Wikipedia talk:Requests for arbitration/Armenia-Azerbaijan

message: I'm making this request as a third-party initiator that has become very involved in this dispute as an administrator only. Don't be fooled by the number of parties I've attached; I'm not going overboard, here are actually more tht could have been included. This is a very wide-ranging nationalist dispute with so many participants willfully engaging in blind edit warring, personal attacks, and sockpuppetry, that resolution has become impossible. Every party here has been blocked for edit warring, incivility, or some combination of the two. 
*The amount of articles that have had to be protected over this dispute is huge: Nagorno-Karabakh, Stepanakert, Tigranes the Great, Denial of the Armenian Genocide, Mammed Amin Rasulzade, Paytakaran, Caucasian Albania, Nakhichevan, Karki (Azerbaijan), Qazakh, Armenian Revolutionary Federation, March Days, Monte Melkonian (there may be more), and so this has become very disruptive to the community.
There can be no dispute resolution as long as the parties persist in WP:NOT#BATTLEGROUND mentalities, endlessly reverting. Additionally, no amount of encouraging them to seek out mediation has resulted in any attempts to resolve the dispute with peaceful means. In fact, the 10 parties listed have a combined total of 13 blocks from me alone in the last month. An injunction is needed as soon as possible, and I expect to see several paroles or bans as a result of arbitration, for the parties with no capacity for working with others. I suspect with so many parties, the nature of the dispute will become obvious when they all give their statements, but I'll expand if it isn't clear. Dmcdevit·t 10:22, 22 February 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  Statement by Dmcdevit 

message: I would like to respectfully disagree with some of what has been said with regard to the situation. Saying that no dispute resolution was tried is not entirely accurate, I personally initiated a dispute resolution with regard to one of the articles that are mentioned above, i.e. Paytakaran. Please see: Wikipedia:AMA_Requests_for_Assistance/Requests/January_2007/Grandmaster It is currently underway, please check Talk:Paytakaran. Also, I initiated or supported a couple of RfCs with regard to disputed issues.  
Unfortunately, they did not generate much response. I know that some of other above mentioned people, for instance Dacy69 also tried dispute resolution procedures. Also, the disputes were mediated by wiki admins, and I would like to specifically mention Francis Tyers, who made a tremendous contribution to resolution of disputes between the parties. I would like to add that for people not familiar with our region such intense disputes may seem strange, but one has to bear in mind that the two countries were engaged in a war that took thousands of lives, and therefore the people from our region take the issues with more passion than those who were not affected by such tragedies. I don’t think that banning the current group of editors will help resolve the situation, it means that all active users representing these two countries would be banned, and those who take their place would start everything all over again. If you check Armenia-Azerbaijan related internet forums, you’ll see what I mean. Instead, I would recommend that the wiki community should be more active in monitoring such heated disputes related to this particular topic and help parties to find middle ground. My negative experience with RfCs shows that no one is really interested in what is going on these articles and some admins see the only way of resolving the problems by blocking and banning active editors. Grandmaster 12:21, 22 February 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  Statement by Grandmaster 

message: If it isn't too presumptuous, I'd like to add that I have sucessfully, and unsuccessfully mediated cases involving these articles and users in the past (notably Khojaly massacre and Nagorno Karabakh). I would agree that arbitration would be a good step. - Francis Tyers · 10:57, 22 February 2007 (UTC)
thread_title: Statement by Francis Tyers

message: The case has become complicated, in part due to so many editors involved, and in part due to shortcomings of the legal and procedural rules governing such disputes. As the rules and spirit of Wikipedia clearly states, anything that is verifiable, from authoritative source(s), and has been presented and discussed on the appropriate Talk page, has the right to be featured in an article (in this case, for example, Tigranes the Great article . If someone has legitimate counter-arguments from authoritative sources, they too can go through the same procedure, present and discuss it on the Talk page, then either remove or most likely, modify/add their information to complement the other information. However, under no circumstances, should the properly cited, verifiable, truthful and properly presented and discussed information simply be constantly removed, sometimes without any explanation, and at other times, simple "because" someone just feels like it -- in contravening of all scholarly and historical sources. 
This is unfortunately what happened on this particular page (for editing of which I got blocked), and despite my edits being fully presented and discussed, and using a URL reference to Encyclopedia Iranica, provided by a third-party user on the Talk page, my edit were reverted by two editors (who later also got blocked), and neither the edits were re-instated by the administrators, nor have the participants of the article's edits been warned about unacceptability of removing discussed, verifiable and authoritative information. In addition to being blocked for reinstating 3 times in a row such crucial edits (and thus, admittedly, potentially breaking the 3RR rule, at least in its loose interpretation), I also received the block first (at least 10 minutes before the other editor), and received it for a significantly longer time (72 hours versus 48 for the other editor). In justification of the block, admin Dmcdevit claimed that I didn't discuss the changes -- which means he clearly overlooked the Talk page or otherwise didn't dwell into the issue at all, as I have been presenting pages of sources since last year. In fact, admin Dmcdevit makes the same statement in regards to other pages , such as Stepanakert and Mamed Emin Rasulzade, despite the fact that there are pages of sources presented by users like myself, whilst the other side often doesn't present anything. 
I'd like to also emphasize the following: I've been active on Wikipedia since early summer of last year, and never been blocked, despite editing the very same pages, with the very same editors involved. Often, the discussions would be heated, but nevertheless not result in blocks for anyone -- perhaps because several administrators, such as Khoikhoi, Golbez, etc., were actively participating in the discussions and thus dwelled into issues. However, in case of Dmcdevit, it is very different -- not only does he appear not to have done full research into the matter, but not having much of prior exposure to the Armenia-Azerbaijan issues, he jumped on the matter just recently, since about mid-January 2007.   
So then why did I, who has been on Wikipedia long enough and has done tons of writing on many Talk pages and many edits of articles, never been blocked until last week? And suddenly, in the course of a week, I am blocked twice by Dmcdevit, in both cases for 3 days? Why? How did I suddenly become an "edit-warrior" now? Perhaps it's not me, and other editors, who have suddenly all become offenders, but a hasty decision was made?
Additionally, Dmcdevit made a coment in our private e-mail exchange (in which, I naturally appealed to him to take another, deeper, look, and unblock me) that is troublesome and threatening: "You're just going to have to sit it out. And if you're more combative afterwards, you're going to be sitting it out much more in the future." (date  Feb 20, 2007 10:14 PM)
I hope Dmcdevit understands that this is not about him or me or anyone else in particular, but about the quality of the articles, which are underserved when radical decisions on blocking active editors is made in haste. Things get heated sometimes, but that doesn't mean we should all be trigger-happy. I look forward to working with Dominic in the future, but hopefully, he will use his blocking privileges only as a last resort, and instead, warn those who violate the rules and spirit of this encyclopedia and remove properly discussed and sourced verifiable facts. 
Also, in my exchange of opinions with Khoikhoi, I've suggested to place a permanent semi-protection on all Azerbaijani and Armenian pages, to forever prevent IP vandals and socks from reverting and vandalizing pages -- it would help enormously, I think. --AdilBaguirov 18:44, 22 February 2007 (UTC)
thread_title: Statement by AdilBaguirov

