corps archive of previously banned books).
• Bruce R Kuniholm, Origins of the Cold War in the Near East, Princeton: Princeton University Press 1980
• LS Stavrianos, "The Greek National Liberation Front (EAM): A Study in Resistance, Organisation and Administration", Journal of Modern History, March 1952.

To the above list can be added the following incomplete list, which were among some of the subsequently, more recently and similarly reverted, deleted, rejected or otherwise obstructed in one way or another by involved parties Edward321 and Habap:

• Anthony Cave Brown, Dropshot: The United States Plan for War with the Soviet Union in 1957, New York: Dial Press, 1978,
• John Lewis Gaddis, Strategies of Containment, New York: Oxford University Press,
• Walter LaFeber, America, Russia and the Cold War 1945-1966, New York: John Wiley, 1968,
• Christopher M Woodhouse, The Struggle for Greece 1941-1949, London: Hart-Davis 1976,
• Lawrence S Wittner, “How Presidents Use the Term ‘Democracy’ as a Marketing Tool”, online link Retrieved October 29, 2010
• Dennis Wainstock, Truman, McArthur and the Korean War, Greenwood, 1999,
• Jon Halliday and Bruce Cumings, Korea: The unknown war, London: Viking, 1988,
• Edward Grant Meade, American military government in Korea,: King's Crown Press 1951,
• A. Wigfall Green, The Epic of Korea, Washington: Public Affairs Press, 1950,
• Walter G Hermes , Truce Tent and Fighting Front, Washington DC: US Army Center of Military History, 1992,
• James M Minnich, The North Korean People's Army: origins and current tactics, Naval Institute Press, 2005
• Mohamed Amin and Malcolm Caldwell (eds.), The Making of a Neo Colony, London: Spokesman Books, 1977, footnote, p. 216
• Sigured Hess, "The British Baltic Fishery Protection Service (BBFPS) and the Clandestine Operations of Hans Helmut Klose 1949-1956." Journal of Intelligence History vol. 1, no. 2 (Winter 2001)
• Tom Bower, The Red Web: MI6 and the KGB, London: Aurum, 1989,
• Tom Bower, The Paperclip Conspiracy: Battle for the spoils and secrets of Nazi Germany, London: Michael Joseph, 1987,

Communicat (talk) 13:18, 19 December 2010 (UTC)

And here are a few more reference sources that were obstructed, disparaged, rejected etc, by the involved parties, and these rejected sources are arguably among the most important ones, because they deal essentially with questions of strategy, which is conspicuously absent from the WW2 and related articles. IMO the key topic of strategy is disregarded habitually because treatment of it would of necessity entail looking at the history of WW2 from the POV of all sides of the war, not just the peculiarly romanticised Anglo-American POV version as is customary at WW2 and related articles:

• Ralph Bennett, Ultra and Mediterranean Strategy 1941-1945, London: Hamish Hamilton, 1989

• David Fraser, And We Shall Shock Them: The British Army in the Second World War, London: Hodder and Stoughton, 1983,

• Anthony Verrier, Through the Looking Glass: British Foreign Policy in the Age of Illusions, London: Jonathan Cape, 1983,

• Basil Liddell Hart, History of the Second World War, London: Cassell 1965,

• Albrecht Kesselring, Memoirs, London: Greenhill 1988

It may be further noted that the above sources are respected Western sources. They do not include non-Western or significan-minority position sources, of which there were a fair number as well.

I think by now I will have made my point, even though time limit has been exceeded for evidence phase of this case. Future researchers/analysts will, none the less, find the above useful in analysing and assessing the merits of this case for themselves. Communicat (talk) 18:32, 19 December 2010 (UTC)

Evidence presented by MikeNicho231

User:Paul Siebert

I would like to add this user as a involved party. Involved in the dispute, made several controversial edits/reversions, see [1] and [2]. MikeNicho231 (talk) 10:53, 2 December 2010 (UTC)

Clerk comment: The appropriate place to make that request is, I think, Wikipedia:Arbitration/Requests/Case/World War II/Workshop#Motions and requests by the parties. AGK 12:12, 2 December 2010 (UTC)

I don't think I'm allowed to do so, as I am not a party in the case. MikeNicho231 (talk) 12:42, 2 December 2010 (UTC)

Evidence presented by Habap

Communicat exhibits WP:OWN

Communicat also tends to exhibit ownership issues in articles he edits [3] [4], including in his most recent unblock request when he requested that he be unblocked so that he could delete two sentences in the Aftermath article.

