Wikipedia talk:Requests for arbitration/Regarding The Bogdanov Affair

Complete text of request for arbitration:

The Bogdanov Affair

Involved Parties

• User:Snowspinner
• User:YBM
• User:rbj
• User:Laurence67
• User:LLL
• User:XAL
• Various IPs

Confirmation that all parties are aware of the request

They will be made aware. I promise.

Statement by Snowspinner

The Bogdanov Affair article has been plagued by vicious POV warrioring from a number of sides, including IPs belonging to Igor Bogdanov, the subject of the article. The short form is this: The Bogdanovs published some physics papers, which were eventually widely recognized by the physics community as nonsense. Bogdanovs stand by their papers. Hilarity ensues. The article has been under near-constant revert warring recently, as Bogdanov and people allied with him remove all criticism, and Bogdanov's critics revert frantically. The mediation cabal failed to solve this one. I ask for short term injunctive relief, specifically that the Bogdanovs, YBM, LLL, Laurence67, and XAL all be banned from the article in question. A sample of problematic edits include [1] [2] (A new user who immediately shows up in the firefight) [3] and [4] (For personal attacks). The odds of sockpuppets being involved in editing here is quite high - a lot of users who do nothing other than edit Bogdanov pages.

Statement from third party Ral315

I haven't edited the article, but I was one of the admins who was involved in blocking. As part of a routine 3RR request on WP:AN/3RR (made by Rbj), I blocked Rbj and an IP purportedly belonging to Igor. Both editors acted badly afterward; Igor reverted the article under different IPs, and Rbj was, in his own words, "proud" of the block. The whole thing is a mess, and I would support blocking at least a few of these editors (Bogdanovs and Rbj, I'm not really sure on how the rest are involved) from editing the article. I would also encourage the ArbCom to clarify on whether this is a violation of WP:AB (though this is only a guideline, it would help to clarify how far the vanity/autobiography guidelines reach. Ral315 W_S 19:44, 26 September 2005 (UTC)

some clarification Ral315, it was not i, but it was Igor who requested that you block me and you ended up blocking us both for 24 hours. i submitted to the 24 hour block and Igor did not. he was protesting his innocence on the talk page twice using different IPs before the day was over and i, not willing to use anonymous IP, had to stay out of it.

lastly, you might not see the justification, but Snowspinner said after the fact that reverting Igor's edits to this article that is about him had some immunity from the 3RR. i don't remember the exact words but the record is there. my actions were vindicated because of persistent vandalism of the article by Igor because he doesn't like inclusion of factual data that makes him look bad. please get your facts right. this is a case of vandalism by persistent vandals that needs to be ended. as i said on my talk page when i just got blocked, i am absolutely certain that i was doing the right thing reverting that vandalism even if it was more than 3 reverts that day. Wikipedia:Autobiography is pretty clear about writing your own biography here. it's pretty damn clear who is flagrantly breaking the rules and i hope that the all of the admins and arbcom figure it out.r b-j 21:52, 26 September 2005 (UTC)

Aah, so it was Igor. My mistake. Nevertheless, I feel that 3RR should still apply- the Autobiography guideline is just that- a guideline. Not a hard rule. But a temporary injunction blocking some or all of these editors from editing might not be a bad idea. Ral315 W_S 02:26, 27 September 2005 (UTC)

I think rbj was reasonable to violate the 3RR after I told him not to worry about it. If you really want to throw a 3RR block over this, you should throw it at me. Snowspinner 02:32, 27 September 2005 (UTC)

ya know, Ral315 and Snowspinner, for the 2nd time i was blocked for 3RR violation along with Igor who was blocked "indefinitely " ', and sat this out for 24 hours, while at the same time Igor just goes and gets another IP and edits the article anyway during the time that we are both "blocked" (during my 24 hours and his "indefinite" period).

does this matter to you? i've never been a 2^nd Amendment supporter, but now i understand what they mean when they say "When you take away our guns, only the crooks will be armed because, being crooks, they will not give up their guns voluntarily." (i'm still not a 2^nd Amendment supporter.)

you can throw all the 3RR blocks you want. with me they'll stick because i will not edit anonymously nor look around for other IPs to work from, but with Igor, it doesn't matter. he'll just shrug it off and do what he does anyway since he sees himself as above the rules. ever wonder how much he's laughing at you? r b-j 01:16, 28 September 2005 (UTC)

Question from Bishonen: an injunction for XAL?