message: I am glad to see that Dmcdevit-t has taken the initiative of pursuing this problem through a dispute resolution. Though some of the blocks, whether by Dmcdevit-t or else seem to be applied rather in arbitrary or summarizing manner, it's quite understandable that administrators cannot always concentrate on a particular edit conflict on such a broad scale and cannot always be even handed.
I likewise think that both sides shall be encouraged to discuss their differences on Talk page prior to making any edits. This is effectively done by myself at Talk:March Days, Talk:Qazakh, Talk:Safavid dynasty, Talk:Musavat,Talk:Armenian Revolutionary Federation and Talk:Azerbaijan Democratic Republic. I have had encountered problems trying to invite other users to do so:
::1. On March Days page, User:Aivazovsky has completely removed the entire content of the site and refused to contribute to Talk:March Days. Please, note, that this was the same content which was mediated between User:Tengri and User:Nareklm/Artaxiad, with participation of third party User:Srose.  My request to provide comment and discuss the removal of several paragraphs of well referenced and balanaced material was left unanswered by User:Aivazovsky. The removal was further supported by User:Artaxiad, who earlier agreed to the same mediated version, ignoring an appeal by User:Srose regarding March Days content [].
::2. On Qazakh page User:Aivazovsky has published material which lacks any scholarly basis and persistently referenced a blogger, claiming him to be a Canadian scholar, and PhD. Yet he was unable to provide a single reference to journal, book or conference publication of the named reference "scholar". Sufficient evidence was presented on Talk:Qazakh by myself and several other users, yet User:Aivazovsky not only persistently disagreed, but also did not provide any strong argument thus bringing to deadlock. 
::3. On Azerbaijan Democratic Republic,Azerbaijan pages, User:Azerbaijani has been persistently edit warring, replacing scholarly publication references with links to freelance websites or fragments of POV opinions. He was often joined in revert wars by User:Mardavich and User:Nareklm in a coordinated fashion on this and several other pages. All three users again refused to discuss their edits on Talk:Azerbaijan Democratic Republic and Talk:Azerbaijan.
::4. User:Nareklm, who was caught with a sock recently changed his username to Artaxiad, however, if we look here [], we can see that User:Nareklm has used Artaxiad sock before switching, along with Nareklm username. He also had another sock called HayasaArmen.
This is while on all pages, I edited, I participated extensively in talk pages, often attacked and accused baselessly of puppetry. It's difficult to blame either Armenians or Azeris in this case, and it's immaterial who does the first revert. Actually in many times, Persian editors arbitrarily join/coordinate with the Armenian side and vice versa, but all of this is a content detail. It shall be understood, that both Armenian and Azeri people have suffered a long and bloody conflict taking thousands of lives, and with thousands of refugees on one of the sides still continuing to suffer in refugee camps. As long as this conflict is not resolved in reality, the effect of emotions on activity of a particular editor associated with either side is difficult to avoid. But arbitrary blockage, such as that applied by Dmcdevit, will not solve this problem either. Arbitrary blockage of one or the other side's contributors gives more leverage to other warriors to gain or do further reverts often expressing a gratitude to administrator for blocking "the enemy". This is the case in particular with Safavid Dynasty and March Days pages and only embitters the conflicting sides. It shall be kept in mind, that some of the editors mentioned above on either side are also valuable contributors to Wikipedia in any case, and indefinite and deliberate blockage of those will not establish peace, there will be always other new users, who may be even less qualified, joining from both ranks and having the same conflicts. 
Suggestions:
1. I think the first and foremost step to solve this conflict in Wikipedia is to have an independent administrator or an arbiter who is knowledgable in contents of the disputed articles. Administrator Dmcdevit has openly stated in private correspondence that he does not claim to be "any more qualified to address the content concerns than the parties" and that the "area is not his area of expertise" (February 21, 16:43). But that's the root of the problem, that if the administrator is unfamiliar with content dispute (which is a source of the conflict), it's difficult for him/her to come up with a fair judgement instead of blocking. Administrator Khoikhoi has demonstrated some of this knowledge. But in any case, whoever that one chosen administrator is, he or she shall be the judge independent of yet agreed by both parties as more or less of a balanced expert. Both parties should have sufficient trust and ability to rely on this administrator in any administrative concern.
2. Both contributors and administrators shall stick tightly to the Wikipedia 3RR rule, which has been recently violated very often. It's important for the administrator, who is a subject matter expert, to carefully review every request and make a fair and balanced judgement.
3. Both sides should establish a committee of even number of people, with equal representation from both sides. This committee of balanced experts will be consulted with for any kind edit by other users and shall support/coordinate with the actions of the appointed independent administrator. This shall be done on any of the national or ethnic-based editing conflicts. 
Thanks and I hope we will be able to achieve a fair and just resolution as well as permanent peace. Atabek 19:53, 22 February 2007 (UTC)
thread_title: Statement by Atabek