Communicat often fails to read and understand before responding

There have been a number of issues in which it appears that Communicat failed to understand what was written by others.

He mis-identified a compliment from Novickas as coming from Tony Judt [5], bragging how that endorsement by Professor Judt trumped any comments by anyone in the WPMilHist project [6].

In a discussion of sources, Communicat was insistent he had been misquoted when the "ink was still dry", in the Brutal North Korea (Oberdorfer or Osterholm) controversy [7], [8], [9], [10]

Communicat's sources don't always say what he says they say

Over the past few months, many books which Communicat has quoted from contradict his cherry-picked quotations in other parts of the book. Hastings [11], Epic of Korea and Truman, Macarthur and Korea [12], Wainstock & Green [13].

Sometimes, his quotes do not accurately reflect the source. C's quote [14] and the explanation by Edward321 [15]

He has acknowledged in the past that he did not actually read some of those books from which he was either quoting or using to support his position (Wigfall Green [16] and Stephen Ambrose [17])

He has also stated his attitude on supplying page numbers: The material as submitted either has page numbers, or no page numbers, or page numbers that are not entirely accurate. This is because I don't want the refs to be plagiarised to the benefit only of college students who trawl these pages in search of reliable refs for their "own" essays.[18]

Communicat has been unable to remain civil

• WP:NPA: as noted above, Communicat has been blocked multiple times for personal attacks. The attacks on me for which he was blocked involved him referring to me as incoherent [19] and boring [20], with the further statement that I was among "those who seem to do the least actual editing". None of that is particularly distressing (I am boring, though neither of the other comments is true). On the other hand, he has alleged pro-American/Anti-Soviet bias [21], which does bother me somewhat. I also found his argument of bias through ommission[22] troubling. I tried explaining to him when he made offensive statements or used a condescending tone that it was problematic [23] and [24]. Nonetheless, his behaviour has continued.
• Other demonstrations of a lack of civility that did not amount to personal attacks: [25], [26], [27], [28], [29], [30], [31], [32], [33]
• He has also had negative interactions with a number of other users, most of whom were involved in a mediation attempt, which included Arnoutf [34][35][36], Binksternet, Paul Siebert, Moxy [37][38], and White Shadows (Wikipedia:Requests for mediation/World War II (overview article)). Parsecboy, current Project Coordinator of the WikiProject Military History, also had some problematic interactions with Communicat but was not involved in the mediation attempt.

Communicat has used a mis-leading edit summary to delete my comments

I only found this yesterday, while combing through evidence. Communicat deleted some of my comments, with a misleading edit summary defamatory personal attacks on communicat undone [39] when the comments were not a personal attack.

Communicat has plagiarized and violated copyright on materials from Stan Winer

In the RS/N discussion [40] mentioned here, Communicat appears to have taken his argument directly from Winer's book. Check pages 131 & 132 of Stan Winer's Between the Lies and what Communicat wrote. These three searches show it: "American readers were unaware" [41], "cover production costs" [42], and "unmatched by the impact" [43]. He changed the sentence order and a few words at the beginning of the first sentence, but it is a direct quote. I don't think it's a violation of copyright since it's just on a talk page, but it is disturbing. Note the "p.12.21" at the end of Communicat's citation for the Saturday Evening Post article. In Winer's book, it is footnote 21 and page 12 falls within the actually article's page numbers.

In checking the Aftermath of World War II article, I found that the section on Covert Operations is copied from Winer's book, with some word changes [44]. It appears from the CCI case that 27 of Communicat's 320 edits to the Article space are plagiarism. Most are from the 2004 edition of Between the Lies, but one of those 27 [45] is only found in the 2007 edition and another is plagiarized from Efim Chernyak's Ambient Conflicts page 360 for details, see WP:CCI.

Communicat misrepresents other editor's statements and actions

Communicat misquotes me [46] in regards to section titling. The section had been named "Military strategy and tactics". I stated that the section Communicat had added was about neither Military strategy nor Military tactics, but covert operations.[47] You'd been the one who initially titled it Covert Operations [48]. You even agreed to stick with the name. [49]

In reference to Korea's administration, the crux of Communicat's argument seems to be incomplete and drawn out of context. My statement more completely reads I fail to understand why you believe the Americans were conducting civil administration in the area when they couldn't enter it. The Russians were boasting of their progress in land reform and other areas of "national economy and welfare". [50] He claims to have pointed out to me that sources contradict themselves, but I can't find any statements by him that reflect that.