Oops. I didn't realize that the Bogdanov Affair affair had made it to RFAR; I just blocked XAL for the third time for unrepentant personal attacks. 72 hours. Should I unblock her so she can respond to this RFAR? I'd appreciate it if she could get an injunction against editing anywhere else, though (especially not on Talk:Bogdanov Affair), for what would have been the duration of the block. I'm not happy about all this vitriol she spreads, and, from past experience, I'd expect it to be worse now that I've gotten her worked up with a new block. Bishonen | talk 20:42, 26 September 2005 (UTC) PS, re Snowspinner's request above that XAL along with other users be banned from editing the article: she never has edited it. Never edited any article on wikipedia. I want her banned from the article's talkpage.

For what it is worth, I support this motion. XAL has contributed nothing to the discussion, in stark contraindistinction to most of the other users like Igor or rbj or ybm, and often stirs things up. --Maru (talk) 21:03, 26 September 2005 (UTC)

Also from an outsider: XAL appears to only rant and to only rant on one topic (user:YBM, whose letters are sequentially one after hers, like IBM and HAL), and to contribute nothing but a negative -- an anti- point of view. Thus, she seems to have come to us from some outside web fight and longterm flamewar. Since coming here, she has demonstrated the grace, understanding, curiosity, and equanimity of a wounded hyena with rabies. Geogre 11:08, 27 September 2005 (UTC)

Statement from User:Rbj

I am not a physicist. I am an electrical engineer with some experience in publishing and in academia, although I'm not in the academia at the moment. Being on the Review Board of a technical journal (Journal of the Audio Engineering Society), I have a little experience about how stuff like this gets published. No journal is immune to it which is why some physicists thought that the Bogdanoff brothers were deliberately stinging the physics discipline in the same way that Sokal did to the sociology discipline.

There are two initial possible classes for the Bogdanoff's work: either it has some merit (perhaps with flaws or perhaps not flawed at all) or it has no merit.

If it's the latter, then it is bad science or junk science or pseudoscience (which would be called "quackery" if the science were medicine). In that case, it doesn't matter what the consensus of physicists think. reality is not dictated by majority rule.

If it is the former, that is that it is not devoid of merit, then it is either mainstream science or it is fringe science or protoscience. But here, which category that it falls into does depend on the consensus of the mainstream of the existing discipline. If a majority or even a large minority of physicists recognize the Bogdanoff's work to be valid (or, at least, to have some merit) a case could be made for it to be called "mainstream". But, given the supposition that the work has some merit, if the Bogdanoff's work is not respected as having any merit by any more than a token set of recognized physicists, then the best that can be claimed for it is that it is fringe science or protoscience. That label is not necessarily disparaging. A century ago special relativity was fringe science or protoscience and now it is standard in any introductory modern physics text.

But if the theory is not accepted by the "mainstream" physics community, there is no basis to claim that the theory is mainstream. And if it is not mainstream, the remaining categories are: fringe science or protoscience, and junk science or pseudoscience. In some manner, even string theory, which has a lot of adherents and respect, must accept such a label. If it turns out that string theory can never be falsifiable, it will eventually fall by the wayside and become an obsolete theory.