message: If the Arbcom decide to hear this cases and this RfAr is accepted, the evidences I will be providing will be concentrated on user:AdilBaguirov, user:Dacy69 and user:Atabek disruption. I will be documenting that Dacy69 and Atabek are acting as meat puppets. I also request all the members involved here to be checkused, and I want to include also user:Tabib. 
A little historic of the situation, so that the committee understand my position.
user:AdilBaguirov for a great amount of time has left Wikipedia. He left Wikipedia, with his last edit on July 25, 2006. After months out of Wikipedia he came back on December 10 of the same year. One day after user:Dacy69 has registered and first edited Wikipedia, which was on December 9. Adil first contribution after his long vacation was on the Urartu article  which was basically reverts and supports of user:Dacy69 edits (done the same day, a day after he registered) on the same article. Also the same day user:Dacy69 had edited Armenia article , and the same day user:AdilBaguirov has edited the Armenia page in support of Dacy69 . Basically, Dacy69 registers an account, a day later makes edits, when he is reverted he has been backed by Adil who for months hasn’t edited Wikipedia comes in support of him. 
This doesn’t stop here; there are evidences of cohesion between members. user:Tabib after over two months of absence made his first edit on the Match Days article . Reverted, 9 days later a new member has registered, user:Tengri, prepared, has started extending the March Days article with controversial materials as documentations to the previous user:Tabib edit, without any discussions. ,  ,  and so on. And has been later found that user:Tengri was a sock of user:Atabek  who registered on January 21, 2007, about 4 days after Tabib has reappeared.
More evidences of cohesion could be found on the Request for deletion of the Ottoman Muslim casualties of World War I. As far as I could remember, Azeri editors have never been involved on that article. First Grandmaster vote, a little more than 2 hours later user:Ulvi I. another Azeri member vote, just 6 minutes after user:AdilBaguirov vote, less than an hour later Dacy69, user:Tabib less than a day later vote.  There is nothing wrong in voting, my evidence here is regarding the cohesion between members.
Also, what is suspicious is that user:Tabib who was the most active Azeri user in the past, and who does seem to follow what is happening here on Wikipedia has refrained himself on the last 2 edits on voting only.   
Another evidence of cohesion can be found on the deletion of Genocide deniers’ category. Again, the point is not about them having voted, but the fact that they will be voting in Armenian related articles which they weren’t even ever related in, and the time frame in which those votes were submitted. About two hours after user:Grandmaster has voted user:Dacy69 has voted under his IP address 66.46.197.50, less than 2 hours later user:Atabek, and less than half hour later user:AdilBaguirov. 
In some instance cohesion has not only shown an organization in the action of various users, but also in attempting to reverse a legitimate request for deletion which would even qualify as a speedy delete. The cases I want to present is the one on Albanian-Udi which was submitted for deletion. user:Dacy69 and the rest of the members involved have opposed to the deletion of this article, even if there is already an article on Udi people and that the entirety of the article was coming from another Wikipedia article. It was deleted even though no consensus was achieved by the administrator, because it was an obvious delete material. 
Not to say, that user:AdilBaguirov has broken a hard reached consensus after months of negotiations, between members and two administrators on the Nagorno Karabakh article, as a result the article was locked two consecutive times and probably had user:AdilBaguirov not been blocked it would have been locked again. 
With those repeated cohesions and mass ganging, and being exhausted I have answered with rude comments, but have on the other hand not revert warred. But all the members with whom I have been rude have disrespected Wikipedia, disrespected various members and have engaged in disruptive actions. I won’t justify my rude comments, at times very rude comments and am ready to pay the price. On the other hand, I will maintain that being rude has given more positive result than any attempted way. 
What I present in the above is just few examples of various other instances. Before concluding, I will make a last comment on what has been happening on the Armenian Revolutionary Federation article. user:Dacy69 actions there were against a general consensus on the uses of the term “terrorist” and “terrorism” in a wide range of articles such as the article about PKK. user:Dacy69 and the meat puppets have made various edits on various Armenian related articles, always in one direction, always negative materials, with dubious wording and without further discussion. Had they been done in good faith, we could have expected those same members working on Azeri related articles which are much more biased. For instance, there is no reference to Heydar Aliev article about his mafia and the organized crime in which he was involved in. In short, when user:AdilBaguirov came back after his vacation, he has brought with him other members who would go on meat puppeting and vilifying Armenian related articles, this is what brought all the edit warrings, there was some relative peace before that. user:Parishan, he isn’t involved, user:Grandmaster isn’t more than the Armenian members involved, but definitely user:Atabek, who by now I am starting to suspect being user:Tabib. user:Dacy69 and user:AdilBaguirov have done not much good here, they have in their account various articles which they were able to successfully lock. user:Artaxiad uses of a sock haven’t helped either, neither his request to change his name on the middle of a conflict. (ix) 03:33, 23 February 2007 (UTC)
thread_title: Statement by Fadix