I find it especially odd that Communicat complains of "Edward321 who has instead substituted a long, rambling and essentially irrelevant section about rape, of all things." Communicat himself had added information on rapes by Western troops.[51]

Evidence presented by Edward321

Communicat has engaged in sockpuppetry

Evidence is here.[52][53] ] Communicat edited around a block to personally attack the blocking Admin.[54] Communicat pretended to be another user to support his own opinions.[55]

Communicat has advocated a fringe POV against consensus

Communicat has advocated Stanley Winer on several talk pages.[56] and tried against consensus to add Winer's views into several articles for an extended period of time[57][58][59][60][61][62][63][64][65][66][67][68][69][70][71][72][73][74][75][76][77][78][79][80][81][82] In this edit summary Communicat appears to be claiming to be Winer.[83]

Winer’s work is published out of a London apartment[84][85] and is not cited by scholarly works.[86] The Guardian review of the book says "It's this sort of thing that gives conspiracy theory a bad name."[87]

Communicat’s views are often not supported by his sources

Communicat has proposed changes on the World War II talk page that are not supported or even contradicted by his sources[88][89][90][91][92][93][94][95][96][97][98][99]

Communicat has posted information that is not supported or even contradicted by his sources to the articles History of South Africa[100]Western Betrayal[101] and Aftermath of World War II[102][103][104][105]

At the Reliable Sources Noticeboard, Communicat has cited the Saturday Evening Post as supporting him [106] when it clearly does not.[107]

Communicat has dismissed reliable sources

Communicat has claimed sources that contradict him are the product of McCarthy Era censorship.[108] This is in spite of Communicat previously arguing that some of these sources were reliable[109][110] and ignores the actual publication dates of most of the sources.[111]

Communicat makes unfounded accusations

To show one example, Communicat claims "One allegedly dubious, revisionist source/link subjected to intensive scrutiny and rigorous vetting, whereas at least 27 other identifiable, non-revisionist, dubious sources are permitted, perhaps even encouraged."[112] Communicat provides no evidence for this claim anywhere.

Contrary to Communicat's Evidence claims, and as his link clearly shows, Habap, not myself opened the NPV thread about Operation Dropshot, which is still listed in Aftermath of World War II; the text Communicat quotes does not appear; and they misrepresent the actual point of disagreement.

Communicat's claim that I attempted to out him has already been rebutted by Georgewilliamherbert.[113]

At History of South Africa I only removed edits that used Winer as a source or did not match sources.[114][115][116][117] In response Communicat blind reverted me.

When Communicat moved from World_War_II#Aftermath to Aftermath of World War II he deleted a large section of sourced material as well as adding material that was not supported by the source he lists.[118] Communicat's claim that I "reverted without discussion" is false.[119] Communicat blind reverted me [120] and filed a RfAr against me.[121]

I did not delete the military strategy section or replace it with something else. It did not exist when I edited on 10/25[122], nor when I returned to the article on 11/14.[123] Western abandonment of de-nazification is still in the article. I did not delete it, I restored and expanded Communicat's removal of similar behavior by the Russians.[124]

The info on US atomic bombings that Communicat claims never made it into the article was added by me over a month ago.[125]

Communicat's claim that a large number of reliable sources were rejected by those he filed this RfAr against is debunked at Wikipedia_talk:Arbitration/Requests/Case/World_War_II/Evidence#Communicat.27s list

Communicat misrepresents other users edits

On the Workshop page Communicat claimed that "According to Edward321 above, it is unquestionably within Arbcom's jurisdiction to "immediately investigate" copyright violation."[126] I had not even posted to the thread at that point. Communicat then pulled a single word from Habap's edit out of context, attributing it to me.[127] On the NPV noticeboard, Communicat misquoted statements I made elsewhere,[128][129] then pulled half a sentence out of context.[130]

Evidence presented by TomStar81

Battle, Combat, and War articles exist in constant chaos

I want to point out an interesting fact concerning the milhist articles that cover the before, during, and after of battles, wars, and other major combat events in human history: they exist in a constant state of chaos. Articles of this nature are notoriously difficult to edit in any capacity since the wording of the articles is often maintained by careful consensus of the parties who worked to decide what version would be acceptable to all parties as opposed to one version preferred by a few. This is true not only for World War II protection log, but for articles like World War I (protection log) and Vietnam War (protection log), article which are frequently protected because a handful of people refuse to either follow the guidelines/policies on site or refuse to work with others to find a solution that would be acceptable to all rather than preferential to the one. If the committee may recall, Blablaaa (talk · contribs) presented the exact same NPOV/bias argument earlier this year, but because of his inability to work with others the arguments he presented were dismissed due to a perception that he had OWN and personal attack issues, and he was indefinitely blocked from Wikipedia for policy/guideline violations. TomStar81 (Talk) 04:08, 3 December 2010 (UTC)