So there are two main questions to deal with:

1. Does the Bogdanoff's published work have technical merit or not? That issue is too technical and arcane to be debated here, however, a bona-fide cosmologist who has identified himself and his credentials has offered an opinion here on the talk page. Igor would be correct to imply that only the "specialists" can debate this effectively, but he is not correct that this is the salient question for debate about the Wikipedian article. Wikipedia is not the Annals of Physics nor Classical and Quantum Gravity nor the USENET newsgroup sci.physics.research. It would be nice if we could get more real physicists other than User:YBM and User:Alain_r involved, but then again, Wikipedia is not the place for real physicists to slug out what is or what is not real physics (but, unfortunately, it looks like it may become that).

2. The other question that is salient is: what does the wider community of physicists say about the quality and veracity of the Bogdanoff's work? Well, there is quite a record and, despite the publication of their earlier papers in reputable journals, the record is not flattering for the Bogdanoffs. The VAST majority of the credentialed physics community has utterly rejected and dismissed their published work as "wrong", "hoax", "embarrassing", "incoherent", "gibberish", conceptully invalid (my paraphrase of many positions), and even "BS" (and i don't think they mean "Bachelor of Science"). VERY, VERY, FEW physicists have come to their defense on the record. We virtually only hear the journal referee's comments (and only relayed to us via the Bogdanoff's, that has to be a dubious source) but that fails to recognize the problem. No one disputes that the Bogdanoff's got published in a couple of legitimate journals of theoretical physics. The problem is that their papers are believed by the mainstream to be without merit. The journal referees competence regarding this arcane field are also suspect (indeed physicist John Baez has said that the referees have something to answer for). And the merit that Bogdanoff's try to extract from such publication has been destroyed by the fact that the editorial board of CQG has made it clear that the papers, in retrospect, have failed to meet the standards expected of any article published in the journal. The editors of CQG have repudiated the very papers that the Bogdanoffs have published in their journal. This is undeniably damning (except that Igor does actually deny that it is).

The Wikipedia policy is that there is no original research and neutral POV (we don't get to write our own autobiographies here). The fact that the Bogdanoffs continue to defend their work as genuine should be reported as such. But the fact that their work is overwelmingly rejected by the mainstream physics community should also be reported as such. Including links to fringe science, protoscience, junk science, and pseudoscience is not inappropriate at all, because there is no way that anyone can claim it to be in the mainstream.

I have been editing on Wikipedia for about a year or two (I think). The Bogdanov Affair is not my only agenda, but that cannot be said for the Bogdanovs, their sock-puppets, and the few flesh-and-blood supporters: XAL, Laurence67, CatherineV; -- they are here for one and only one reason: to paint the B brothers in the most flattering light possible. To turn this stinkhorn into a rose. But it simply stinks, and that stink is of the Bogdanov's own making. Their behavior regarding this, both here on WP, and at other sites/blogs and USENET, has been nakedly dishonest. They act like imposters much of the time, and I am confident that the reason is that they are imposters. They are pretending to be physicists, but the real physicists know that the B. brothers are not.

The admins and ArbCom of Wikipedia are going to have to make a judgement about what the real physicists say about the Bogdanov "research". On the latest version that I or YBM (now a few others have stepped in to defend the article from the B. vandals) have left, you will get links to the extensive web pages and blogs where this has been discussed since 2002 (a quick check of some words as at Talk:Bogdanov_Affair/comments including an older NYT article). This is the very information that the Bogdanov brothers want to suppress. Sunshine is the best disinfectant. r b-j 22:28, 26 September 2005 (UTC)

Proposal from Marudubshinki

I have watched and studied this matter a fair bit; I do not think it will end peaceably until the page is inacessible for whatever reason. I propose we keelhaul a neutral Wikipedian, essentially randomly chosen, and put them up to a vote on the Talk: page. If accepted, (as they should be since a neutral editor will not have been involved, and presumably, would be non-prejudiced and hence acceptable to all parties), they will completely revamp the article, striving for a neutral even-handed result. This would then be indefinitely protected, until such time as the madness ceases. --Maru (talk) 23:58, 26 September 2005 (UTC)

I'm not sure completely selling out the wiki process is what I'd call an acceptable solution. --Snowspinner 01:23, 27 September 2005 (UTC)