message: I have no relation to this series of editing conflicts and saw this accidentally by scanning though an AtrbCom page which I normally avoid. I think accepting this case is a road to nowhere not because there is no Arbitrable behavior but because this is all too complex and there are so many parties involved that it is impossible to sort this out through an ArbCom decision. The whole case is basically a statement that says "Oh, this is a huge mess which does not seem to be solving itself! Let's throw this into an ArbCom grinding mill and see how it goes". Trouble is that this is the wrong kind of approach and the case will keep arbcom bogged down for months, turn the workshop and evidence pages into a mess where the content debates from articles' talk pages will move  and no possible working remedies may be given except "hang them all", which I doubt would help the project since most involved editors contribute in good faith. 
Yes, some POV conflicts are hard to solve and the only way is to wait, invite more participants and if this does not help, repeat the cycle. Some POV conflicts are irreconcilable and it is not the business of ArbCom to reconcile them. With time and gradually increased inflow of users even Israeli-Palestinian Conflict, Soviet-Polish War and 2006 Georgian-Russian espionage controversy were all ridden of POV tags. Same here, we just have to wait and let the process rather than ArbCom work its way. If there are clearly disruptive users, this would be ArbCom's purview, but none of the statements above makes it clear that this is really the case. Some very complex  content disputes become huge due to, what I would call, irreconcilable worldviews. They still remain content disputes. Mediation, third, fith, twentieth opinion and lots of talking is the way to go combined with elimination of truly disruptive editors if there are any. This case presented thus far does not demonstrate the latter and most truly disruptive users can be eliminated by the community blocks these days anyway.
To summarize, if no one knows what to do, let the time and normal development sort it out rather than ArbCom. --Irpen 07:48, 23 February 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  Statement by uninvolved user:Irpen 

message: I am second to Irpen. There was a war there: tens of thousands displaced, thousands killed. I think every editor has a relative strongly affected by the war. The underlying ethnic conflict lasted centuries, there are historic narratives from the both sides. It is unrealistic to expect that there will be no editorial conflicts there. I do not think any arbcom decision would solve the problem. We can ban a couple of the most trouble-making editors from each side, but I am not sure there are clear candidates. On the other hand banning all prominent editors from a side would 
make the articles hopelessly biased and banning both sides would completely arrest the development.
I do not see any other solutions other then to bite the bullet and let the painfully slow process of negotiations begin. The editors will edit and look for sources, admins will enforce 3RR, CIV, NOR, NPOV and all our famous policies, neutral people will try to mediate and propose compromise solution. Everything of this sort is on the article-by-articles basis. It is painfully slow but it usually works, repressions do not. Alex Bakharev 10:24, 23 February 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  Statement by uninvolved [[User:Alex Bakharev|Alex Bakharev]] 

message: I would like to second the statement that user:Dacy69, user:Atabek and user:AdilBaguirov have been meatpuppeting. I would like to mention that there had been relative peace before the new year but since the return/membership of some users, the tensions have escalated, notably during the recent FAC of the article Nagorno-Karabakh war (which has been listed as FA now). User:Dacy69, user:Atabek and user:AdilBaguirov's negative editing has disrupted numerous Armenian related articles, from the 3000 year old Urartu to the Armenian Revolutionary Federation article which I have been working on with relative peace for a few months now. I have also asked for a peer review and 3rd person NPOV advice which has been responded to, but before I could work on it some more, the entire article became locked because of one sentence on Nagorno-Karabakh (which can now be taken care of) and constant attempts by user:Dacy69 and user:Atabek to add various statements about terrorism, not to mention user:AdilBaguirov who at one point participated in the revert war and tried to ignite a huge flame between Armenians and Azeris by saying the following during a revert: (actually Karabakh is an irrelevant topic on ARF page, it's a disputed territory, and there are several pages devoted to it.)  I see this statement as an attempt to completely enrage both sides and show to what extent this user will go to disrupt. user:Dacy69 also once tried to link Osama Bin Laden to Armenia which is a ridiculous attempt to vilify the Armenians . It is hard to work and keep your cool knowing that Armenia and Azerbaijan went through a war just a few years ago. It is frustrating when comments by user:AdilBaguirov that generalize all Armenians as Turkic hating people are used as a possible attempt to ignite tensions between Turks and Armenians, which is already emotional due to the Armenian Genocide. . - Fedayee 00:19, 24 February 2007 (UTC)
thread_title: Statement by Fedayee

message: I haven't read all the statements listed here, but there are a few things that I wish to write about regarding the Armenian-Azeri dispute on Wikipedia.  First, I am frustrated with the lack of attention that our problems get with Wikipedia administrators.  Only a few admins have shown a willingness to become involved and help us.  I don't believe that blocking most of the Armenian and Azeri users involved in this really helped anything.  Second, although I can discuss issues with Azeri users such as User:Grandmaster and come to eventual compromises, I find it difficult to deal with User:Dacy69, User:Atabek and especially User:AdilBaguirov.  All of these users do not wish to compromise unless all of their contributions are accepted, whether POV or not.  They attempt to achieve this by tactics such as intimidation and pressuring other users to accept their points of view.
Like others have pointed out earlier, there was relative peace until the arrival (or rearrival) of these users.  It seems that most conveniently began contributing after the Hrant Dink ordeal had settled.  Seeing that, for once, Armenian and Turkish editors were beginning to have reasonably good relations, they decided to cause problems for us.  They began making disruptive edits and revisions to several Armenian articles and attacked articles such as Nakhichevan where a delicate Armenian-Azeri compromise was in place.  Since their arrival, tensions have escalated to the greatest height since the failure of the Rambouillet talks on Karabakh.  Aside from causing these disruptions though, it became apparent that part of their goal was to re-ignite Turkish-Armenian tensions.  This was could be seen when they generalized us as expansionist (claiming that Armenia had claims to Turkey and Georgia) and as Turkic-hating people.
My frustration with these three users and the lack of action by administrators against them nearly led me to leave Wikipedia earlier this week. -- Aivazovsky 00:54, 24 February 2007 (UTC)
thread_title: Statement by Aivazovsky

