User talk:Nanobear~enwiki/Archive2

Economy of Murmansk Oblast

Well, while I think it's rather concise, it is still much, much better than nothing :) The information itself is good, but in my opinion the prose could use better structure; but then again—structure would come as more information is added. I am also a little wary of the sources you used—they are by no means bad, but I'd prefer to see something more academic (and yes, I understand that academic sources on the economy of Murmansk Oblast may not exactly be easy to find). All in all, however, the section is quite solid and useable as written. Keep up the good work!—Ëzhiki (Igels Hérissonovich Ïzhakoff-Amursky) • (yo?); 19:24, April 17, 2009 (UTC)

I know that the prose is concise and not very good. The sentences are not well "connected." One of the reason why the prose is so bad is that I find it hard to explain something in my own words without changing the meaning of the information. Therefore I usually follow the wording used in the sources precisely without adapting it. But do you think the chapter contains approximately the right amount of info? About the sources: of course, academic sources would be the best, but they (especially recent ones) seem to be hard to find.

Do you happen to know if there are any guidelines concerning articles about regions? For example, in which order the chapters should be, what exactly goes into the chapters, (for example does average income go into demographics or into the economy chapter?) I've also expanded the economy chapters in Republic of Karelia#Economy, Tatarstan#Economy and Dagestan#Economy. Maybe you have a few improvements suggestions for those as well? Looks like this is a neglected subject, so there's lot of "easy" work to be done there. Offliner (talk) 22:25, 17 April 2009 (UTC)

We used to have WP:WikiProject Russian federal subjects which recommended a specific format for all federal subject articles. I had to close that project (and move it to WP:RUSSIA) due to the lack of interest (I was pretty much the only person active there), but the articles on the federal subjects still pretty much conform to those guidelines, and we don't have anything better to replace them with anyway.

Content- and balance-wise, for such underdeveloped articles as Murmansk Oblast it doesn't really matter where you start—you are going to skew these articles anyway because they are so short, so I wouldn't worry about that too much. As more content is added, it always helps me to think of these articles as summaries of lower-level articles—for example, the Economy section would be a summary of the economy of Murmansk Oblast article, the History section—a summary of the history of Murmansk Oblast article, and so on. So, at first I would normally cram as much information into those section as possible, then think about splitting those sections to separate articles as they grow, and replacing the moved information with its summary. For Start-level articles such as the one on Murmansk Oblast, like I said before, any information is better than nothing—at least now there is something to start working with! Hope this helps.—Ëzhiki (Igels Hérissonovich Ïzhakoff-Amursky) • (yo?); 16:55, April 20, 2009 (UTC)

lazy editing part II

Hey there. I argued this point to Igny before, but same goes to you: Please be more careful with your reverts. You reverted the edits by multiple editors without checking that all of them were indeed bad edits. Kwiki had even correctly marked his edit as a typo fix. Please spend the 20 seconds to check your revert diff that indeed everything should be reverted. You saving those 20 seconds cost me 10 minutes to go back over all those edits and find the part that should not have been reverted. --Xeeron (talk) 12:22, 18 April 2009 (UTC)

I checked the series and saw that it contained only one single legitimate edit. Since there was a vandalism edit before that one, is was much faster to revert the whole series. Undoing vandalism seemed to be much more important than preserving a simple typo fix. If the legitimate edit had been bigger, I would have done something else. Offliner (talk) 14:30, 18 April 2009 (UTC)

Nothing wrong with the fact that you used the revert option, but you should have kept the legit edit. Those typo edits have value just as every other edit (and in a way even more, because the article is watched by plenty of POV hawks, but very few English language hawks ...). --Xeeron (talk) 19:07, 18 April 2009 (UTC)

thanks for your work on Russian apartment bombings

Title says it all Mariya - x - Mariya Oktyabrskaya (talk) 18:40, 18 April 2009 (UTC)

Thanks, I really appreciate it. I hope we can achieve a balanced and informative article. Maybe you will now be editing regularly too? Offliner (talk) 19:11, 18 April 2009 (UTC)

Let's hope so. I do have a lot of other stuff to do as well, though. Mariya - x - Mariya Oktyabrskaya (talk) 19:14, 18 April 2009 (UTC)

Let's talk

Why do you remove notice that he was found not guilty by British court [1]? Doing so is against WP:BLP policy. This is supported by many references in this article. Thanks,Biophys (talk) 20:37, 21 April 2009 (UTC)

Read the removed statement carefully. The British court did not say that the charges against him are "fabricated." It said: ""It would be unjust and oppressive to return Mr Zakayev to Russia." Please note the difference. I was only removing the unsourced statement not corresponding to reality from the article. You reinserted it. Thus, it is you who has broken WP:BLP. Offliner (talk) 20:45, 21 April 2009 (UTC)

Read carefully what you have deleted (the diff above). You deleted the following: "However UK court found him not guilty due to lack of evidence.". I can see that we have a lot of disagreements. That's fine. You challenge me - I provide more sourced materials and create more articles. Next article in my list will be Operation Successor. Thanks to you.Biophys (talk) 22:18, 21 April 2009 (UTC)

Do you mean that because of my actions you are going to create even more conspiracy theory articles as a revenge? If so, please stop being childish. I'm sure we can resolve our differences on the article talk pages, without waging a "war". Offliner (talk) 21:43, 22 April 2009 (UTC)

Then let's talk. Why are you chasing me through numerous articles you never edited before and revert my edits? Is that because you do not like me, because you love Russia, because you like Putin, or because of another reason? What should I do to make you feel better and stop the editorial conflicts? Biophys (talk) 01:37, 1 May 2009 (UTC)

Talk or not to talk is certainly your choice, but if we can not resolve this problem ourselves, asking an outside advice is inevitable, and I will do it as soon as time allows.Biophys (talk) 13:21, 1 May 2009 (UTC)

To be honest, I'm annoyed by your biased editing and your breaching of the guidelines, such as WP:SYNTH (e.g. Internet operations by Russian secret police), WP:POVFORK (e.g. Evidence of FSB involvement in the Russian apartment bombings), WP:LINKFARM (e.g. Federal Security Service), WP:OWN (e.g. Web brigades) and, of course, WP:NPOV, in multiple articles. I don't think I have followed your edits, except for perhaps Anatoliy Golitsyn. And even there I'm only supporting the anonymous editor's attempts to make the article more balanced. It seems to me that your objective in Wikipedia is to expose the "evils" of the Russian/Soviet government and to promote conspiracy theory books. You also have the habit of WP:OWNing the articles where you are attempting to do these things. If someone tries to make the article more balanced, you will revert everything a hundred times. Because of these reasons, it is hard for me (and for many others as well) to assume good faith on your part, which leads to increasing tensions. If you want to resolve the editorial conflicts, you should work on the problems I just mentioned, step back from conspiracy theory related articles for a while and avoid controversial edits. I feel that WP is not the place for promoting conspiracy theories for which there is little direct evidence. If you want to do this, I sincerely recommend that you consider getting a part-time job as a journalist. Offliner (talk) 02:29, 2 May 2009 (UTC)

You did not respond for too long. I have filed a Checkuser report already. I believe you are actually Petri Krohn. Let's see.Biophys (talk) 04:08, 2 May 2009 (UTC)

Well, I'm not him. I hope you didn't waste too much time on writing the report. Offliner (talk) 05:17, 2 May 2009 (UTC)

Sorry, but all your statements contradict facts. I always use best available sources. If there are books, I use books by best experts on the subject like David Satter or Felshtinsky. If there are no books, I use other WP:RS publications . I created only a few articles (among hundreds) about conspiracy theories to remove such theories from main articles. In fact it was you who created Liberation Army of Dagestan, and there is no such Army. No credible theories (the "governmental" or alternative one) claim that such "Army" was involved in the bombings. Then why create the article? As about you following and reverting my edits, this is also easy to prove, as I will show if necessary. Since your reply is basically a denial and blaming me of something I never did, this conversation is hardly productive.Biophys (talk) 12:35, 2 May 2009 (UTC)

Offy, I actually like this edit. Apparently Kavkazcenter.com is not a reliable source for such statements, but it's ok for editors to insert info into articles of Putin being a paedophile using equally dubious sources (this of course being Zakayev's site). You've done a good job with the Zakayev article, and you have interpreted the sources correctly; courts don't hold trials when considering extradition requests for that is not their purpose, so removing WP:OR is the right thing to do. And don't worry about Wikipedia:Sockpuppet investigations/Petri Krohn, this appears to be fishing because one doesn't like that you are holding them to task for ensuring that the fact we are an encyclopaedia, and not a propaganda source, is being held to. Of course, others are giving pointers along the way. If you need any help with Russian sources or anything like that, you know that you need only ask and I will help with this. --Russavia ^Dialogue 21:35, 2 May 2009 (UTC)

Quit Removing the A* links

I will have you reported for removing relevant links from the A* Search Algorithm wiki... Cease and Desist... Removing solid information from Wikipedia is doing more harm to the community than good... —Preceding unsigned comment added by 74.206.24.96 (talk) 23:06, 29 April 2009 (UTC)

Victims of political repression

This is to notify you that Wikipedia:Categories_for_discussion/Log/2009_April_21#Victims_of_political_repression, which you participated in, reached no consensus to delete, but has been relisted to Wikipedia:Categories_for_discussion/Log/2009_April_30#Victims_of_political_repression in order to determine if consensus can be reached on other alternatives. Your further input would be appreciated.--Aervanath (talk) 06:14, 30 April 2009 (UTC)

Cool Head Award

Just wanted to thank you, for being the cool headed one again at the 2008 South Ossetia War Article. If you weren't editing that article, we'd probably have a civil war between the editors right now. HistoricWarrior007 (talk) 22:33, 1 May 2009 (UTC)

He was warned....

