I offered to play "template referee" at the ANI thread and got a cordial response from Piotrus, who accepts me as suitably neutral and welcomes my feedback on the PAIN and RFC issues.[1] So I've expanded my offer to general mediation. Currently I'm waiting for responses from the involved parties. Durova^Charge! 00:16, 23 December 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Piotrus accepts my offer. I haven't heard from Ghirla yet but I'd like to be optimistic: he and I have collaborated occasionally and have always been on good terms (Piotrus is aware of this and doesn't mind). So I'm requesting the committee to give this an interval of 1-2 days before deciding on the arbitration proposal. I've referred enough other "business" to ArbCom lately - maybe here's a situation I can keep out of your way. Will update as soon as I hear word. Durova^Charge! 01:41, 23 December 2006 (UTC)[reply]

(sorry to post in someone else's section, but) Ghirla has rejected the idea of enforcement (specifically by block) of any informal ruling; the PAIN post also post-dates these offers, I think. If both parties would accept Durova's offer this arbitration should indeed be unnecessary. Guy (Help!) 09:46, 23 December 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Both of the named parties have accepted my mediation offer. Durova^Charge! 14:23, 23 December 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Over at User talk:Durova/Mediation we're working out some ground rules for a community-enforceable mediation such as a potential admin recall and a mutual civility parole. Since Guy - who opened the request - and Ghirla and Piotr are all willing to try this, let's give it a spin. Third parties are welcome to provide input at User talk:Durova/Mediation/Input. Durova^Charge! 23:05, 23 December 2006 (UTC)[reply]

In my one encounter with Ghirldango, [2], [3], he threatened to have me both blocked and de-sysopped basically for having the audacity to disagree with him, and then made allegations that were simply untrue (like that I was a passionate defender of the #wikipedia IRC channel, and then ignored requests for any evidence whatsoever to back up that claim). This really came out of left field since I had no idea who he was until he was just lashing out at me angrilly on AN/I. He never followed through on any of his threats, and given how routinely he makes the exact same threats towards most people who with whom he disagrees, I get the feeling he puts about as much thought into saying "you should be desysopped/blocked/whatever" as I put into saying "It's cold outside today".

If there's a "cabal" against him, it's just rational good faith editors who don't like unbelievably venemous and angry people being allowed to run amock. I think arbcom should take a hard look at someone who acts in such an inexplicable manner on a project where civility and cooperation is supposed to be important. I don't claim to know the whole of this dispute, but anyone who seems to go out of his way to be insulting to good faith editors needs some kind of review. --W.marsh 18:09, 23 December 2006 (UTC)[reply]

I strongly urge the committee to reject this case, seeing as it is very close to resolving itself in RFC. Both parties have found important common ground[4] which could save us a lot more sweat and grief (please note Guy's addendum and Durova's staement above). Besides, by the time you get around to making any serious decision, the new ArbComm will have been sworn in. So please let's allow the dispute resolution process some more time to work.--R.D.H. (Ghost In The Machine) 19:13, 23 December 2006 (UTC)[reply]

In the first place I have to admit that I'm by no means neutral here. The reason is explained below. In my long history of contacts with Ghirlandajo, I've always admitted that he's a great editor, doing lots of good job on Russia-related topics. However, nothing changed during the last year or so in his attitude towards those whom he disagrees with - yours' truly included. As soon as any disagreement appears, Ghirlandajo is the first to resort to personal attacks, threats, offensive vocabulary, ethnic slurs, unfounded accusations, and all sorts of disruptive actions. Some of them were already pointed out during the two (?) failed RfCs, others were pointed out by various wikipedians at his talk page - apparently to no avail. Sure, he writes a plethora of great articles. However, when he starts dealing with anything that is not exactly pleasant to his sense of national pride, all hope for a constructive approach is lost.

At the same time he has a nasty habit of treating all attempts at finding some common ground as anti-Ghirlandajo crusade. While anyone has a right to feel the centre of the universe and target of some alleged conspiracy, such behaviour in wikipedia is surely not the most productive thing. Sure, I was hoping he could change his ways with time, but - as sad as it is - nothing like that happened. With time I got tired with trying to settle the things with Ghirlandajo. I simply got fed up with his blatant lies, accusations, all the filth he's been throwing at me, Piotrus and other respected editors, and simply decided to go on lengthy wiki-vacations. He's always been able to get away with any incivility, so I was basically left with two options: either to start responding in kind, or to withdraw. I chose the latter option.