message: User:Grandmaster has added me to list of parties, but I don't believe I am involved enough in the Armenia-Azerbaijan dispute to be a party to this ArbCom. I am an Azerbaijani myself, but I only made a handful of edits to a couple of Armenia-Azerbaijan-related pages against my own ethnic POV. Contrary to the claims of User:Grandmaster in his statement, I did contribute to the talk pages of the couple of Armenia-Azerbaijan-related pages I edited , and my edits were fully explained and compatible with Wikipedia policies such as WP:NPA  and WP:NPOV . --Mardavich 03:15, 24 February 2007 (UTC)
thread_title: Statement by Mardavich

message: Just for the record, first of all I want to say to User:Grandmaster that I was never warned by any admin in my talk page. Now getting to the main point, this edit war started a few weeks ago, but before it was peaceful and there were some understanding between different users on Armenian-Azerbaijani articles. This peace lasted until this two users came along User:Atabek and User:AdilBaguirov who kept adding their nationalist theories on many articles realting to Armenia and Azerbaijan. It is very difficult to deal with this two users User:Atabek and User:AdilBaguirov since they don't accpet anything that does not match with their views. Although there were some conflicts with User:Grandmaster, but eventually we were able to come a compromise because unlike User:Atabek and User:AdilBaguirov, it was easy to get involved in a discussions with Grandmaster. Those two users sometimes tried to force their views with telling lies that their version is "discussed version with compromise wording reverting it is not the option" , but if you look at the discussion page, there was still no compormoise. They try to achive their goals by pressuring other users to accept their points of view. Also User:AdilBaguirov in this page  violated the 3RR and accusing me of vandalising the page, just because his views did not match with the vies of mine and I was only reverting to an older version which was there before until a comprimise could be made. Unless this two users stop ignoring everything that an Armenian users add or say and only adding their nationalist theories, it will continue and reach nowehre. ROOB323 09:41, 24 February 2007 (UTC)
thread_title: Statement by ROOB323

message: I have been contributing to Wikipedia for almost a year now, mostly editing underdeveloped Armenians articles or wikifying them... However, being an Armenian, I have also been involved in "heated" articles that are now currently in Armenian-Azeri Arbcom... Naturally, you would think I would take sides (and I don't pretend not to), but I have made a truely sincere attempt at remaining neutral ever since I'm on wikipedia, and this can be proven by the fact that I have only participated in discussions on the talk pages of these articles and never engaged in revert wars or editing conflicts (until today that is, I'll explain myself below). I am proud to say that I have collaborated with editors of conflicting POVs and have always tried to arrive at a consensus, for the sake of moving forward...
However, I have recently been dragged in to this Armenian-Azeri ArbCom by Golbez & GM because I don't share their extremely pro-Azeri POV: In fact, I have participated in the discussions about the intro of the Nagorno Karabakh article and helped come up with a consensus version which both GM & Golbez have agreed to, but Golbez (an hardline Azeri POV-pushing admin) recently changed the intro and he refuses to explain himself on the talk page, despite my numerous posts asking for explanations  . Not receiving any explanations, and after many fruitless attempts at getting other Admins to help, I have therefore been forced to actively revert these changes (something which I have never done before, as I explained above) and reestablish the previously agreed-upon consensus version to avoid further edit-wars until they both explain their actions and discuss their proposes changes, and we all come to an agreement. Isn't it logical for me to revert to consensus versions of the intro unless Golbez & GM make their point on the talk pages (which they refuse to do, probably because of a lack of valid arguments)... I understand how this can be perceived as edit warring, but I have fully justified my claims    . so you must understand that I am becoming frustrated at their consistent reverting and have no choice but to resort to reverting myself. Now I don't claim that I myself have not acted aggressively in the process, but that is not my nature and I do not wish to justify such actions. However, both Golbez & GM represent my latest series of edits as "unjustified reverts" when in fact I have fully justified both my series of edits of the intro  and that of the census table  , yet it is they that refuse to explain why they are reverting to non-consensus versions of both. I must remind you that the intro for the NK article was discussed about for months    and it was very hard to form a consensus because the Azeri-POV pushers were simply not willing to accept anything, yet even after the Armenians made many concessions and the version was approved, they still try to get away with more, which clearly shows their bad faith... 
Anyhow, I believe they are just using Fred Bauder's blanket approval  to add others to the Armenian-Azeri Arbcom to effectively silence and get rid of people who don't share their POV... In fact, it was  wrong to put my name on the list in the first place since I had made only 2 edits on the NK article since August 2006, and that barely qualifies as "aggressively editing", and that's the argument I made when I removed myself , although I now realize I should have left that to the Arbitrators discretion... However, my argument was never refuted, which proves my point. Also, to respond to their allegations about my absence: I was relatively inactive in the NK article between August and January since the consensus version of the intro was in place and I therefore had nothing to discuss about and was content with the content (pun intended)... However, that doesn't change the fact that I was brought into this through false accusations...Furthermore, I clearly stated that I would abide by the 1RR in good faith , yet that hasn't even been acknowledged and is being used against me . Also, Golbez has used his admin authority to ban me and therefore stop me from posting on talk pages and explaining myself on the ArbCom pages despite my peaceful behavior. In fact, there has been a whole discussion about me where I am presented as an "agitator" and I can't even defend myself because I am banned from editing. You have to realize that I'm at a point of exasperation here, and
>>  being educated enough to resort to peaceful means [http://e!
>> n.wikipe
>>dia.org/w/index.php?title=Wikipedia:Requests_for_arbitration/Armenia-Azerbaijan/Workshop&diff=117349020&oldid=117237906] , I am lately having doubts about whether my pacific methods are truly the way to combat their guerrilla tactics... Your proposal to add any party to the list is being aggressively abused by Golbez, and he even managed to get his own name off the list despite his clear activity on many Azeri-Armenian conflict articles ... I am happy that the abuse has been put to an end by the temporary ban on adding names to the list , but I believe that if I am a party to the ArbCom, then Golbez should be as well (he has been editing a lot more Armenian-Azeri conflict articles than I have and is clearly more of an "aggressive editor" than I am). if he is not made a party, then it is unethical to list me as a party as well...
As you can see, I am really worried about my treatment on Wikipedia, and I seriously fear that unless Arbitrators do something to allow Armenians to get proper representations on articles about their lands and their ancestors, and massive editing war is unavoidable.
I know this was a long message, but I urge you to look at my claims and help at establishing order on the NK page... I hold that article close to my heart and I am deeply saddened by the repeated attempts by Azeri POV-pushers at completely eliminating any Armenian representation in the article when they themselves have no claim to suck (Nagorno Karabakh has neither ever been majoritarily inhabited by Azeris, or administratively under their jurisdiction, yet the intro makes it seams that the NK had been theirs all along and Armenians don't belong there...).
I have been a peaceful contributor here on Wikipedia: I always post and discuss proposed changes on the talk page beforehand, I am very reasonable & logical in my argumentation, I respect wiki rules like NPOV, 3RR, etc, but I still get trampled upon without explanation and I my pleas are being totally ignored by Arbitrators & Admins. In fact, I'm the one getting banned & blocked... This is absurd... Banning and blocking won't solve the problem, it will just aggravate it. I hope you really understand this, and I would appreciate all the efforts you can make to get these hardliner Azeri-POV pushers to stop distorting information...HyeProfile 16:05, 30 March 2007 (UTC)
thread_title: Statement by [[user:HyeProfile]]