I have posted at Wikipedia:Administrators'_noticeboard#Biophys_continuing_harrassment, for the continuation of accusations against editors is egregious, particularly when he has been warned against such behaviour just in the last few days. That he is continuing this harrassment against yourself is just not on. --Russavia ^Dialogue 15:57, 4 May 2009 (UTC)

I agree that these continuous accusations have to stop. Note that Biophys also called me "an SPA," which is both wrong and in my book amounts to a personal attack. I have no doubt that even when the CheckUser proves negative (which it will), Biophys will not stop making accusations. Some admin action is needed to stop this. Do you think I should drop a comment at the admins' noticeboard as well, or would it be unnecessary? Offliner (talk) 19:11, 4 May 2009 (UTC)

If you want to pop into the AN there is no reason you shouldn't; attempting to skew it being run by accusing you of being a SPA, sharing accounts, sockpuppeting, etc, etc. It's harrassment, and an obvious team effort on the part of Biophys (you being his content opponent) and Digwuren/Martintg (Petri's content opponent). I also have my doubts about the AN the other day on myself; you'll notice that it was started by Piotrus after he received a question from "an editor", and he notified "the editor" (not on any talk page though) and then Biophys pops in, with "the editor" never making an appearance; it was all too convenient for my liking, and given Digwuren's post on Colchicum's talk page, without any notification of any shape or form on my talk page, that was obviously a WP:TEAM set up to continue the delusional accusations on WP. It's actually funny, if I didn't have to have some WP:OVERSIGHT done due to Biophys' continued accusations of myself being a web brigades member and also possible outing, I would never have seen that thread the other day, as WP:AN isn't on my watchlist. His posting the sockpuppet report is also obvious harrassment, given that he threatened to pointishly create yet another conspiracy theory article, all because you dared to hold him to task for his OR on the Zakayev article. If you post on the AN, be honest in anything you write, don't lie through your back teeth like others do, and you are right, it will ever stop. I've said my part on that AN, for I am not going to allow them to detract from the harrassment. Having said that, welcome to the inner workings of the brains of Wikipedians; its not a very sane place to be at times. I also have something else to mention to you, but will not do so here, so I hope that you accept email. --Russavia ^Dialogue 20:51, 4 May 2009 (UTC)

ITN for 2009 Georgian troop mutiny

On 5 May, 2009, In the news was updated with a news item that involved the article 2009 Georgian troop mutiny, which you created. If you know of another interesting news item involving a recently created or updated article, then please suggest it on the In the news candidates page.

--BorgQueen (talk) 13:41, 5 May 2009 (UTC)

Happy V-E Day!

Today 100₈ years ago, one of the Three Major Aggressors of the era surrendered. Turning their face away from warfare and towards building a better future instead, the German people worked diligently to redeem their sins — which were great indeed — and through Wirtschaftswunder, contributed to one of the longest periods of peace and prosperity in Europe in the recorded history.

Three months and a week later, another of the Three Major Aggressors surrendered on the 対日戦勝記念日. The 日本人 forsook war forever, concentrated on rebuilding, and through 高度経済成長 made Japan a land known for アニメ, 可愛い, and ロボット. (And, of course, for cute anime robots.) Διγουρεν_{Εμπρος!} 08:31, 8 May 2009 (UTC)

ITN for 2009 IIHF World Championship

On 11 May, 2009, In the news was updated with a news item that involved the article 2009 IIHF World Championship, which you substantially updated. If you know of another interesting news item involving a recently created or updated article, then please suggest it on the In the news candidates page.

--BorgQueen (talk) 04:13, 11 May 2009 (UTC)

Kazan helicopters

What's the point of inserting RTS link into KVZ article? It's not a public company anymore: all control is under Oboronprom; there were no free market stock deals in the last 12 months (check RTS stats - the $73,091 handled in the past 12 months is marketmaker's mandatory deals). Last more or less substantial trades were in 2006. Technically, it's still listed but it's misleading the unsuspecting reader. NVO (talk) 18:07, 13 May 2009 (UTC)

Maybe there is no point. I'll remove the link. Offliner (talk) 18:35, 13 May 2009 (UTC)

AfD nomination of Abkhazia-Germany relations

An article that you have been involved in editing, Abkhazia-Germany relations, has been listed for deletion. If you are interested in the deletion discussion, please participate by adding your comments at Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Abkhazia-Germany relations. Thank you.

Please contact me if you're unsure why you received this message. Kober^Talk 04:03, 15 May 2009 (UTC)

Blocked

After the Russian apartment bombings page was unprotected, you began edit warring yet again. You have been blocked for 31 hours. Nakon 05:01, 16 May 2009 (UTC)

This is encyclopedia, not pro-putin pages

Please, think for a second. We are doing encyclopedia not pro-Putin pages. In my point of view you are just trying to forcibly defend everything in Russian point of view, and not try to find some truth or neutral view for the article. For example in cases of Bäckman [2] and Anton [3] you have just forgtton what is rational. Peltimikko (talk) 07:46, 18 May 2009 (UTC)

Let's discuss the edits on the article talk pages. No personal attacks please. Offliner (talk) 09:19, 18 May 2009 (UTC)

Re (talk)

Hi, Offliner - thanks for your post. As someone who hardly cares for Estonian political issues and Russian internal politics, I have to say, my own treatment being a case in point, that I'm incensed about the constant harrassment meted out to those who fall foul of Digwuren's crew, which seems to be endlessly received from this particular crew even for things as insignificant to their area of reverting as a marginally tangential article here or there – for the most part, this is why I have essentially preferred to stay out of the worst of topics, reather merely dealing with the illegitimate political attacks against productive users as far as the aforementioned crew is concerned. It's really a shame that some users have an interest in turning WP:Encyclopedia into a WP:Battleground.

I wasn't surprised at all by Biophys' response to your comments – there are the editors who politicize and there are the editors who polistalk.

I hope some decency prevails soon.

Best, PasswordUsername (talk) 01:07, 25 May 2009 (UTC)

Decency probably won't prevail any time soon. For example, I'm not allowed to add anything anything to the Bäckman article: [4]. My additions were from a reliable source, and Bäckman's views certainly are relevant to Bäckman article, just as the Estonian criticism of him (that the article is so full of.) Obviously, it is Martintg and his friends who decide what can be added and what not. This removal is obviously against Wikipedia policies, but there isn't much that I can do.

As a sidenote, it probably is a good idea to stay away from certain subjects to spare ones nerves. For example, I don't even want to read Soviet occupation of Baltic states or to have anything to do with the mess that is going on in that article. Fortunately, I'm currently only interested in modern Russia, and not in the history of Soviet Union, so I don't have to expose myself to every POV-filled article. Offliner (talk) 19:42, 26 May 2009 (UTC)

Fucking Lunatic Deletion

Please let me know if your article "Fucking Lunatic" is not restored. It should NOT have been speedy deleted as it did not satisfy the guidlines. If you recieve no response from the admin who deleted it, i will investigate it myself. Kind Regards ZooPro (talk) 06:09, 28 May 2009 (UTC)

As i noted on the admins page, in further consideration i do feel it would be best just to place a mention on the article. Instead of creating a whole new article. ZooPro (talk) 08:23, 1 June 2009 (UTC)

South Ossetian election ITN

Ah, you beat me to it; I was thinking of doing the same :-) Óðinn (talk) 17:38, 31 May 2009 (UTC)

Yelena Maglevannaya

As somebody who's familiar with the FINROSFORUM, would you like to write an article on Yelena Maglevannaya? Διγουρεν_{Εμπρος!} 07:05, 1 June 2009 (UTC)

As for another related interesting topic, you will probably appreciate this set of recommendations by the UN, this newspiece from the European Parliament, this colourful report from the Network for Education & Academic Rights, this report by the Coalition Prava Detyam, or perhaps this report concerning rise of neo-Nazi attacks on minorities in a certain country. Διγουρεν_{Εμπρος!} 21:53, 1 June 2009 (UTC)

And of course, Russia has established a reputation for bizarre serial killings.^[5] Διγουρεν_{Εμπρος!} 08:09, 2 June 2009 (UTC)

Those are surely important subjects, but I'm not too interested at the moment - unless the anti-Russian propaganda department of KAPO wants to give me some incentive ;) Offliner (talk) 03:48, 3 June 2009 (UTC)

I didn't know your wikiservices were up for bidding. I always thought you were ideological. Διγουρεν_{Εμπρος!} 10:00, 3 June 2009 (UTC)

Are you sure you won't show up if I start Yelena Maglevannaya? Διγουρεν_{Εμπρος!} 13:35, 3 June 2009 (UTC)

I started. Peltimikko (talk) 17:44, 3 June 2009 (UTC)

Can Chinese immigrants in Russia vote in Duma elections? Διγουρεν_{Εμπρος!} 10:45, 4 June 2009 (UTC)

Instead of arguing about human rights, maybe we should concentrate on more pressing things. Would you like to create 2009 Estonian economic meltdown? Or perhaps 2009 Estonian catastrophic economic apocalypse would be a more neutral title? ;)Offliner (talk) 11:29, 4 June 2009 (UTC)

I have heard people assign miraculous powers to Ansip before, but I would not have expected you to believe in them. How about his capability to deliver water? Διγουρεν_{Εμπρος!} 11:40, 4 June 2009 (UTC)

ITN for South Ossetian parliamentary election, 2009

On 2 June, 2009, In the news was updated with a news item that involved the article South Ossetian parliamentary election, 2009, which you recently nominated and substantially updated. If you know of another interesting news item involving a recently created or updated article, then please suggest it on the In the news candidates page.