Evidence presented by Nick-D

I'd like to endorse the evidence presented above by Habap and Edward321. Edward321's point about Communicat's advocacy of a fringe POV is particularly important as this appears to motivate much of his or her editing. Communicat's claims of 'bias' are a red herring; the actual issue is that they seem unable to accept their views are not supported by almost all other editors and frequently resort to unacceptable behavior in attempts to get them included in articles. Georgewilliamherbert (talk · contribs) gave Communicat a very stern warning about this in August and nothing has changed despite subsequent warnings and blocks. Communicat recently dismissed the concerns about their editing which had been raised on various noticeboards as "endless disruptions" to their editing.

Communicat's changes sought to advance a fringe POV

As demonstrated at Wikipedia:Arbitration/Requests/Case/World War II/Workshop#Request for immediate investigation of COPYVIO what appears to be a substantial majority of Communicat's proposed and actual changes to articles have sought to advance the views of the fringe writer Stan Winer. In many cases text which Communicat cited to multiple sources was actually copied and pasted or paraphrased from Winer's books. This behavior continued long after discussions of these books in which Communicat had participated concluded that they were not reliable sources (see the discussions below). When combined with the instances of Communicat's sources not supporting his or her text, I think that this demonstrates that "non-western sources" were not being unfairly excluded from the articles and that Communicat is essentially a SPA for Winer's views.

Communicat's proposed changes have been very extensively discussed and have attracted almost no support

There have been a number of very long-running discussions of Communicat's actual and proposed changes to articles. In these discussions their preferred changes have not attained general support, and were frequently only supported by Communicat. I'd like to draw the committee's attention to the discussions which took place at Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Controversial command decisions, World War II (March and April), Talk:Western betrayal#Lopsided structure of article (March), Talk:Strategic bombing during World War II#Link to www.truth-hertz.net (July to August), Talk:World War II/Archive 39#Link to www.truth-hertz.net (July to August), much of Talk:World War II/Archive 40 (August), almost all of Talk:World War II/Archive 41 (August to September), almost all of Talk:World War II/Archive 42 (September to October), Talk:History of South Africa#new sub-section: extra-parliamentary activities (August to September) and Talk:Aftermath of World War II (October to current). In addition, there have been discussions of the sources Communicat proposes using at Wikipedia:Conflict of interest/Noticeboard/Archive 45#User: Communicat (September) Wikipedia:Neutral point of view/Noticeboard#Aftermath of World War II - Operation Dropshot (November) and Wikipedia:Reliable sources/Noticeboard#Talk:Aftermath of World War II (November to current). There have also been a number of discussions on user talk pages.

Taken together, it is clear that Communicat's proposed changes have been discussed in great detail and considered by a large number of editors and that they have received a fair hearing. Throughout these discussions Communicat's positions have attracted little support, with several editors noting that they contain very serious problems relating to WP:V, WP:RS, WP:SYNTH and WP:FRINGE violations. Communicat's frequently uncivil conduct hindered these discussions.

The World War II article is dynamic

While Communicat has claimed above and in several comments such as this that editors involved with the World War II article are "conservatives" and unwilling to see the article changed, this is not the case. The article's talk page is always very busy and the article is steadily evolving. The results of the last 500 diffs as of today demonstrates how much it's changed since between 10 March, for instance. I don't think that anyone has ever argued that the article can't be improved.

Communicat has a history of creating POV forks

Communicat has created POV forks to push their views:

• During February and March Communicat re-wrote the Western Betrayal article from this state to this state and moved the article to 'Controversial command decisions, World War II' . I nominated the article for deletion on the grounds that it breached WP:SYNTH and WP:NPOV. The consensus at Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Controversial command decisions, World War II was to revert the article back to its pre-Communicat state.
• During September Communicat sought to include a claim in the World War II article that the United States was in charge of the civil administration of North Korea in the years after World War II, and eventually added text to the article which implied this: [131]. The sources Communicat provided to support it actually proved the opposite (see Talk:World War II/Archive 42#Arbitrary break - at the risk of quoting myself, this is an example of the problems with material) and there was consensus to keep it out of the World War II article. Despite this, on 24 October Communicat added pretty much the text on Korea which had been rejected in the World War II article to Aftermath of World War II ([132]). This was reverted by Edward321 (diffs), leading to an edit war between him and Communicat. Communicat also added a number of other dubious claims to the Aftermath of World War II article which have since been removed following discussion on its talk page.