message: Grandmaster claims that I have been involved in the Armenia-Azerbaijan conflict here on Wikipedia, however, my contributions show that I have stayed out of this whole dispute and have only edited Iran related articles. Grandmaster only brings up two articles as proof that I was involved in the conflict, yet both of those articles are Iran related as well and I had only made one edit on each. I do not know what this is all about, I did not want to get involved, and I made sure to stay out of it. I do not belong on this arbcom as I have not been involved in the dispute between the Armenians and Azerbaijani's. I have made sure to be involved in Iran related articles only, and not get myself into this whole dispute between the Armenians and Azerbaijani's. I do not belong on this arbcom. Thanks.Azerbaijani 16:22, 24 February 2007 (UTC)
thread_title: Statement by Azerbaijani

message: As some others here have stated, I've done my own bit of mediating the conflict, though on only a small handful of Nagorno-Karabakh-related articled (and once on Nakhichevan, which was not a grand success). I think that the existence of many of the statements above speak greatly for the need for arbitration, you can see all of the arguing going on. This is not simply an Armenian-Azerbaijan thing, there is a gross abuse of Wikipedia rules and privileges going on here. However, I am not really able to say *who*, apart from Adil whom I had some strong fights with. I usually just see the POV pushing and remove it; I try not to pay attention as to *whom* was doing the pushing, or necessarily what was being pushed. After working on the article for lo these many months, I can sniff POV pushing pretty much the moment an edit is made. I'm not entirely sure what is going to be arbitrated, but it does seem like arbitration is necessary. Perhaps the case should be shaved down to one or two individuals, otherwise the evidence page will be overwhelming. Then again, maybe this form of "class action" is just what is needed.
I do not envy the arbitrators on this one. Good luck. --Golbez 16:56, 24 February 2007 (UTC)
thread_title: Outside statement by Golbez

message: Articles involoving national disputes (both current, and lingering) generate a disproportionate share of heated editing on Wikipedia. Editors who are attached to one side of the real-life dispute often edit those same articles. Members of an ethnic group, nationality, or even a -- WikiProject -- edit based on similar interests and outlooks in understandably similar ways - there are no meat puppets here. There is little genuine collaboration across lines; rather each side marshalls sources, challenges the other side's sources, attempts to trick the other side into violating one or another Wiki policy... AGF is replaced nearly universally by "Don't publically display an assumption of bad faith." All the same, the talk pages and edit summaries show nothing but (thinly veiled) assumptions of bad faith. The articles represent far less NPOV than a compromise between warring parties. Instead of reliable sources we often have sources(?), but lots of them. The most successful groups have larger numbers of editors, have more editors who engage outside their individual Projects, have more editors with native English skills, and are cleverer about finding obscure sources, cleverer about staying "within the lines" of Wiki policies.
The articles produced, they do not lean all one way or all the other. With opposing groups pushing back against each other, they end up somewhere in the middle, though never perfectly so. And the process that gets them there is more rough and tumble than in most of Wikipedia. This is Wikipedia:Wild West. This is Wikipedia:Chinatown.
ArbCom, by all rights should get involved in each of these as they flare out of control. But at the core of each dispute, even when behavior crosses lines that might not be tolerated elsewhere, are deeply committed and deeply dug in editors. These are content disputes with bad behavior, but the core is content. What will ArbCom do, other than admonish the editors to be nice? The Occupation of Latvia Arbitration is almost done. Will it have accomplished something worthwhile? And should you one day come down hard on one side (in this, that, or another nationalist dispute), the other side, unchecked, will proceed to write awful POV articles.
If one or two editors are out of control, then ArbCom should step in. But in these cases, in brawls? The question should not be whether the case meets your standards to accept. It should be: "Will ArbCom taking this case benefit the community?" But in order to ask that question, in order to consider passing on this RfArb, you'd need to concede looser rules on national conflict articles, which you may be loathe to do. ArbCom may be stuck with this one. It shouldn't have to be. Jd2718 04:21, 25 February 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  Statement by uninvolved editor [[user:jd2718]] 