--BorgQueen (talk) 02:20, 2 June 2009 (UTC)

Discrimination of ethnic minorities in Estonia

I normally do not like to keep parrotting after someone else, but in this case I really don't have to add much to what Colchicum said—one cannot present both sides of an argument in a POV fork with a POV title. If you want to continue developing the article, there is nothing precluding you from moving it to your user space, balancing it to present both sides of the argument, and then moving it back to main space under a more appropriate title ("Human rights in Estonia" is certainly better than the current one). When I said "delete", what I really meant was "remove from mainspace", because in its current shape and form the article does not belong there. I do not object to the content of the article (it is well-referenced and certainly encyclopedic); I object to the way that content is spun and presented to the general audience. I hope this answers your question.—Ëzhiki (Igels Hérissonovich Ïzhakoff-Amursky) • (yo?); 13:36, June 3, 2009 (UTC)

There are similarly named articles in Wikipedia, such as Russian influence operations in Estonia, Internet operations by Russian secret police, etc. Those are POV titles in a similar sense. Yet, they were not deleted or renamed, so I thought this is an accepted practice. Discrimination of ethnic minorities in Estonia was taken to AfD a mere hour after it was created, without giving it enough time to develop. None of those who are complaining about the balance are helping to fix the issue, and they refuse to take part in the discussion on the talk page, so I really don't know what I'm supposed to do. If the right answer to POV is problems is not to discuss or fix the issue, but to delete the whole article, then there are a lot of articles that should be deleted. Offliner (talk) 19:13, 3 June 2009 (UTC)

If any of those article are (re-)nominated for deletion and cross my path, I assure you I will vote "delete" for all the same reasons; but I have no interest in hunting them down and nominating them myself.

Regarding this article, my personal recommendation would be taking it to user space, balancing/expanding it there, giving it a neutral title, and submitting it for review before moving it to main space. Yes, it's a pain in the ass to jump through all those hoops, but what did you expect when you started a controversial topic like that? The attempt to work in this charged area is laudable, but you gotta be prepared to follow through.—Ëzhiki (Igels Hérissonovich Ïzhakoff-Amursky) • (yo?); 19:25, June 3, 2009 (UTC)

Thanks for answering. I will work on the article in my userpage if it gets deleted, and try to fix the balance issue. Offliner (talk) 19:34, 3 June 2009 (UTC)

on minority rights

Come to my talkpage, lets undertake some sandbox efforts and make the structure of the article - that's the best way to show it has much information that does not fit other articles.

Occupation versus liberation

There was an article Allied occupation of Europe deleted not so long ago for obvious reasons. I have an idea of creating an article Liberation of Europe (which is currently a redirect to End of World War II in Europe) or Allied liberation of Europe. We could address all the issues with the claims of occupation of Europe by SU, as well as the Historical Truth Commission. What do you think about that? (Igny (talk) 16:52, 7 June 2009 (UTC))

I'm not too interested WWII or pre-1991 history; I'm only interested in modern Russia (I think one has to set the limits somewhere.) But you could ask the editors involved at Occupation of Baltic states instead. Sorry that I'm not able to help. Offliner (talk) 18:13, 7 June 2009 (UTC)

GRP stuff

I don't have a script for HTML table to wiki conversion, but for a table like this I found it easiest to just copy it to Excel and then run this excellent Excel-to-wiki conversion macro. You'll still need to do some follow-up cleanup, but all in all the script is nothing short of amazing.

The table itself, I think, could go to the economy of Russia article, unless you have a better place in mind. Regarding the infobox, technically, we could add a line with the GRP (the numbers are well-sourced and complete), but I am not sure if it isn't going to be too specialized. Perhaps we should run it by WP:RUSSIA to gather more opinions first? As you might have noticed, I am rather conservative when it comes to adding more parameters to infoboxes :) Cheers,—Ëzhiki (Igels Hérissonovich Ïzhakoff-Amursky) • (yo?); 14:53, June 8, 2009 (UTC)

Respect

There are certain users I respect, no matter whether they agree with me or not. You are one of those I did respect. However, if you truely feel like this, than maybe that respect was misplaced. HistoricWarrior is a POV warrior of the worst kind, if you feel he is helping the article just because you share the POV he is aggressively pushing, you just lost a ton of my respect. Image how you would feel if people gave a barnstar to Kober for his great work to keep South Ossetia war 2008 free from POV. --Xeeron (talk) 20:49, 8 June 2009 (UTC)

HW is someone who raises concerns about POV issues on the talk page. Very often, his points are completely valid, such as the one he made about South and North Ossetia relations, or his concerns about the title "Russia-Georgia war." Without him it would be easier for the article to take a bad direction in regards to POV, because other editors would not notice certain problems. Of course, he should present his concerns with less ranting and be more to the point. To me, a "POV warrior" is someone who makes constant edit wars and tendentious edits that are in breach of WP:NPOV. But HW's edits are mostly on the talk page, and when he makes edits on the article, many people agree with him, so he is not acting against consensus (note that I have not followed the current edit war at all, so I don't know if he's right about that.) Note that I don't regard Kober as a POV warrior either. He is a useful editor to the article in the same way as HW (although I have to say that his launching of the new "vote" so quickly after the last one is pretty disruptive.) In contrast, User:Vanguard's recent edits were extremely disruptive and he could easily be labeled as "POV warrior" if he continues. Sadly, there are a lot of anti-Russian POV-pushers in Wikipedia, and people like HW (who belongs to a small minority) are very important in providing them a balance. (Luckily, the main team of those editors seems to have stayed out of the SOwar article in 2009.) In general, I think the article is now reasonably neutral (and reflects the current international opinion that Saakashvili started the war), and HW has played a no small part in accomplishing this. The next time we might have to make major changes regarding the articles POV balance is when the final results of the EU probe are made public this sommer. Offliner (talk) 03:47, 9 June 2009 (UTC)

For me a POV warrior is an editor who:

• Consistently changes the article towards one POV and never towards the other
• Has a big majority of POV related edits with only a minor number of pure "copyedit" ones
• Makes edits that leave the article in a worse state (wikisyntax, etc) while introducing a POV change in the same edit (especially reverting edits that both changed POV and syntax/etc)
• Spend considerably more time argueing their POV on the talk page than editing the article
• Engage in POV related reverts

I guess everyone does one of the above occassionally, but the point about people like HistoricWarrior and Kober is that they do all of it all the time. It would be considerably easier to find a neutral consensus without those people around. --Xeeron (talk) 14:37, 9 June 2009 (UTC)

Abd

Re [6]: [7] William M. Connolley (talk) 13:24, 10 June 2009 (UTC)

Thanks

Thanks for your backup on several Estonia/Russia related articles. I am now serving out a 6 month restriction on such articles and a 3 month block on BLP related to both countries.

I think certain users, especially Digwuren, are very good at gaming the system. Obviously, adopting the same tactics (as I did) is wrong but it does seem rather unfair that they have been able to get away with this behaviour for so long. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Shotlandiya (talk • contribs) 12:44, 13 June 2009 (UTC)

DYK for Human rights in Estonia

On June 16, 2009, Did you know? was updated with a fact from the article Human rights in Estonia, which you created or substantially expanded. If you know of another interesting fact from a recently created article, then please suggest it on the Did you know? talk page.

BorgQueen (talk) 14:35, 16 June 2009 (UTC)

Putin & Co.

Structure-wise, it's definitely an improvement over the previous version. Content-wise, I am not going to comment as I don't know this subject all that well.

Further improvements could include shortening section titles in the History section, formatting and weeding the references in the History section and below, and replacing or explaining the term "siloviki" in the lead, as most readers would have no idea what the word means (it should at the very least be linked to). Best,—Ëzhiki (Igels Hérissonovich Ïzhakoff-Amursky) • (yo?); 17:37, June 17, 2009 (UTC)

Why do you even try

Here i mean. those articles badly fail WP:SYNTH. "Russian influence operations in Estonia" is a purely non-encyclopedic Wikipedia invention... there's no scholarly work on such subject (not even non-scholar, since google finds nothing but wikipedia mirrors when queried about the subject), so the facts in that article are just disparate instances picked to create a nice coatrack. the other one, "Internet operations by Russian secret police", while it may be, ignoring the conspiracist overtones introduced by "secret police", a valid scholar topic, as proved by some of the references, is a mess from an encyclopedic point of view. I am yet to see a source that considers online slander against Putin, nationalist-sensationalist treatment of polish article on a russian site and the contact webpage of the FSB as part of the same phenomenon (the part about cyberattacks and web brigades could be equally spurious, but at least they are treated in common by some of the sources that are generally deemed reliable on Wikipedia). You can only hope Russia's international image will improve and at the next AfD more people from the wide community will dare to intervene and analyse the two articles by wikipedia policies. Good luck! Anonimu (talk) 00:53, 18 June 2009 (UTC)

Why do you even try

Here i mean. those articles badly fail WP:SYNTH. "Russian influence operations in Estonia" is a purely non-encyclopedic Wikipedia invention... there's no scholarly work on such subject (not even non-scholar, since google finds nothing but wikipedia mirrors when queried about the subject), so the facts in that article are just disparate instances picked to create a nice coatrack. the other one, "Internet operations by Russian secret police", while it may be, ignoring the conspiracist overtones introduced by "secret police", a valid scholar topic, as proved by some of the references, is a mess from an encyclopedic point of view. I am yet to see a source that considers online slander against Putin, nationalist-sensationalist treatment of polish article on a russian site and the contact webpage of the FSB as part of the same phenomenon (the part about cyberattacks and web brigades could be equally spurious, but at least they are treated in common by some of the sources that are generally deemed reliable on Wikipedia). You can only hope Russia's international image will improve and at the next AfD more people from the wide community will dare to intervene and analyse the two articles by wikipedia policies. Good luck! Anonimu (talk) 00:53, 18 June 2009 (UTC)

Report

I have filed a report about you at WP:AE. You are welcome to respond.Biophys (talk) 14:28, 18 June 2009 (UTC)

I can has a cheezkitty?