As discussed at Wikipedia:Arbitration/Requests/Case/World War II/Workshop#Request for immediate investigation of COPYVIO both these content forks reflect the views of Stan Winer and contain text lifted directly from his books and other sources without attribution.

Other disruptive behavior

• Communicat has a history of making incorrect accusations towards other editors and not apologizing and/or striking the claim when other editors point out problems with the claim. Examples include [133] (all of the ANI post this diff is from is relevant) and [134] (for which their response was "I'm not going to wast time arguing with you about who signed and who didn't": [135])
• Another factor which makes it difficult to discuss matters with Communicat is their habit of reverting to aggressive quasi-legal language when challenged, which at times includes using the terminology of criminal acts. Examples include: [136] (for which Habap issued a note on Wikipedia's policy concerning legal threats), [137] and [138] (no criminal terminology, but an excellent example of the aggressive legalistic wording used in response to comments about their conduct).

Evidence presented by Kirill Lokshin

Communicat is a single-purpose account

Out of Communicat's ~300 total article edits, ~200 are to the three articles at the locus of the dispute:

• Aftermath of World War II (~128 edits)
• Western Betrayal (~62 edits)
• World War II (~18 edits)

Communicat has engaged in sustained edit-warring

At Aftermath of World War II: [139], [140], [141], [142], [143], [144], [145]

At History of South Africa: [146], [147], [148], [149]

Communicat has engaged in incivility and personal attacks

"You are such a bore...", "Get a life...", "pack of... wild dogs"

Communicat has attempted to use Wikipedia as a battlefield

Communicat has attempted to use Wikpedia as a battlefield by superficially dividing editors into opposing camps and engaging in personal attacks and blanket assumptions of bad faith:

"Whether or not there exists a formal milhist cabal led by one administrator is open to conjecture. However, there certainly exists a small and apparently influential clique of reactionary milhist individuals whose editorial actions and omissions reveal a consistent pattern of blockage and disruption... I have been rebuked and threatened for metaphorically describing my own experiences with the milhist clique as comparable editorially to being set upon by a pack of wild dogs..."

"there exists a conflict of interest on the part of certain military history editors... partisan editing and POV bias at the milhist project continues to this day"

"Editors at military history project consistently obstruct, disrupt, harrass and/or launch personal attacks on me... systematic violation NPOV/content at the military history project..."

Communicat has refused to engage in discussion

Communicat has never communicated with the Military history WikiProject, despite claiming to have concerns about our editing practices.

Evidence presented by 67.117.130.143

History of South Africa

The last edit linked by Kirill[150] is actually connected to some of Communicat's additions sourced to a book by del Boca and Giovana, that were disputed on the talk page but turned out to be mostly ok. I got the book through interlibrary loan and checked Communicat's citations, since people on the talk page had expressed suspicions that Communicat might have misrepresented the source, and there were some unsuccessful attempts to figure this out from Google snippet views. I found there were some minor gaps in the sourcing and a bit too much editorializing in Communicat's wording, but the book basically backed up Communicat's citations and page numbers, and the gaps were at least partly corroborated by other sources. A talkpage comment I made at the time[151] has a little more info and I think I should have written it a bit more graciously. I felt that edit was a big improvement over earlier edits of Communicat, which used either unacceptable sources (Winer), or overstated what the sources said, or were cited too imprecisely (no page numbers) to be verifiable, as I ranted about here. The South Africa edit made me think (at the time) that Communicat was shaping up, and might benefit from working with a mentor.

Subsequent events as documented by others don't look so good, but I haven't been following the situation much, so won't express a detailed view. I think that prior to September, Communicat had a much worse understanding of WP policy and dispute resolution than afterwards (even if it's still not so great), so the most recent incidents should be assigned the most weight when assessing evidence.

67.117.130.143 (talk) 08:39, 6 December 2010 (UTC) slightly revised[152] 01:41, 7 December 2010 (UTC)

Added: I still have some doubts about the exact provenance of the Del Boca citations, but I don't have the book any more and can't examine it further without another ILL which would take several days and doesn't seem worth the trouble at this point. To Communicat: Wikipedia does not have "senior editors". We're all equals. 67.117.130.143 (talk) 06:30, 17 December 2010 (UTC)

Saturday Evening Post

Edward321's diff [153] turned out to result from Communicat copying material including an incorrect citation from Stan Winer's Between The Lies ([154] footnote 22, p. 223) without attribution. I gave a detailed analysis earlier but have removed it for brevity, since events have overtaken it (see Habap's findings about further copying from Winer and others). 67.117.130.143 (talk) 19:57, 10 December 2010 (UTC)