Having said that, I admit that Piotrus is no saint either. However, I envy him for his patience in trying to deal with Ghirlandajo. I tried for more than a year - and gave up. //Halibutt 19:44, 23 December 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Never mind, again....self-censorship is probably not a good idea here, this is still my opinion. K. Lástocska 20:43, 24 December 2006 (UTC)[reply]

I am not Polish. I am not Russian. I belong to no cabal. I had barely had any contact whatsoever with either Piotrus or Ghirla before I stumbled upon Piotrus' RfC and found myself in the middle of a battleground. What I found there disturbed me. The only concrete allegations against Piotrus with any basis at all were his unblocking of Molobo (over a year ago, and Piotrus apologized on RfC) and his one use of a word that could be considered an ethnic slur (in an offhand comment on someone's personal talk page.) The rest was ad hominem attacks, name-calling, accusations of conspiracy, vitriolic suspicion (apparently based mainly on nationality) of an entire group of editors, biased interpretations, making mountains out of molehills, and quite a bit of incivility. What really startled me was after I had the audacity to defend Piotrus and reprimand Ghirla for the name-calling etc. mentioned above, based solely on what I saw on RfC and its many links, Ghirla left a rather unpleasant message on my talk page "welcoming" me to, and I quote, "the ranks of the Ghirlaphobes." A bit of sleuthing around and I discovered that Ghirla habitually refers to anyone who criticizes him, disagrees with him, makes an edit he doesn't like, or just plain gets on his nerves as a "Ghirlaphobe" and part of an "anti-Ghirlandajo crusade." I and many others have also been accused of being "Russophobes", in my case he provided no evidence to back up his accusation. It strikes me as the sign of a rather arrogant person if someone thinks that everyone who disagrees with him must be on some organized mission, the specific goal of which is to make his life miserable. It is tantamount to saying that no ordinary person would EVER disagree with him, so anyone who does must be somehow in thrall to the Supreme Cabal or the Forces of Darkness. I find that somewhat ridiculous. Believe me, Wikipedia editors have better things to do than organize themselves into sinister international cabals to annoy one particular editor. Another thing that perplexed me about the RfC was Ghirla's frequent accusations of name-calling, incivility etc. on Piotrus' part, but the links he provided as evidence of this terrible behaviour brought forth no smoking gun, no damning evidence, no crimes. Even more disturbing, at the same time as he was accusing Piotrus of incivility, rudeness, name-calling and other nastiness, he was himself engaged in many of the same activities he was accusing Piotrus of. In my limited interaction with and observation of Ghirla, I have noticed that he is very quick to make accusations of trolling and bias, deletes any criticism from his talk page, frequently employs incivility and occasional obscenity, and essentially offends many of the people he comes into contact with. In contrast, I have come to know Piotrus as a reasonable, responsible, civil editor. Of course he is far from perfect, of course he has made mistakes, of course he sometimes loses his temper. We are all human, even Wikipedia admins. And of course he is not 100% free from bias, no one is. Also, Piotrus has repeatedly attempted to resolve this dispute and has openly declared his willingness to abide by whatever guidelines are set. These statements are only met with rejection and attacks by Ghirla. I may have essentially commited Wiki-suicide here, because I am certain that now I too will endure attacks, ad hominems, name-calling, accusations of cabalism, and perhaps vandalism. But I will not be silenced by intimidation. I had to say what I had to say, and now I have said it.

Addendum #2 by Lástocska: I would like to make it VERY clear that I have no desire to see either warring party blocked or de-sysopped. I am for reform, not revolution. :) I am also well aware that neither party is entirely blameless in this dispute, and I hope very much that a reasonable agreement can be reached over on Durova's Mediation page. K. Lástocska 20:43, 24 December 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Let me begin by noting that R.D.H.'s call for rejection is probably based on the assumption that both P and G endorsed - to some extent - his outside view and proposal. The idea that the two signatures could close that RFC came from JzG. Finally, having the two partial signatures, JzG judged it reasonable to initiate this request. In my opinion, after Ghirla's withdrawal from the RFC talk [5], it is difficult to hope that he would respect anything that eventually comes out of it.