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Poor evidence

Old diffs, or misleading series of edit warring diffs which in fact are spaced days appart. I'd strongly recommend you try to mend fences with Digwuren, you are all standing on thin ice there - few more mudballs and I'd expect to see several editors (from both sides) blocked. --_{Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus| talk} 18:26, 19 June 2009 (UTC)

• Old diffs like
  • 14 (which is from 10 June)?
• Spaced days apart like
  • 4 (four reverts in 24h) or
  • 6 (three reverts in 2 days)?
  • 5 (Timeline of antisemitism) (4 reverts in 2 days in 3 June - 5 June)?

Are those also "extremely poor" evidence of edit warring? Also, I never claimed that the diffs are from a single day. I was reporting persisntent edit warring over a long period of time. I also newer claimed that all of them are recent. So how can they be "misleading"? Offliner (talk) 18:35, 19 June 2009 (UTC)

Evidence has been presented by others on AE already. --_{Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus| talk} 18:31, 19 June 2009 (UTC)

Please provide diffs. Offliner (talk) 18:35, 19 June 2009 (UTC)

I think evidence provided by both sides was relatively poor, but I guess other admins lost their patience. EOT, as far as I am concerned. --_{Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus| talk} 15:57, 24 June 2009 (UTC)

Eastern Europe

You are involved in a recently-filed request for arbitration. Please review the request at Wikipedia:Requests for arbitration#Eastern Europe and, if you wish to do so, enter your statement and any other material you wish to submit to the Arbitration Committee. Additionally, the following resources may be of use—

• Wikipedia:Requests for arbitration#Requesting Arbitration;
• Wikipedia:Arbitration guide.

Thanks, Jehochman ^Talk 19:28, 19 June 2009 (UTC)

The case

Two things to tell. First, I am not going to be very active in WP and placed a label at my talk page. Maybe I will edit something non-controversial from the Soviet history little by little. As about articles of our disagreement, keeping status quo would be fine. Second, if this case is taken, I do not want to be involved, unless I have to. If you and your friends, like PU and R, do not file anything about me, I am not going to submit any evidence about you and them to ArbCom. No response required. Whatever you and others decide is fine.Biophys (talk) 02:16, 20 June 2009 (UTC)

Thank you for prompt reply. I think it was clear: you asked Jehochman to reopen my AE case and commented there. Sorry, I thought we should start finding compromises, and perhaps we can?Biophys (talk) 21:25, 20 June 2009 (UTC)

My weekend

These sorts of disruptions to my weekend are not looked upon as constructive. While we've had limited success, we've been able to discuss content with some civility. Lobbying that yet another arbitration is required complete with the usual litany of diffs is an unfortunate choice on your part. You will find you can engage in diffs and accusations or engage in article creation, but unless you're being paid to do this full time (mentioned only because I have run into more than one of those, no reflection upon yourself), you won't have time to do both. Consider how you wish to spend your Wikipedia time, the choice is yours--and it IS a choice. PetersV       TALK 03:15, 20 June 2009 (UTC)

I think it has clearly been demonstrated in recent days that WP:AE does not work. For example, I cannot present any evidence without being immediately accused of block shopping by several editors who wish to shoot the messenger instead of focusing on the diffs itself. Reports with crystal clear evidence of edit warring are being dismissed with no action taken because of who is filing the report and because of the larger issue the evidence is part of, instead of based on the evidence itself. The idea of taking it to ArbCom is that they will be able to look at the whole issue and all the evidence in a centralized manner, and then make hard decisions, which is something the admins at WP:AE are unwilling to do.

Also, no one has accused you of anything yet. You were only included in the list because you have been involved in almost all the relevant discussions. I don't think you have been edit warring. But this request is not about you, it's about the wider issue and other editors who have provably been disruptive. In general, I think "shoot the messenger" is the key phrase of the recent days, as can be clearly seen from some of the responses at the arbitration request and here. Offliner (talk) 03:27, 20 June 2009 (UTC)

My dear Offliner, the whole issue is you are spending too much time initiating actions against editors. It's somewhat disingenuous (my perspective, based on observing years of such actions) to protest you're not block shopping and only doing it for the good of Wikipedia when you point to your own failed evidence as evidence. The only action which is for the good of WP is the creation of reputable content. If there is truly egregious POV pushing, other editors will step in and put a stop to it based on enforcement mechanisms already in place. If you work on content without succumbing to the siren song of the revert, you will have a more postive experience and even be able to work together with the so-called opposition. If on the other hand you approach WP as trench warfare, you are responsible for the result, no one else. PetersV       TALK 04:30, 20 June 2009 (UTC)

P.S. Contending that AE does not work because you didn't get the result you wanted is your synthesis. PetersV       TALK 15:56, 20 June 2009 (UTC)

This isn't going anywhere. It seems that some users are attacking everyone who dares to request that the behaviour of their friends be examined. Please calm down, let the ArbCom deal with the request in peace, and enjoy your weekend. Offliner (talk) 16:09, 20 June 2009 (UTC)

As I said, concentrate more on articles, less on reverts. Articles have a way of achieving equilibrium over time if given a chance. There is no rush. Vecrumba       TALK 04:31, 21 June 2009 (UTC)

You said: The only action which is for the good of WP is the creation of reputable content. I think this is an oversimplification. Fixing bias and improving readability is just as important. Reverting more than once should be generally avoided. However, when there is a bad case of one editor trying to WP:OWN an article, or when tag teaming is used to prevent any improvements to POV, there sometimes is no other choice but to edit war. Before 2009, Biophys wrote a number of highly biased articles, basing them completely on questionable sources such as Litvinenko's books, which are nothing more than polemic rants financed by opposition oligarchs such as Berezovsky to spread anti-government propaganda. It was simply not possible to discuss with Biophys; he kept reverting whole articles back to his favourite version a dozen times, until he finally gave up and accepted some of the improvements. Digwuren and his friends were even worse. Fortunately, they mostly limited themselves to Baltic articles, where they tried (and succeeded) to push their anti-Russian POV. Things like Johan Bäckman and Russian influence operations in Estonia are still horribly biased. There's absolutely nothing I can do about Bäckman; every single one of my edits gets reverted immediately (even if it's just an uncontroversial structure or wording change, or the addition of a simple wikilink). Of course, the biasedness of the article is partly Bäckman's own fault; he doesn't give enough interviews to reputable media, so the only source about him is Estonian yellow press. About the announced "retirement" of Digwuren and Biophys: I'm extremely sceptical. I've seen Biophys retire at least a dozen times before; usually he gets back to editing within minutes of his announcement. The wording of Digwuren's message[8] is also highly disturbing. He says that he has "discussed the matter with his colleagues" and also that he looks forward to "collaborating" with his friends in some other project. As for me, I guess editing on Baltic subjects is out of the question. Almost everyone who tries to fix the bias of those articles is now either banned (Krohn), restricted (me, PasswordUsername), or fed up and retired (Russavia). If I'm not completely topic banned from Eastern European subjects, I'd be happy to continue my (uncontroversial) edits on Russian economy or space program. Perhaps even political articles can be expanded without breaking 1RR, we'll see. Offliner (talk) 00:01, 23 June 2009 (UTC)

Everyone is welcome on my talk page. Feel free to discuss something beforehand if you like. BTW, you don't want to use Petri as an example, while truly an excellent contributor elsewhere, his raging blind spot regarding the Baltics and repeated unfortunate comments like "ethno-fascist POV pushers" and heaps of WP:OR and WP:SYNTH are what got him banned. Only Petri was responsible for his being blocked for a year (first ban). Petri's current year-long ban is mainly a reflection of an extremely poor choice of expression given his past (and at times virulent) antagonism. And you're not aware of the many fine editors the so-called pro-Russian faction has driven away.