Communicat's edit counts

As of a few minutes before 06:57, 10 December 2010 (UTC), Communicat's edit counts in article space are as follows:

Aftermath of World War II: 128 edits, Western betrayal: 62, History of South Africa: 58, World War II: 18, Strategic bombing during World War II: 8, Central and Eastern Europe: 7, South Africa: 6, Cold War: 5, Psychological torture: 4, World War II in contemporary culture: 4, Propaganda: 3, Military–industrial complex: 3, Effects of World War II: 2, Psychological manipulation: 2, Disinformation: 2, Singapore: 2, Mass media: 2, Media influence: 2, Indoctrination: 1, Operation Jungle: 1.

In talk space: Talk:World War II: 275, Talk:Aftermath of World War II: 60, Talk:Western betrayal: 28, Talk:History of South Africa: 21, Talk:Strategic bombing during World War II: 7, Talk:South Africa: 2, Talk:Effects of World War II: 1, Talk:Korean War: 1, Talk:Cold War: 1, Talk:Psychological torture: 1, Talk:Operation Jungle: 1, Talk:Umkhonto we Sizwe: 1

He got into extended discussions at Talk:World War II earlier in the year so these counts aren't representative of recent activity. 67.117.130.143 (talk) 08:13, 10 December 2010 (UTC)

The above is includes some edits at Psychological torture that were since revdel'd for copyvio.[155] I haven't checked carefully if there are more like that. 67.117.130.143 (talk) 04:49, 13 December 2010 (UTC)

Communicat's online access

At Talk:History of South Africa some users questioned whether Communicat had accurately summarized content cited to Del Boca and Giovanna's book mentioned above. I suggested[156] that perhaps Communicat could email a scan of the cited page to GWH or another user for verification. Communicat responded:[157]

PS: No, I don't have a scanner or digital camera. I use my low-end technology purely for wordprocessing and online research. Moreover, I happen to be living in a remote region of a Third World country where there is regretably no ASDL and no internet cafe on every street corner. (That's probably why a frequent combination of connectivity problems, edit conflicts, power failures, editing disputes, viruses, etc etc sometimes makes me lose my cool). Anyway, I'm sorry, but you might just have to obtain the book for yourself for purposes of verification.

Despite these connectivity problems, Communicat managed to upload the photo File:B. J. Vorster.jpg two different times.[158] At least one of Communicat's IP addresses[159] resolves to a block described as "DSL subscribers" with AfriNIC.[160] 67.117.130.143 (talk) 22:57, 12 December 2010 (UTC)

To put the above in context, I meant to expand this comment (amended), but it doesn't seem worth the effort by now. 67.117.130.143 (talk) 04:04, 19 December 2010 (UTC)

Evidence presented by Fifelfoo

Wikipedia policies and practice fail in practice in the Humanities and Social Sciences to address the diversity of highest quality reliable source literature available; and, fail to address the academic debate present which is encyclopaedically notable.

• WWII a good article does not:
  • classify sources by historiographical tradition;
  • discuss or sub-article the historiographical debate; or,
  • draw out literary differences of opinion
• WWII is a high demand article, with high page views, and high levels of editor attention in a centrally successful project (Military History). It has resources to call upon which ought to exhaust the successful possibilities of an article.

As a result of the first claim, Wikipedia's articles in the Humanities and Social Sciences suffer from a systematic i18n failure, and typically privilege US normative accounts as a result of the application of editor common knowledge rather than literary survey, to the high order creation and structuring of article content.

• WWII cites Transaction publishers; a press widely considered to be ideologically advocating a view in non-scholarly manners.
• The phrase "Most eastern and central European countries fell into the Soviet sphere of influence, which led to establishment of Communist led regimes there, with full or partial support of the Soviet occupation authorities." is without counterpart, or clarification. (A wide scholarly literature discussing the occupation of Western Europe by Imperialist powers, and the imposition of capitalist economic structures exist). The phrase and its justification is not located in the sub-article. Additionally this phrase has NPOV problems due to its construction of the Soviet Union as other.

While adequate policies exist; these are often not implemented due to the structure of NPOV warring at low levels of taxonomic and structural importance.