message: First of all, I agree with previous statements by arbitrator-User:Kirill Lokshin and user:jd2718's statements.  When I saw this listed on the Signpost, I was not in the least bit surprised --but at the same time I do not pity anyone who has to sort through it because I honestly believe that virtually any decision on areas of substance (as opposed to pure procedure) is going to be inherently flawed and biased no matter what the good intention.  I don't think a bona fide, NPOV third-person work of substance has been created yet on many issues related to the ongoing conflict between these two groups (frankly that's a statement/indictment of international ignorance, but that's another story...); even news articles in respected sources walk a thin line between the subjects (particularly issues related to the last 50 years).  I think most editors who try to come in with a purely neutral opinion are quickly biased by personality conflicts with one side or another, further disintegrating any chance of unearthing useful information.  I fear that inherently, any decision made here is going to somehow taken to legitimize/galvanize the side that was (likely to be) the least punished.  I honestly don't think any solution here will do more than merely bandage a much larger problem, and I am frustrated with myself for not having a better suggestion (maybe it's like Winston Churchill's famous quote: "It has been said that democracy is the worst form of government except all the others that have been tried.").  As a user (American-Persian) who has tried to stay out of this, I've still read through some of the messy disputes involved; maybe longterm semi-protection would at least focus some of these articles on more discussion oriented members (there are numerous flaws with that, I realize).  If I could make magic happen, I would restrict editing of all those articles to people from a completely separate area (i.e. Wikipedians from Uganda or somewhere unrelated) to sort out and try and obtain a balance of views.  Anyway, good luck sorting this out; just don't expect lasting, useful or meaningful success. --Bobak 17:06, 6 March 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  Statement by uninvolved editor [[user:Bobak]] 

message: I have protected the main page to prevent the addition of further parties.  Fred's original comment about the list of parties being incomplete and that more parties could be added applied to the edit warring that is the reason for this case.  New editors and editors with very few edits over the last few months are, by the very nature of their contributions, not involved in the edit war that brought this case, no matter what their politics or point of view.  Editors who have not previously edit warred (either because of their innate temperment or because they have been mostly inactive) are very unlikely to be sanctioned at this point.  The injunction is meant to stop further edit warring; it is not meant to chain every editor with an interest in this topic.
Since the proposed decision is in the voting phase, no additional parties will be added to the case except by an arbitrator.  No additional editors will be placed under the 1RR injunction.  Once the case is closed all editing restrictions will be lifted except for bans and paroles voted on by ArbCom, and it is not reasonable to put someone on parole for a week or so when they havn't previously been disruptive and likely won't be sanctioned.  If you believe that someone is a sockpuppet of an existing editor, open an investigation at suspected sock puppets or Requests for checkuser.  Verified sockpuppets will be blocked and do not need to be added to the case.  
Editors who are banned as a result of this case will no longer be entitled to any say in how the article is edited.  Editors who are placed on a 1 revert per week parole will have to follow the dispute resolution dispute resolution process in dealing with new editors who are interested in these topics.  This generally means a request for comment, followed by mediation, with arbitration as a last resort.  It is certainly possible that a second case will be required at some point if the remaining editors can't edit without being disruptive, but there is no basis for adding further editors with no prior history of disruptive editing. Thatcher131 14:26, 28 March 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: OK, but users such as MarshallBagramyan and Davo88 have been involved for a long time and placed on the list some time ago. Indeed, MarshallBagramyan first commented on this page over a month ago. I presented evidence of their respective aggressive editing, this is especially true of Marshall, who has been active on all of the same pages as myself and others involved since at least last year. User Pulu-Pughi, like Zurbagan before him, is clearly a sock, and it would have gotten confirmed soon had the CheckUser been performed. Meanwhile, Hakob and HyeProfile have just become active after a prolonged absence, and act, at the very least, as meatpuppets, but possibly socks. If we are not to make them party of ArbCom, then what prevents such users as Artaxiad, who recently decided to "leave" Wikipedia, not to come back under a new nick? After all, he has a rich experience in creating socks and anons like user:Mikara, and there is a string of unexplained other socks of user Robert599.
But returning to Davo88 and MarshallBagramyan, who have clearly been active, aggressive and disruptive:
*Sumgait Pogrom (Talk page ) Current revision (17:48, March 22, 2007) , 
*Battle of Kelbajar (Talk page ) Current revision (17:46, March 22, 2007) 
*Capture of Shusha (Talk page ) Current revision (17:45, March 22, 2007) .
*March Days, 00:46, April 3, 2007
*March Days, 21:19, April 2, 2007
*Operation Ring, 19:14, April 2, 2007
*15:20, March 28, 2007
*12:43, March 27, 2007
*12:44, March 25, 2007
*Orontid Dynasty, 01:27, March 29, 2007
Davo88
*Tigranes the Great, 18:37, April 2, 2007
*07:46, March 28, 2007
*08:34, March 27, 2007
*10:17, March 25, 2007
*19:23, March 1, 2007
*23:02, February 27, 2007
At the very least, these users should be restricted to 1RR per day per article, and be warned that they could be added to a new ArbCom if they persist. --adil 06:14, 3 April 2007 (UTC)

text: Yeah I have a real rich history of creating socks only ONE. Your friend Atabek has created socks, Tengri. Oh wait what is this? you evading your blocks?   , thats what I thought. All you do is constantly harass users this is why we are even here. Artaxiad 02:21, 5 April 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  No more late additions without prior approval 

message: Can't close case with the page being protected (this helper isn't an admin) - Penwhale | Blast him / Follow his steps 00:16, 11 April 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: Unprotected to allow the clerk assistant to close the case and because the protection rationale is moot. Proceed accordingly. Newyorkbrad 00:21, 11 April 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  Closure? 