   Lastly, "fix bias" is the wrong premise—you may find "expand content" is a more constructive approach. Vecrumba       TALK 01:49, 23 June 2009 (UTC)

Now that the bruhaha (sp?) is over, I should mention I have a great deal of respect for Sobell's expertise although I don't always agree. I give you points for using a reputable source to frame some of the topics of interest you'd like to address on WP. PētersV       TALK 19:12, 23 June 2009 (UTC)

Your AE edit

Please do not edit old evidence, or the discussion below it becomes impossible to follow. If you wish to add new evidence, please make a new discussion comment instead. Thanks,  Sandstein  20:12, 20 June 2009 (UTC)

Fine, I will add it below instead. Offliner (talk) 20:16, 20 June 2009 (UTC)

Notice of editing restrictions

Notice: Under the terms of Wikipedia:Requests for arbitration/Digwuren, any editor working on topics related to Eastern Europe, broadly defined, may be made subject to an editing restriction at the discretion of any uninvolved administrator. Should the editor make any edits which are judged by an administrator to be uncivil, personal attacks, or assumptions of bad faith, he or she may be blocked for up to a week for each violation, and up to a month for each violation after the fifth. This restriction is effective on any editor following notice placed on his or her talk page. This notice is now given to you, and future violations of the provisions of this warning are subject to blocking.

Note: This notice is not effective unless given by an administrator and logged here.Thatcher 21:24, 22 June 2009 (UTC)

1RR limit

Thatcher 03:59, 24 June 2009 (UTC)

Vacated [9] Thatcher 20:34, 6 July 2009 (UTC)

No sooner said than...

Yep, [10]: right as ever, Offliner! After less than 3 days, too. PasswordUsername (talk) 01:09, 26 June 2009 (UTC)

It probably won't be long before Digwuren returns as well... Offliner (talk) 00:07, 27 June 2009 (UTC)

Re:RfA concern

I don't think I incorrectly judged the consensus, since at that time, there were 15 supports (including my imminent one) for the move to 2008 Russian-Georgian War, and 6 opposes (counting HistoricWarrior007's "boycott" which indicated his opposition). And I remember giving a cursory glance at the previous discussion, and seeing more editors who would've supported the the proposed name, who hadn't voted in the previous discussion, than those who would've opposed the move , who hadn't voted in the last discussion. Overall, the balance shifted so it favoured the "2008 Russian-Georgian War" side. Thus, I don't think that I ignored previous opinions on the matter. --Patar knight - ^chat/_{contributions} 02:57, 27 June 2009 (UTC)

Although there were a few new supporters who had not voted before, there still was clearly no consensus. Many of the opposers from the previous discussion had not voted yet, and some were boycotting the vote because it was staged so soon after the previous one (there had already been many votes before as well in a short time.) Your judgement was clearly in error there. Offliner (talk) 03:34, 27 June 2009 (UTC)

At that moment in time, the supports outnumbered the oppose, and for determining consensus, the present is the most useful. Besides, the current name only won marginal consensus (by one vote) the last time around, and a shift into a slight consensus for the other option, is still a change in consensus. And just because an editor opposed last time does not mean that they would not necessarily !vote the same way this time. consensus can change, and editors who cannot accept this and boycott the discussion are inevitably left out of whatever consensus forms. Boycotting a discussion like that is immature, and borderline POINTy when trying to determine consensus. --Patar knight - ^chat/_{contributions} 03:53, 27 June 2009 (UTC)

Stop The Harassment

I merely added a link to an example implementation of Dijkstra's algorithm in C++ and Java which I think many coders might find useful. It is definitely not spam, I'm not selling Viagra, nor am I saying that you've won 1000000 dollars, all I did was just add a link in the "External Links" section. It is completely relevant to the article and a clean implementation I don't understand why you are so insist in undoing my edits and threatening to get me banned. Please stop, I don't want an editing war.

Frankrod44 (talk) 05:28, 4 July 2009 (UTC)

Refactoring

Your argument on behalf of the current page title is excellent, but I want to split it up into two different subsections since it is two different justifications for keeping the page at its current title. Would it be okay if I took the last paragraph of your comment and spun it off in its own section? I will make sure that your signature is placed in both sections. —harej (talk) 18:25, 4 July 2009 (UTC)

Sure. Offliner (talk) 18:46, 4 July 2009 (UTC)

Move warring at Kuril Islands

Hi, Offliner – I just got back from a small break, so I didn't get the chance to follow the latest saga in its unraveling stages...

Unilaterally moving controversial pages can be deemed sanctionable behavior according to the latest ARBCOM decision in Macedonia 2, but Nihonjoe seems to have already warned Martintg regarding unilateral article moves at the K. Islands Dispute talk page, so this one seems to have taken care of itself.

I think that Martintg has in many cases behaved better as an editor than Digwuren did, but if he does his darndest to retracing the same worn path, I really don't see much hope in going along as nicely as possible. PasswordUsername (talk) 19:52, 13 July 2009 (UTC)

P.S. He really found his way to your comments on my talk page with impressive speed...

It's also interesting that before 10 July Martintg had never edited Kuril Islands dispute before, but started editing immediately after I had made my first edit. Coincidence? Offliner (talk) 23:46, 14 July 2009 (UTC)

Possibly unfree File:Topol-m 1.jpg

A file that you uploaded or altered, File:Topol-m 1.jpg, has been listed at Wikipedia:Possibly unfree files because its copyright status is unclear or disputed. If the file's copyright status cannot be verified, it may be deleted. You may find more information on the file description page. You are welcome to add comments to its entry at the discussion if you are interested in it not being deleted. Thank you. --J Milburn (talk) 21:03, 13 July 2009 (UTC)

Editing survey

Hi Offliner.My name is Mike Lyons and I am a doctoral student at Indiana University. I am conducting research on the writing and editing of high traffic current events articles on Wikipedia. I have noticed in the talk page archives at 2008 South Ossetia war that you have been a key editor on the article. I was hoping you would agree to fill out a brief survey about your experience. This study aims to help expand our thinking about collaborative knowledge production. Believe me I share your likely disdain for surveys but your participation would be immensely helpful in making the study a success. A link to the survey is included below. An explanation of my project is included with the survey.

Link to the survey: http://www.surveymonkey.com/s.aspx?sm=kLMxj8dkk_2bls7yCBmNV7bg_3d_3d

Thanks and best regards, Mike Lyons lyonspen | (talk) 22:25, 14 July 2009 (UTC)

Cats

Actually, there is no need to ask anyone's permission to create a category; just be bold and go ahead! As long as the category name is neutral, not an exact duplicate of some other category under a slightly different name, and contains at least two items, you are good. Now, as to your other questions:

1. Normally, when an item is placed into a child category, it should not also be added to a parent category. There are, of course, times when an exception to this rule is warranted, but more often than not such an approach simply overpopulates the parent category without providing much benefit to our readers. My recommendation would be to add the companies to the "Engineering companies of Russia" cat, and that cat—to the "Companies of Russia by industry" cat.
2. I don't believe there is a developed set of the "Companies based in..." categories for Russia—there are a few like Category:Companies based in Vladivostok, but that's it. Having a category set by city/federal subject makes perfect sense, though, and it's been done for the US/Canadian/UK companies already. I see no reason why it shouldn't be a viable approach for Russia.

Hope this helps! Best,—Ëzhiki (Igels Hérissonovich Ïzhakoff-Amursky) • (yo?); 14:34, July 15, 2009 (UTC)

I don't think the problem with almost zero hits a day is due to the articles not being linked to from enough places; I think it's more due to the fact that the articles are about not too well-known Russian companies in English Wikipedia :) From what I've seen, high-profile articles like Moscow, Russia, and Vladimir Putin are guaranteed to get a lot of attention, but the rest of the pack—not so much. Here's systemic bias in action for you :) Most readers just don't care, and that's OK, because the info would still be available to a few of those who do.

Regarding the child/parent categories, I would disagree. The parent category is supposed to hold the articles which are either too general (and can't be further subcategorized), or which apply to multiple subcategories, or which do not yet have a subcategory to assign them to (e.g., if we have subcats for Yekaterinburg, Vladivostok, but not for Samara, the articles on Yek/Vlad-based companies would go into subcats but a lone article about a Samara-based company would stay in "Companies of Russia"). This assists the cleanup efforts quite a bit, whilst if you just dump every single Russian company into one parent cat, not only would the cat be impossible to navigate efficiently, it would also make it that much harder to find an article which is not assigned to a subcat when it should be.—Ëzhiki (Igels Hérissonovich Ïzhakoff-Amursky) • (yo?); 18:47, July 15, 2009 (UTC)

About CVs and how many ways can you say...