Well, Snowspinner, the wiki process has been grinding along for a while now, and it seems to be ineffectual in this case. I don't fault wikis for this- they are essentially predicated upon the idea of consensus being possible, with the various parties being reasonable and willing to eventually compromise. I don't see any glimmerings of either quality here. So, much as I hate the precedent, we must explore alternatives. --Maru (talk) 03:26, 27 September 2005 (UTC)

I think that this is a fair proposal. Another variation on it would be to elect a "college" of 3 or 4 neutral wikipedians. --Igor

Well, I was thinking it would be a lot easier to randomly and fairly select one Wikipedian rather than 3 or 4; it would also be a lot easier for all parties concerned to vet one rather than multiple candidates. --Maru (talk) 03:21, 27 September 2005 (UTC)

A little heads-up regarding the 3RR rule, sock puppets, and subterfuge

I think that if admins and the ArbCom look into this, it is pretty clear that the Bogdanovs are acting on a little plan of attack by attrition. Notice our two latest Bogdanov sock puppets, "Agent 194" and contribs and "Naudin" and contribs. now here is what will happen, sorta like the board game Risk, in the next edit/revert war, Igor will attack from multiple locations (sock puppets) each with equal resources (our 3 reverts allowed) to the foe, but with a total that outnumbers his opponent. I will revert his vandalism, and he will revert back, but the only way for me to "keep up" is to go beyond the 3RR where none of his sock puppets do that.

I will bet you've seen this sorta thing before, but I do not know what you do about it or have done about it. It's just a heads-up.

In addition, even though both Igor and I have supposedly been blocked because of 3RR violation, Igor does not submit to his being blocked. He just gets another IP, sometimes starts up a new identity, and continues to white wash out anything that he doesn't like to see in this article that is precisely about his "beating the system". Igor is not submitting to his blocks resulting from his own 3RR violation. Do you guys on the ArbCom give a rat's ass about that? -- r b-j 02:49, 28 September 2005 (UTC)

I just point that involved parties cannot unilaterally declare that 3RR is not valid anymore. If Igor has been banned by ArbCom, we can enforce that (please give me an url), otherwise, I'm not upholding Snowspinner advice [5] where he tells Rbj he can break 3RR official policy as much as he can. -- (☺drini♫|☎) 19:50, 28 September 2005 (UTC)

I point out that I was an uninvolved party, and that the declaration was not that 3RR did not hold on the article, but rather that Igor's edits should be treated as vandalism and [reverts of] edits by banned users, [...] never count towards the 3RR. Snowspinner 20:15, 28 September 2005 (UTC)

Yes, Drini, please be careful (and precise) of what say (or type). Snowspinner only said to not worry about the 3RR in reverting the repeated vandalism of Igor since Igor does not and never has submitted to an edit block.

But the main point in my notice here is that it is clear that Igor ignores any block for vandalism, 3RR, or any other reason. At 21:08, 23 September 2005 (UTC), Ral315 blocked both Igor and me for 24 hours for 3RR violation. Even though I know I was doing the right thing by reverting Igor's vandalism, I understood that I was taking that risk (of catching a 3RR violation) by repeatedly reverting this vandalism and I accepted the consequence (sorta like civil disobedience). But it is clear that Igor did not (accept the consequences of his 3RR violation). At 18:01, 24 September 2005 (UTC), Igor had been clearly editing. 18:01 is earlier than 21:08 therefore Igor does not submit to edit blocks that you throw at him. There are other examples; if you want me to find them I will.

This is explicitly what i want the ArbCom and admins to notice. Igor considers himself above the rules and is perfectly willing to "play the system" to get what he wants, whether he deserves it or not. Right now, I understand that Igor is "blocked ... indefinitely" (Drini, those are your words). But do you think that Igor cares about that? What does the evidence show? Must i spell more of this out for you before you will get it? r b-j 20:39, 28 September 2005 (UTC)

Yes, but until ArbCom gives its ruling, 3rr still in hold. From Wikipedia:Vandalism: "Vandalism is not: NPOV Violations". I know you believe with all your heart as snowspinner does that Igor is throwng false statements. But until an official ruling is issued, both partes are subject to policies.