• Debate typically occurs over single source use and characterisation. Higher order debates fail.
• These issues are ones of widespread community conduct extending beyond this incident (though exemplified by this incident) and broadly threaten the capacity of the project to produce encyclopaedic knowledge in the humanities and social sciences.
• No systems exist to resolve high order structural, literary, or taxonomic disputes; encouraging bad editor behaviour from all sides of debate.
• At a point, persistent content failures become a domain-of-knowledge wide conduct failure. Military History is very successful at resolving many lower order content failures. But even this successful project has not been able to resolve higher order issues.
• Previous sanctions specifically addressing conduct in domains of knowledge (Eastern Europe, etc.) have failed to change community conduct in content production:
  • Individual disciplining does not resolve the failure to produce encyclopaedic content
  • Cases like this come forward on a reasonably regular basis; demonstrating the failure of past individual sanctions to address the failure of community conduct under policy.

Evidence presented by Georgewilliamherbert

(please bear with me as I flesh this out Georgewilliamherbert (talk) 06:12, 8 December 2010 (UTC))

Disclaimer: I am a member of the Military History Task Force but not engaged in the subjects this dispute has been about (I am a technologist rather than historian per se, though the history interests me). I don't believe that this constituted a conflict of interest, as I have have not edited the pages or worked with the editors involved in any significant manner. I'm not dredging my history logs to prove it, but I don't recall anything. I'm disclosing this out of an abundance of caution. Georgewilliamherbert (talk) 06:12, 8 December 2010 (UTC)

General observation and introduction

We have in this case (and in my opinion) a frustrating combination of elements:

• A user who is well educated and has a deep subject matter understanding but non mainstream beliefs conflicting with a large established Wikiproject which is at times set in its ways.
• A cultural collision between "Military Historians" who have a fact based focus and "Cultural / Sociological / Political Historians" who often take a more expansive and often more revisionist approach to history.
• A user who is relatively new to Wikipedia, and does not appear to have fully internalized Wikipedia's editorial community expectations, including core policies WP:NPA and WP:CIVIL
• A wikiproject whose members may have, albeit probably not intentionally or with any improper collusion, ganged up on the user (see multiple unrelated prior incidents where a user was taunted in some manner into abusive behavior).

The summary of the result is probably akin to a self-fulfilling prophecy of "You're all out to get me!".

The question is past the point of "Who started this?". The question now must be, whose actions have been improper, including potentially taunting behavior, and whether Communicat can edit in a collegial manner going forwards or not.

Georgewilliamherbert (talk) 06:12, 8 December 2010 (UTC)

Uninvolved administrator interventions can fail

I attempted to intervene in this case to informally mediate the content disputes and reduce the interpersonal conflicts. This has failed miserably. In part, this has failed as I did not dedicate enough time to the interaction at critical times. This included attempting to put together a User Conduct RFC and then failing to successfully defuse arguments about the specific RFC phrasing and issues (see Wikipedia talk:Requests for comment/Communicat). The end result of that draft was to become yet another locale at which everyone involved got angry and butted heads. In the sense that it expanded the conflict venues rather than being a constructive location for dispute resolution, it failed completely, and I blame myself for not shepherding it in a more responsible manner. This has frustrated all parties. Georgewilliamherbert (talk) 06:12, 8 December 2010 (UTC)

Communicat has been repeatedly blocked by myself for personal attacks

First block: Sept 2, 2010

Initial comment: [161] Aug 28: " There is an unfortunate tendency, when descended upon by the equivalent of a pack of editorial wild dogs, to reduce oneself to the same level."

Warning: [162] Aug 28

Repeated comment on user page: [163] Sept 1: "I have been rebuked and threatened for metaphorically describing my own experiences with the milhist clique as comparable editorially to being set upon by a pack of wild dogs."

Blocked: [164] Sept 2

Second block: Sept 17, 2010

Comments: Talk:World War II and User talk:Habap

Blocked: [165]

Third block: Nov 15, 2010

Comments: edit summary [166] "reply to Dick-d"

Block: [167]

Georgewilliamherbert (talk) 06:12, 8 December 2010 (UTC)

Evidence presented by Xx236

Western betrayal

Communicat claims that the Western betrayal is based on Western sources. In reality the article presents Eastern European point of view and usses many Polish sources. The article opposes Western-Stalinist alliance propaganda, defended by Communicat. Xx236 (talk) 12:05, 16 December 2010 (UTC)

Mao Zedong, Guerrilla Warfare

It's Communist propaganda, not a source of knowledge.Xx236 (talk) 10:50, 22 December 2010 (UTC)

National Liberation Front (Greece)