I wrote a note supporting your position but wound up in an edit conflict, which was the rather lengthy post about all sorts of ways there were issues. I agree that {person} is a professor of {area} in the department of {discipline} at {university} is best stated simply and directly, rewording to make it more convoluted to avoid similarities to a CV makes little sense. That said, once I saw the response mine conflicted with, it will take less time to restructure the article than to argue the point (and I can tell it will be fruitless...). VЄСRUМВА  ☎  18:25, 15 July 2009 (UTC)

Flower Lane Church

I too have looked at the article and the supposed copvio source. I am quite bewildered as to how anyone can regard this as a copyright violation. JamesBWatson (talk) 01:07, 16 July 2009 (UTC)

Russian military history

I note from your userpage that you've got some involvement with Russian articles, and also do a lot of milhist work. Would you be interested in sharing sources on our project? Our article on Suvorov is awful, and while I have one source that isn't really enough to justify a complete scrap-and-rewrite project. Would you happen to have any texts on his life, or know anyone who does? Ironholds (talk) 08:13, 20 July 2009 (UTC)

I'm only interested in recent history at the moment, and I don't have any sources about Suvorov. You could ask User:Russavia if he knows anything, he has written some historical articles in the past. Offliner (talk) 10:52, 25 July 2009 (UTC)

Pro-Russian POV

If you don't want scrutiny of your work then you shouldn't post complaints about others. You complained that another editor was asserting that you have a certain nationality. Take a look at the top 100 articles in your edit history.[11] It's obvious to anyone which nationality you're interested in. Spot checks of your contributions show that your edits advance a pro-Russian POV. Now it's quite possible that you're simply bringing anti-Russian biases back to neutral. But if you're always on one side of the fight then that leads to certain conclusions. Have you ever made edits that removed pro-Russian bias? I haven't found any of those yet. In fact, the more I look through your contributions the more concerned I am about your promotion of the Russian POV.   Will Beback  talk  18:21, 29 July 2009 (UTC)

I have never said that I don't want my work to be scrutinized; everyone is free to criticise me. Of course I'm mainly interested in Russia-related articles - I have never denied this. But you are still making very generalized accusations - could you provide some specific diffs about "promotion of pro-Russian POV"? Have I ever made edits that remove pro-Russian bias (whatever that means)? Yes, I have. But as long as you're not going to take the time to provide specific evidence to support your claims, I'm not going to either. Offliner (talk) 18:29, 29 July 2009 (UTC)

In preparing my response I looked at Human rights in Estonia and Anti-Russian sentiment. In those articles you appeared to minimize or even delete anti-Russian assertions, and add negative material about Estonia.   Will Beback  talk  18:57, 29 July 2009 (UTC)

Please provide specific diffs, otherwise it's impossible for me to respond. Every edit has its own justification. Offliner (talk) 19:06, 29 July 2009 (UTC)

About Human rights in Estonia and Anti-Russian sentiment: if I recall correctly, all of my edits in those two articles concern the situation of the Russian-speaking minority in Estonia. This is also the only aspect about Estonia that I'm interested in. The discrimination of this minority in Estonia is documented by Amnesty International and other respected institutions, as demonstrated in Human rights in Estonia. Previously, there was very little material about it anywhere in Wikipedia (only a short sentence in History of Russian in Estonia. It was my idea to create Discrimination of ethnic minorities in Estonia, which was renamed to Human rights in Estonia. I don't see anything wrong in my addition of this material and creation of new well-sourced content. Like I said, this is the only aspect about Estonia that I'm interested in - I'm not interested in achievements of Estonian economy, so I'm not going to insert anything about that (I guess this is what you would call "positive material about Estonia".) My only crime in those articles was edit warring to keep the material I had inserted (it was aggressively removed by others). It's not against WP:NPOV to have interests and only edit aspects that one is interested in. What would be against WP:NPOV is, for example, 1) misrepresentation of sources (which I have never done), 2) biased wording (which I've never done either; the wording I use usually corresponds very closely to what is used in the source).

You also said: In those articles you appeared to minimize or even delete anti-Russian assertions - I disagree, can you give specific diffs? Offliner (talk) 19:21, 29 July 2009 (UTC)

If you want to prove that you don't promote a pro-Russian POV then do so. Otherwise I stand by my comments.   Will Beback  talk  19:23, 29 July 2009 (UTC)

I have asked you many times to provide evidence (=diffs) to support your claims, but you seem to be refusing to do so. I think this is questionable per WP:NPA. And like I just said, I'm not going to prove anything to you, unless you do the same. Offliner (talk) 20:07, 29 July 2009 (UTC)

Because you don't use articles to advocate the line that Russia is Mordor, and that Putin eats babies for breakfast whilst using their bones as toothpicks, of course others, stupidly, are going to write such rubbish about your editing Offy. I am actually surprised that you even bother responding to such utter inane nonsense - I stopped doing so some time ago, and I would do the same if I were you in future. --Russavia ^Dialogue 00:38, 30 July 2009 (UTC)

And frankly, Offy, who gives a f' if you bring a certain POV to articles. When you are faced with editors who want to portray Putin as a paedophile (only sick mothers would even admit to thinking such crap is true), and editors who admit that they want to portray the most grotesque article possible (Putinism - remember the numbskull on that article who admitted it, and had nothing done about using WP to WP:ADVOCATE.) Keep on editing the way you are editing, and don't feed the WP:TROLLS. As an admin said to me once, "fuck 'em". Let them write their idiotic little pieces about whatever flashy neologisms they can find in whatever "sources" they can lay their hands on. Our readers are not complete morons; they will ignore articles where bias is so blatantly obvious. Don't feed the trolls; let them fuckers starve. When they leave due to the lack of attention (and leave they will), the cleanup can commence." Keep on editing the way you are doing it, because it is plainly obvious that you are not here to WP:ADVOCATE, like many others, because I can show plenty of instances where you have approached articles objectively, and shit eh, you have even included POV which one would not do if they are what is being made out above. It's not your fault that others are blinded to your contributions...of course Russian articles are seriously underdeveloped in many areas, and the fact that you create content just gets up the goat of other editors. You may remember this discussion from a while back? It is much the same thing. Ignore the trolls, you'll be fine. Happy editing. --Russavia ^Dialogue 00:50, 30 July 2009 (UTC)

Comments like that don't help. Just the opposite. Does Offliner agree with Russavia?   Will Beback  talk  01:49, 30 July 2009 (UTC)

I'll let Offliner speak for himself, but when an editor, and an admin at that, comes to another editors talk page and states "In fact, the more I look through your contributions the more concerned I am about your promotion of the Russian POV." Frankly, and speak frankly I do, that is a pretty pathetic comment to make to an editor -- what Russian POV and what exactly is the concern? I can't see where you have been asked to comment here (perhaps provide a link to where, or provide name of who asked), but if you were to know about the utter bullshit that goes on in this area of editing, one would stop and think before making such ridiculous comments. Talk:Soviet_War_Memorial_(Treptower_Park)#Tomb_of_the_unknown_rapist is a prime example of the shit that occurs in this area of editing -- take a read, it will provide a great insight on people's motives and the amount of advocacy (and also blatant violation of policies) that editors such as Offliner has to contend with on a day-to-day basis...it's an absolute joke. When an editor such as Offliner who has created some great articles, and has gone to great lengths to research and add material on topics which are of probably minimal interest to the average reader (e.g. economy of the Republic of Karelia), as a fellow editor I will pipe up and say something when comments such as those are made to him. Even moreso, when Offliner has asked myself for advice in the past, and I have told him in very clear terms...when writing an article, approach it from a neutral POV, and provide as much balance as humanly possible...don't not include negative material, just ensure that there is balance and that materials added comply with policies (such as WP:BLP, etc)...and for the vast majority of edits he does that...the job he did on cleaning up Russian apartment bombings, having to contend with some really WP:TEDIOUS editing in the process, shows what type of editor he is, and there is basically no need for concern on his editing, nor the need for comments directed to him as per above. Offliner, I would be asking Will Beback who asked him to comment here, and where, so that you can judge for yourself whether there is any major cause for concern (the cherrypicking of a couple of articles to tar someone is not a good example, so there is no need for concern), or whether it may be that Will has been recruited as a sort of useful idiot (no offence Will, read the article, you'll understand what I mean by its usage here). Other than that Offy, you deserve the barnstar, and don't let others (in general) problems with your editing affect you in any way, just keep on going on. --Russavia ^Dialogue 02:22, 30 July 2009 (UTC)

It was Offliner who asked me to comment here, twice. I did so reluctantly but honestly.   Will Beback  talk  03:29, 30 July 2009 (UTC)

OK, being in this area of editing, one often sees and deals with underhanded goings on, so I jumped the gun on that part, thinking it was yet another attack on a productive editor, so my apologies there. --Russavia ^Dialogue 04:05, 30 July 2009 (UTC)

Will Beback accused me of "promoting pro-Russian POV" at WP:AN, but he did not give any direct evidence. I started this discussion because I think making generalized accusations about an editor's behaviour without presenting any evidence (=diffs) even when requested is very questionable per WP:NPA (the one and only diff he mentioned doesn't support his claims at all, as I have explained above.) It's clear that this admin is refusing to give any evidence, as I have requested it many times now. My concern here is that this editor may join the permanent chorus which makes the usual general accusations against me (without providing any evidence) every time I say something at WP:AN or elsewhere. But maybe I should drop the matter for now, and only react if he does this again. To his credit it must be said that he didn't use a very strong wording ("he only said appears to promote...") but still, this seemed like questionable behaviour from him, especially as he is an admin. Offliner (talk) 14:03, 30 July 2009 (UTC)

WP:RFC is probably a correct place to discuss contributions of an editor. AFAIK, having some points of view does not prevent someone from positive contributions is the person follow some wiki policies and ethics. Neutrality of articles certainly improve if people of all notable points of views are involved in the editing. On the other hand, the idea that points of views are strictly determined by someone's ethnicity is usually associated with ultranationalist and other fringe political philosophies. Some people are upset by them Alex Bakharev (talk) 02:49, 30 July 2009 (UTC)

I don't think ethnicity is the issue here (FWIW my first partner of 13 years was an ethnic Russian). Both Offliner and Russavia have gone after User:Colchicum, for example here and here, what's all that about Alex? It seems to me to be more of an issue of one's alignment with the Kremlin's point of view, i.e. politics,. --Martintg (talk) 07:56, 30 July 2009 (UTC)

Can I ask what the f' my report of Colchicum at 3RR has to do with anything? And even moreso have to do anything with this bullshit of the Kremlin POV? Of course, you will notice that my report had an apology to Colchicum, something that he never did for calling me a NAZI, something that Digwuren never has done for calling myself and Offliner NAZIs and pigs and a host of other shit, and something that you have yet to offer to Offliner for attempting to equate his non-existent nationality with some warped views that you hold. Time to get off the moral high horse there Martintg. --Russavia ^Dialogue 18:57, 2 August 2009 (UTC)

Barnstar

		Russian Barnstar of National Merit
		for all of your quality contributions to subjects related to Russia -- in an undeveloped, and oft overlooked, area of WP, your contributions are invaluable and appreciated.