message: An editor, possibly Atabek, is using these sock puppets (User:Zipirtich, User:Earthdream, User:Drastamat) to create edit wars on articles pertaining to Armenia. Compare edit made by Atabek with edits made by User:Zipirtich, User:Earthdream, and User:Drastamat. -- Augustgrahl 00:26, 16 May 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: I've blocked them all, but I suppose it'd be nice to run a checkuser to confirm. Also, User:Shantinorashkar. --Golbez 04:13, 16 May 2007 (UTC)
thread_title: Sockpuppetry

message: :Original discussion
Initiated by  Ebrahimi-amir (talk) at 19:28, 14 April 2013 (UTC)
replies: text: This area is used for notes by the clerks (including clerk recusals).
=== Arbitrator views and discussion ===
*There is a history of concern over Ebrahimi-amir's maps, and also of his tendency to edit war. He has been warned, and blocked, and warned, etc. He knows his maps are controversial and disputed. And he has been specifically warned to discuss making edits that are known to be controversial and disputed. He has also agreed not to edit war. Despite this, he reinstated one of his controversial maps after it had been removed from an article. He did not discuss this first. He only entered into discussion when the matter became a slow moving edit war, with him as part of it. Because Ebrahimi-amir was edit warring; because he was making a controversial edit that is clearly disputed without first discussing it and getting consensus; and because he was not abiding by his own unblocking agreement not to edit war, I feel a topic ban is appropriate. It is not the place of the Committee to discuss if Ebrahimi-amir's maps are appropriate, but while they are disputed, I feel it would be unwise to use them in sensitive articles without first having a discussion and getting consensus. Forcing them in by edit warring, and talking about it afterwards is not doing the right thing. Decline. SilkTork ✔Tea time 23:34, 15 April 2013 (UTC)
thread_title:  Request for clarification (April 2013) - Ebrahimi-amir ban appeal 

message: The complaint was in two editions:
*The first edition of 7 April 2013. You can read discussions about it in here and here.
*The second edition of one year ago (29 April 2012). You can read discussions about it in here.
 
I've also participated in the discussion earlier in this article    and other articles.
"Wikipedia is written from a neutral point of view", it's one of the "Five pillars". I'm involved in discussions and respect to consensus. If it was a mistake I will try to fix. I think my participation in article is helpful  than ban it. Article should be written based on reliable sources and neutrality. I think my contribution can help it. Obviously I'll be away from the editing war and respect the consensus.--Ebrahimi-amir (talk) 19:29, 14 April 2013 (UTC)
thread_title:  Statement by Ebrahimi-amir 

message: I concur with Sandstein.  The user reverted to a map that he had created in wiki commons (amongst other baseless nationalist maps) and had erased all Armenians in Karabagh and much incorrect information, and none of his sources supported such a map.  Also any possible changes in previous behavior is seen after I filed the AE request and even then, the user was defending tendentious editing .  So even if the user has had some good suggestions or edits, it does not rule out his bad edits and nationalist POV pushing.  Also outside of this English Wikipedia, he was pushing viewpoint of the Medes being Turks in Turkish Wikipedia using fringe nationalist sources.  I believe the user seriously needs to read WP:fringe, WP:RS, WP:WEIGHT, WP:NPOV, WP:OR, and WP:synthesis.  Please note this ridiculous map .  The fact of the matter is that Ethnologue has no such map!  Also furthermore, the latest version of Ethnologue (which is what the user should be using)  has 15 million Azeris (and 45.5 million Persians)  and the previous version of ethnologue (2008/2009) had 11 million Azeris.   He ignores the two latest and updated versions of ethnologue.  What is important is that ethnologue has no map.  So he has no source for drawing such a map (justifies it by out-dated source that lacks any map) and attributes false information to them and then puts it in different Wikipedias.  These are just a few example where the user pushes nationalist POV in different Wikipedias.  However, English Wikipedia now has some good laws and eventually, nationalist users either have to play by WP:RS or get sanctioned and eventually banned for good.  So I support the decision (note also the statement of Dbachmann who has the most experience dealing with nationalist POV in Wikipedia) for the user to remain topic banned for 6 months.  This will ensure nationalistic POV pushing which AA2 was created for is reduced and minimized.--Xodabande14 (talk) 11:21, 15 April 2013 (UTC)
thread_title:  Statement by Xodabande14 

message: I issued an Armenia-Azerbaijan topic ban to Ebrahimi-amir at WP:AE recently because of tendentious editing as discussed there. To the extent this is meant to be an appeal of or request for clarification about that sanction, I can't offer a substantive reply, because I do not quite understand what Ebrahimi-amir wants to say with their above statement. But it seems that they do not understand the reasons for the sanction, as discussed in the AE thread, so I can't recommend a modification or a lifting of the topic ban.   Sandstein  19:54, 14 April 2013 (UTC)
thread_title:  Statement by Sandstein 

message: *There is a history of concern over Ebrahimi-amir's maps, and also of his tendency to edit war. He has been warned, and blocked, and warned, etc. He knows his maps are controversial and disputed. And he has been specifically warned to discuss making edits that are known to be controversial and disputed. He has also agreed not to edit war. Despite this, he reinstated one of his controversial maps after it had been removed from an article. He did not discuss this first. He only entered into discussion when the matter became a slow moving edit war, with him as part of it. Because Ebrahimi-amir was edit warring; because he was making a controversial edit that is clearly disputed without first discussing it and getting consensus; and because he was not abiding by his own unblocking agreement not to edit war, I feel a topic ban is appropriate. It is not the place of the Committee to discuss if Ebrahimi-amir's maps are appropriate, but while they are disputed, I feel it would be unwise to use them in sensitive articles without first having a discussion and getting consensus. Forcing them in by edit warring, and talking about it afterwards is not doing the right thing. Decline. SilkTork ✔Tea time 23:34, 15 April 2013 (UTC)
thread_title:  Arbitrator views and discussion