National Liberation Front (Greece) was a Communist organization, one has to obtain acces to Russian archives to write its real history. A 1952 text (LS Stavrianos, "The Greek National Liberation Front (EAM): A Study in Resistance, Organisation and Administration", Journal of Modern History, March 1952.) isn't reliable.Xx236 (talk) 10:54, 22 December 2010 (UTC)

Alexander Werth, Russia at War 1941-1945

There are hundreds of recent books describing the real war. Werth's book isn't a source of knowledge.Xx236 (talk) 11:06, 22 December 2010 (UTC) Daniil Granin about the book - he knew what I didn't know [during the war], but he didn't know what we knew, or rather felt.Xx236 (talk) 11:14, 22 December 2010 (UTC)

Answer to Fifelfoo

Why did millions run away from Communist Europe to the "occupied by imperialists" Western one and almost noone preferred to move to Soviet Union and live as a common citizen, not a Nomenclatura lord like Kim Philby? The majority of Communists preferred imperialistic products, they visited the West to buy things unavailable for common people in their countries or to bring Western currency. Xx236 (talk) 11:20, 22 December 2010 (UTC)

Stan Winer

http://www.coldtype.net/Assets.04/Essays.04/IfTruthBeTold.pdf - Stan Winer claims that Poland was "liberated" by the Red Army. Poland was occupied 45 years by the Red Army and NKVD, who committed many mass crimes shortly after the war, eg. the Augustów chase 1945.Xx236 (talk) 11:30, 22 December 2010 (UTC)

Evidence presented by Hohum

Communicat is the problem

In Communicats evidence, he says "The dispute essentially concerns NPOV and content issues". While claiming bias across the MILHIST project, Communicat asserts that 356 references in the WWII article reflect a pro-Western/orthodox/conservative histiographic position. However, no diffs are presented of the unfair rejection of reliable references from "non-Western, Western revisionist, or significant-minority sources that deviate from the dominant Western historical narrative position". These would seem essential to support allegations that they have been "swiftly and aggressively reverted, rejected, disrupted and/or obstructed by the parties named".

I generally endorse the evidence of Habap, Edward 321, Nick-D, 67.117.130.143, Georgewilliamherbert and Kirill Lokshin, especially with regard to Communicat not reflecting what sources actually say, fringe sourcing and POV pushing - especially of Stan Winer's work, lack of civility and disruptive communication. I think ample diffs to support this have already been presented.

If Communicat feels there is systemic bias within WPMILHIST, I find it puzzling that he has never raised this on the WPMILHIST talk page or with its coordinators before seeking administrative action. Communicat has said that he was under the impression that *I* was the coordinator of the project. This seems odd since several actual coordinators were named in his previous actions.

My early interaction with Communicat was regarding his persistent attempts to include Stan Winer's book Between the lies, which consensus has consistently and soundly rejected as unreliable. His behaviour (evasion, obfuscation and diversion, with occasional abuse and accusations of conspiracy) stretched my ability to assume good faith from him, especially with regard to sourcing - I don't think I am alone in this view, and consequently his edits now tend to attract scrutiny. Although not all them prove to be misleading or badly sourced, so many have that it is unreasonable to trust him.

It is often difficult to get meaningful interaction with Communicat; he alternates between insisting that he understands wikipedia practices perfectly, and asking for understanding because he is a novice; he appears to often misunderstand what other editors are saying, and repeatedly conflates and spreads arguments from one talk page thread to another, severely confusing debate; he also ignores advice from experienced editors and uninvolved administrators.

Communicat has a long standing pattern of unreasonable behaviour which doesn't seem likely to end, whoever advises him. The few good edits he makes appear to be far outweighed by the disruption he causes. (Hohum ^@) 23:43, 16 December 2010 (UTC)

Response to Communicats evidence

Firsty, I am not an uninvolved party. I am clearly listed as one on the main case page.

Regarding his accusations of me trying to prevent the inclusion of Hastings: Perhaps the full diff of what I said would be more useful. My complaint was that the Hastings source simply didn't support the text - in fact he says the complete opposite to Communicat's text. Other sources used in his recent edits were rather old, and I mentioned that in a separate paragraph. (Hohum ^@) 11:47, 18 December 2010 (UTC)

Evidence presented by {your user name}

before using the last evidence template, please make a copy for the next person

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Place argument and diffs which support your assertion; for example, your first assertion might be "So-and-so engages in edit warring", which should be the title of this section. Here you would show specific edits to specific articles which show So-and-so engaging in edit warring.

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Place argument and diffs which support the second assertion; for example, your second assertion might be "So-and-so makes personal attacks", which should be the title of this section. Here you would show specific edits where So-and-so made personal attacks.