Russavia ^Dialogue 00:56, 30 July 2009 (UTC)

Thank you. I appreciate this very much :) Offliner (talk) 13:51, 30 July 2009 (UTC)

Categorization of companies

"Машиностроение" is indeed translated as "mechanical engineering". As for what "engineering companies" are supposed to comprise, I have no idea (I would guess that "mechanical engineering companies" would qualify, but the whole concept of the cat eludes me). You might want to contact user:Beagel, who started Category:Engineering companies of Russia and ask him what the big picture is supposed to look like and where in that picture this particular category would fall.

If that fails, I'd recommend to start Category:Mechanical engineering companies of Russia and make it a subcat of :Cat:Engineering companies of Russia; that should work reasonably well, at least in the interim until you figure out how everything works together.

Sorry for not being of much help with this; I don't deal with these cats too often.—Ëzhiki (Igels Hérissonovich Ïzhakoff-Amursky) • (yo?); 19:14, July 31, 2009 (UTC)

If I had to deal with this myself, I would just go with Category:Space industry companies of Russia and stuff it under Category:Aerospace companies of Russia. Seems to be the most logical approach to me. Have you checked how this was solved for other countries, by the way? Sometimes it's easier to copy someone else's cat structure rather than to go through the pains of inventing one on your own.—Ëzhiki (Igels Hérissonovich Ïzhakoff-Amursky) • (yo?); 19:40, July 31, 2009 (UTC)

Interstellar travel

Hi, I think User:Paulkint's additions fall into the routine calculations category, certainly in the context of Interstellar travel. Also, we shouldn't bite new editors unnecessarily. The energy calculations are trivial; most payloads are in low-Earth orbit and do have that characteristic speed (and virtually all go through that orbital state); the velocity of the ISS is easily available, on our own ISS Infobox, in particular. In fact, sources for this material can easily be provided; that is not the problem. There are, however, deeper objections that other editors might like to discuss, and we need to allow time for that. But Paulkint is absolutely correct that the specific kinetic energy (ie, per unit mass) needed for interstellar travel in a current human lifetime is millions of times beyond our present experience.

These more serious objections have in part to do with the relevance of his calculation to interstellar travel, since the cost of energy in space even thirty years hence is very uncertain, and the cost a century from now is probably beyond all knowing. There are also arcane tricks of the trade that might well come into play, such as the Oberth effect, etc, that may be relevant. Anyhow, while I think Paulkint's edits will likely not survive in their present form, I recommend that you not rush to remove them on Wiki-legalistic grounds until some significant time has passed for due consideration by editors familiar with the subject. Thanks — Wwheaton (talk) 15:08, 4 August 2009 (UTC)

Agree with all this; I will let Paulkint's edits be as you suggested. Offliner (talk) 00:40, 5 August 2009 (UTC)

Russia-SO relations

Hey Offy, I am currently working on User:Russavia/Russia-SO, and want to have it completed within the next 36 hours in an attempt to get it ready for WP:DYK for possible appearance on 8 August -- it will be a five-fold expansion. Is there any interest from yourself in expanding the section -- User:Russavia/Russia-SO#2008_war_in_South_Ossetia, which should be a summary of the war, but from the standpoint of Russian-SO relations. In the section below I will cover everything from recognition onwards, and will also go back and expand the pre-war section last. Any interest in doing this with me in the coming 24 hours? --Russavia ^Dialogue 15:45, 4 August 2009 (UTC)

I could do something if I have the time, but I don't have much to add that wasn't already there. In the pre-war section, maybe you should mention Markedonov's view, that the war of 2004 was "a turning point for Russian policy in the region: Russia, which had previously aimed only to preserve the status-quo, now felt that the security of the whole Caucasus depended on the situation in South Ossetia, and took the side of the self-proclaimed republic." In the economy section, I thought the financial aid to SO was much larger. "25.5 billion rubles (10 billion rubles in 2009)"[12] Offliner (talk) 23:55, 4 August 2009 (UTC)

Hi Offlinr, thanks for your comment to the article Dr Nadadur Janardhan. Melquirrajan (talk) 13:25, 5 August 2009 (UTC)

Communist genocide

I agree. The only good use this article has is setting a classic example of what synthesis looks like. This one is no Red Terror.

As for the appropriateness, as long as you haven't posted this message to a hundred other editors who you think would also support deletion, I see no problem. In future, however, I would recommend you to consider limiting such postings to the talk pages of the appropriate wikiprojects. Best,—Ëzhiki (Igels Hérissonovich Ïzhakoff-Amursky) • (yo?); 14:26, August 5, 2009 (UTC)

Edit war (again)

Hello, do you know how to act when you don't want to violate 3RR, but there is one person who is prompting you to do it.) Taamu (talk) 14:33, 10 August 2009 (UTC)

Then you should try to get a third opinion from someone. And yes, it's important to be careful about reverting, because there are people who would like nothing more than seeing their content opponents getting blocked. I've dropped my opinion about the issue on the talk page: [13]. Offliner (talk) 15:25, 10 August 2009 (UTC)

AFD closure

Hi, Offy – the AFD thing for Communist genocide was only to be expected. I don't think Wikipedia has a lot of concern for guidelines – the main thing is to be bold, and by this, Wikipedia really means bold. This makes anything that appears as in some kind of text legitimate material for inclusion in the encyclopedia, unless it happens to be repugnant to the sensibilities of the average American editor – like some sort of defense of pro-Russian/Russophone/Vladimir Putin/communist crap coming from whoever, when we all know how dangerous those people are.

I'm not sure about what happened to Nazi collaborators from Eastern Europe, by and large the poor darlings all suffered from terrible kinds of persecution in Eastern Europe, and even from communist genocide, although some found refuge from communist genocide in the United States, to find a new lease on life as noted defenders of western freedom and the Anglo-American way of life – that is to say, just what they were all seeking in their fight against Soviet oppression...

Incidentally, Martintg has been on a 4RR roll at Communist genocide [14] – although it's really not considered anything like exceeding 3RR at all [15], to hell with Wikipedia policy on what a reversion is and what not. I wonder if there is a way to get him back on the 1RR list anytime, as he's obviously not going to cooperate with anyone. PasswordUsername (talk) 07:48, 11 August 2009 (UTC)

Thanks for taking note of the warring issue and posting those diffs for W.M.C to take a better look at – those were definitely reverts, but it's too stale for administrative action now. PasswordUsername (talk) 19:08, 12 August 2009 (UTC)

I'm sure Martintg's 3RR violation will be a factor if there's going to be an WP:AE report about him in the future. If he continues like this, there will surely be a report about him soon. Offliner (talk) 19:59, 12 August 2009 (UTC)

Re:Unfree pictures

I've tagged the second image of him as lacking a rationale- it isn't clear why it's being used, and is eligible for pseudo-speedy deletion. Thanks for dropping me the note. J Milburn (talk) 16:29, 11 August 2009 (UTC)

How do you manage?

All the recent debates are frustrating me to extreme. It is like some people just got together and decided to run an experiment on how much an average person can take to lose sanity. What if they try this or that? Their creativity at some moments astounds me, considering how dumb their arguments are in many cases. Sometimes I just want to scream and give up on Wikipedia. What keeps you going? (Igny (talk) 01:17, 13 August 2009 (UTC))

Not sure. Luckily, the editors in question have not stalked me in every area of Wikipedia yet. I can still peacefully edit Russian economy, for example. I have basically retired from all Estonia-related subjects, because I'm simply not allowed to edit there. All my edits get reverted by certain editors. The recent creation of nonsense articles like Communist genocide and the AfD discussions that have followed are very upsetting. It makes me think if my understanding of the Wikipedia guidelines such as WP:SYNTH and WP:POVFORK really is correct, since the "consensus" (or the lack of it) in those discussions seems to disagree with me. Offliner (talk) 21:12, 13 August 2009 (UTC)

A Guide to Making POV:Forks

1. Try Genocide.

2. If genocide fails, try ethnic cleansing.

3. If ethnic cleansing fails, and there are no arguments on your side, vote, mass vote, SPAM with votes.

4. Realize that Wikipedia is not a Democracy. Blame the Russians anyways.

5. Chew your ties in frustration. HistoricWarrior007 (talk) 06:12, 13 August 2009 (UTC)

Cheer Up

Наше имя - короткий удар штык-ножа, Что вгрызается в тело упруго... Бээмдэшки взревут на крутых виражах, Прорываясь сквозь слякоть и вьюгу.

Наше имя - "спецназ" - словно трассеров свист В южном небе над городом спящим. А восход над хребтом так обманчиво чист, Что не верится пулям свистящим.

Залит кровью поэтом воспетый Кавказ, В сердце ненависть врезалась жалом. Но дорогу ей грудью закроет спецназ - От беды нам бежать не пристало.