Now, to the matter. The general description being given by JzG, let me focus on my personal perspective. As a participant of the RFC I'm a little bit tired. As you may have noticed, I was qualified as yes-men and, presumably, a minion of Piotrus (the text and link above), so do not assume I'm neutral here. That said, I'd like to note that one easily gets such a 'nice' qualifications when trying to disagree with Ghirla. And this is not necessarily a Polish-Russian issue, nor Piotrus-Ghirla one, as the following theoretically neutral disambig problem with User:Atlant shows [6], [7]. I refrained from commenting there precisely due to the lack of civility in the discussion. And that's why there is no surprise that Ghirla has an impression of an alleged group of "Ghirlaphobes" - they are created "on-line" by himself. Personally, I'm strongly discouraged by this, as it approaches Wikipedia to an usenet forum. Unbelievable and sometimes unprovoked rudeness paralizes possible collaboration. This is also why I think it is important to consider more general pattern of interactions, on both sides, if you wish. Links provided in the "steps DR" section above could be useful.

Another problem is seen when we come to the possible solutions designed by Piotrus and Ghirla themselves. While I observe that Piotrus' request amounts to stick more closely to some polices (WP:VER,WP:CIV), the Ghirla's idea reduces to "leave him alone, whatever he does in his scope". I ask myself, whether one can reserve his 'territory'; whether one can reject to disscuss the matter in a civil way on WP:VER basis; whether acting by force of discouraging is the wiki way. While Piotrus showed some positive declarations and an effort towards a solution, Ghirla rejects any concrete proposals so far (supporting general ethos of R.D.H's only). It is clear that Ghirla's input is more than respectable. But personally, I would like not to have to be confronted with users who are permitted to act as they want (even implicitely only), just because their input is so great. --Beaumont (@) 23:55, 23 December 2006 (UTC)[reply]

I think this case should be resolved at last. I am tired of this conflict as it lasts maybe for second year. I won't write there some long essays as the "elders" have a real life too :). My relations and contacts with Piotruś were always nice, civil and constructive. My relations with Ghirlandajo were most often negative, uncivil and so on. One case for illustration. When I added ((unref)) to some of his completely referenceless articles he reverted my edits, resp. commented them as "silly" or "stalking". This user has no respect for basic Wikipedia rules and his rude behaviour also annoy other users and waste their time. I respect both users' contribution to this encyclopedia and it was huge but, you know, this problem doesn't stand on Ghirla vs. Piotruś issue it stands on Ghirla vs. other editors base. In the place where I live it would be resolved in simple way. Both guys would leave the pub and break their mouths but this is Wikipedia and it should be resolved clean and without blood on the floor. - Darwinek 14:28, 24 December 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Unfortunately, I have to concur with the previous statement, in that my first experience with user Ghirlandajo was mostly negative. In his very first reference to me, done in extremely bad faith, instead of welcoming and explaining how things work here he accused me of "nationalist simplifications" and renamed and moved the article that I wrote without any consultation whatsoever. That not only disrupted the links and disambiguation but interfered with other sites where he attempted to link it, done again without any warning. Things went downhill from there, as he started virtual crusade against the articles that I have written, focusing almost exclusively on my work - evidently as a punishment for having a different view on history from his. I have been here hardly a week and such a treatment from this particular user was quite a shock for me. I am encouraged, however, by his recent expression of willingness to cooperate on another article and hope this is not a single, unusual occurance but a sincere desire to turn things around.--Hillock65 21:45, 24 December 2006 (UTC)[reply]

I recommend wikibreaks for those who are stressed. It really helps. Good luck with the mediation and happy holidays. 67.117.130.181 20:16, 25 December 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Uh...wow, guys, Ghirla just left Wikipedia. Out of the blue. Right when it looked like Durova's mediation was getting somewhere....I guess this de facto resolves the dispute though....K. Lástocska 04:38, 26 December 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Since he has not left forever and we actually don't wish him to do this...

I completely agree that Ghirla's contributions to Russia-related articles are remarkable. But I still find his behaviour and (disputing) style unacceptable. Just some examples: the first time I met him (I happened to revert his edit), I was immediately accused of adding 'self-devised bullshit' [8]. Once I reverted an obvious sock puppet (now indefinitely banned) I ... got warned by Ghirlandajo that 'revert warring'(?) can earn me a block [9].

His attempts to remove other people's comments by declaring these to be personal assaults [10] can also be regarded as disruptive. And as a rule, he removes warning templates laid on his talk page [11], [12].

I also find childish Ghirla's habit of using every possible place in order to raise his accusations against a user, once he has started disliking one [13], irrespective of the real matter.

Lastly, I cannot accept his attempts to advance Soviet propaganda with the resulting useless lengthening of debates, where his side has failed to give any NPOV sources.[14] Constanz - Talk 08:55, 26 December 2006 (UTC)[reply]