Здесь забыта любовь, и лишь кровная месть Распаляет безумием души. Президенты всё лгут, прочь отринута честь... Что им стоит присягу нарушить?!

Но последние силы собрав, мы идём - Трижды прокляты, преданы всеми... И в руках пулемёт захлебнётся огнём, Разрывая пространство и время.

Здесь без права на жизнь, без пощады война. С грязью смешана дружба народов... Но однажды - очнётся родная страна. Только мы не придём из похода.

1992.

There are times when everything seems hopeless. But if you keep on fighting, you will win. It was written in 1992. It was published after the 2008 South Ossetian War. Things change. Don't give up. HistoricWarrior007 (talk) 00:22, 16 August 2009 (UTC)

Anti-Russian sentiment

I thought we had an agreement to include only secondary sources that directly discusses "anti-Russian sentiment" here. This text you reverted is based on a primary source that only contains an allegation by the plaintiff of "anti-Russian sentiment". --Martintg (talk) 00:53, 18 August 2009 (UTC)

The court specifically mentions "anti-Russian sentiment", so what is problem? Offliner (talk) 00:55, 18 August 2009 (UTC)

No, the court mentions that the plaintff claims "anti-Russian sentiment" as the basis of his discrimination, the court doesn't rule on whether this is true or not. --Martintg (talk) 01:02, 18 August 2009 (UTC)

"In a 2005 case brought against American attornety general Alberto Gonzalez, a Russo-Estonian family appealed for asylum in the United States on the grounds of anti-Russian discrimination tied to anti-Russian sentiment in Estonia.[13] The family's request for a review of the case was denied on the grounds that the discrimination documented by the petitioners was not held as equivalent to persecution.[13]"

The text doesn't say that the court ruled on the veracity of the discrimination. The text says that the family filed for asylum due to anti-Russian discrimination due to anti-Russian sentiment, which is what appears in the source. Where's the synthesis? PasswordUsername (talk) 01:28, 18 August 2009 (UTC)

ITN recog

On 18 August, 2009, In the news was updated with a news item that involved the article 2009 Nazran bombing, which you substantially updated. If you know of another interesting news item involving a recently created or updated article, then please suggest it on the In the news candidates page.

--Master of Puppets - _{Call me MoP! :D} 05:03, 18 August 2009 (UTC)

Re. Estonia

Hi, Offliner. First of all, thanks for pointing out at the "3RR" report that I quickly self-reverted after an accidental fourth revert – it was quite a long time before I got back to the keyboard after that frivolous thing was filed. Things were getting a bit harried IRL yesterday, so apologies for getting back just now.

Regarding Estonia, I do agree that the title would be among the most important things – something like Criticism of Estonia's attitude towards Nazism would immediately be attacked by the same sort of editors who predictably vote keep on Russian influence operations in Estonia and successfully voted to get rid of Category:Holocaust in Estonia.

Since there are concerns of Nazis, fascists, and collaborators being rehabilitated across Eastern Europe, something like Rehabilitation of fascism (this exact phrase can be found in Google books) might be an alternative. I'd actually been considering making such an article myself. An article like Fascism in Estonia might cover the ground as well, dealing with the country's fascist ideologues' history as well as discussing concerns about rehabilitation of fascism. (As far as the history of Estonia's fascist movements goes, Nathaniel Stone Preston notes that "little Estonia has the dubious distinction of having given her fascists a majority of the vote in a free election." [16]) Also very neutral would be World War II memory in the Baltic states.

The content, though, is certainly notable enough: to look at one example [17], Russian Jewish leaders have appealed to Israel to take a stand against the "rehabilitation of Nazi criminals" in Estonia (not that Israel cares about antisemitism when denouncing it would contradict its political interests). Russia Journal [18] as well as People's Daily (China) have also covered the incident in question [19]. Veterans of the German anti-Hitler underground have also raised their protests about the situation in the Baltic states [20].

I would be very pleased to expand or otherwise contribute to material like this.

PasswordUsername (talk) 16:13, 19 August 2009 (UTC)

I think it would be best if we started by collecting the materials, for example in here: User:Offliner/Estonia. We can decide the name later when have something there, and see which name suits the content best. For now, Fascism in Estonia seems fine. Offliner (talk) 08:52, 20 August 2009 (UTC)

There's a lot of material, so it's best to sift through to get the most reliable sources. I think I'll have an organized text in a week or so. PasswordUsername (talk) 06:58, 21 August 2009 (UTC)

Seems it would be OR to me, since all you seem to have is news reports, but nothing actually published in a book as a cohesive concept. If you do proceed down this path, perhaps you would like to contribute to an article Russian atrocities against the Chechen people, there seems to be plenty of reliable source material [21], or even Russian genocide of the Chechen people, see [22]. It's your choice. --Martintg (talk) 20:17, 19 August 2009 (UTC)

Would you be able to clarify? There are 51 GoogleBooks results for "rehabilitation of fascism" [23] and an additional 70 hits for "rehabilitation of Nazism" [24]. As far as my comments on the history of the fascist movements that were endemic to the Baltics pre-WWII, scholarly materials like this appear to be rather helpful: [25] (see also [26]).

You have falsely claimed WP:OR before; can you point out where exactly the OR here resides? PasswordUsername (talk) 20:45, 19 August 2009 (UTC)

Yet adding "estonia" to the search term "rehabilitation of fascism" returns only one single book, "The case for Latvia: disinformation campaigns against a small nation", so I don't think it will survive AfD. However Russian atrocities against the Chechen people or Russian genocide of the Chechen people probably would survive AfD, do you really want to go down this path? --Martintg (talk) 20:57, 19 August 2009 (UTC)

That's why I actually suggested that the appropriate article would either deal rehabilitation of fascism in general, discuss the history of fascism in the Baltic states, or deal with World War II memory in the Baltic states. I'm sure Offliner has his own ideas, but Rehabilitation of fascism, Fascism in Estonia, or World War II memory in the Baltic states (discussing and comparing the legacy and attitude towards both Nazi occupation and the Soviet WWII period) would not be POV forks.

Your closing comment – "However Russian atrocities against the Chechen people or Russian genocide of the Chechen people probably would survive AfD, do you really want to go down this path?" – seems like a transparent threat of employing Wikipedia as a battleground. PasswordUsername (talk) 21:10, 19 August 2009 (UTC)

Assuming bad faith? It was actually you and Offliner who originally discussed here and here the prospect of AfD, I merely offered my opinion as to the likelyhood of AfD in comparison with other hypothetical articles such as Russian genocide of the Chechen people, which seems to have better sources than the hypothetical article you and Offliner are proposing. After all, Offliner created Discrimination against ethnic minorities in Estonia, which was AfD'ed and merged. I'm sure you would rather spend your time on more productive things rather than in AfD discussion on articles doomed to deletion. --Martintg (talk) 00:57, 20 August 2009 (UTC)

I guess this is level to which Wikipedia has been degraded. Editors threatening each other to create POV articles. Martin, I call your bluff, go ahead and be the clown who creates these articles. (Igny (talk) 01:20, 20 August 2009 (UTC))

You have the wrong end of the stick old boy, I only create reasonable articles as my record attests, and I have certainly not created any POV articles about Russia. The same cannot be said in regard to articles about Estonia by Offliner or Russavia, who as I recall, created ESStonia in retaliation to Putinjugend being kept at AfD. --Martintg (talk) 01:55, 20 August 2009 (UTC)

But you surely did not deny that you just threatened PW and Off with creating more POV articles. And do not remind me about Esstonia and Putinjugend as I do remember both cases very well as well as your role there. (Igny (talk) 03:14, 20 August 2009 (UTC))

Do you deny you still beat your wife? --Martintg (talk) 03:55, 20 August 2009 (UTC)

I wonder how many Fascist parties there are in Estonia? And, how many seats they have? Well, maybe it is unessential, as the nation overall is full of Fascists anyway. Fascist, fascist. Peltimikko (talk) 08:37, 20 August 2009 (UTC)

Rehabilitation of fascism is not equal to fascism. It is even worse because not all fascists at the time realized they were evil, they were misguided in some sense, they all probably had good intentions and thought that they fought for some good ideals. But those who try to rehabilitate the fascism now are well aware of all the evil what has already been done, and by the association they rehabilitate that evil. (Igny (talk) 18:41, 20 August 2009 (UTC))

Please do provide any reputable examples at all of any sort of mainstream—per official Russian indignation including position papers filed with the United Nations—rehabilitation of fascism. The only mainstream rehabilitation going on is that of Stalin, Dzerzhinsky, et al. by which official Russia associates itself with Stalin's murders of millions and oppression of hundreds of millions. VЄСRUМВА  ♪  18:47, 20 August 2009 (UTC)

Wow, you reached the DH4 Counterargument level. Yet anyone could notice that we are arguing about two different things. (Igny (talk) 00:47, 21 August 2009 (UTC))

Pictures

Hello. I would like to upload some pics to Commons. Do I have to add the same permission description in the summary as you did? I mean adding {{PermissionOTRS}} with the same id number, i.e 2009081010067736? I'm not good with that. Taamu (talk) 09:34, 20 August 2009 (UTC)

Yep, that's how it works. Offliner (talk) 09:37, 20 August 2009 (UTC)

OK. Thanks a lot! Taamu (talk) 10:05, 20 August 2009 (UTC