No, Drini, Igor is not subject to the policies. That is the whole point. Give him a 3RR block, he'll laugh it off and edit anyway. Block him further for ignoring the first block and he'll laugh it off and edit away. Will a single admin or ArbCom member take notice of that? I haven't seen any evidence that anyone has noticed and I don't know how much more explicit one can be about it. r b-j 20:41, 29 September 2005 (UTC)

But you must wait until arbcom rules. It may seem unfair, it is, but that's how things are. -- (☺drini♫|☎) 21:01, 29 September 2005 (UTC)

That's why this arbcom request is, you cannot be judge (and rule from right now that igor edits should be removed without penalty) and an involde party. -- (☺drini♫|☎) 03:26, 29 September 2005 (UTC)

Which, notably, I wasn't when I declared open season. Snowspinner 11:41, 30 September 2005 (UTC)

Ok point taken, but then, if it was indeed a vandal (judged and sentenced) why other with RFAr? -- (☺drini♫|☎) 23:08, 30 September 2005 (UTC)

Because the ban wasn't working, and the article was still consumed with revert war. Snowspinner 01:30, 1 October 2005 (UTC)

actually, the "ban" was halfway working; it worked for me in that when i was blocked i didn't edit. it's just that when Igor was blocked, he ignored the block and used whatever IP he could get to edit anyway. r b-j 00:14, 4 October 2005 (UTC)

---

Well, I think that each one of us believes that it is "noon" above his head. The problem is not what "rbj" thinks or what "igor" thinks. At least not directly. Because the problem, here, is to acheive a good, objective and honnest article. We almost got a consensus. Except...for one thing. Rbj refuses to admit that the publication, in the article, of a negative statement issued by the Editorial Board of CQG (a theoretical physics journal where we got published) should be balanced by the publication, a few lines after, of the referee's report that accepted the paper in CQG. It simple to understand : without the referees approval, our paper would not have been published in CQG. And the Editorial Board of the journal would not have issued this negative statement.

Conclusion : after months of discussions, the problem of this "Bogdanoff Affair" article only lies now on the publication of this referee's report. Rbj does not want it to be published. We support its publication which represent, in our opinion, the only way to achieve a balanced article.

Igor

As is his normal pattern, what Igor writes here is a falsehood and a verifiable falsehood. Indeed many times I have agreed to keeping a referee's report that flatters the Bogdanovs (as in this version) as long as it is balanced with another referee report that is (how shall we say?...) less flattering (the Eli Hawkins report). Since virtually the entire physics community dismisses their publications as nonsense, a 50-50 balance of referee reports is more than generous. In addition, I left it to Igor to decide if he wanted them both in or both out. As usual, he chose to remove the unflattering report and leave in the one that he likes. So I removed that one also. Currently it appears that the WP admins are supporting that decision since they have, without exception, reverted Igor's "edit" (unless one of the other editors got to it first). Also keep in mind that Igor is "blocked" indefinitely for 3RR and he continues to edit anyway.

But, of course, the rules don't apply to Igor Bogdanov. r b-j 23:18, 28 September 2005 (UTC)

---

Rbj's so called proposals do not stand on. To cut a long story short, he wants to apply the text written by one referee about one article for one journal on an other article and for another journal. This is called deformation and manipulation of facts. Rbj wants to create a reality that never existed.

As I wrote on the discussion page : 

"Rbj seems to have 2 problems :

1. The first of his problems seems to be his incapacity of writing exact informations. He presented at least 3 times major informations as correct when they appeared as totally invented to serve his demonstration. For instance, he insisted to apply the text of the referee appointed by "Journal of Physics A" to the article published in CQG. While reading his presentation, one was convinced that the JPA referee was commenting our CQG paper. To make sure that there was no mistake about this relation, rbj even wrote just after the positive citation of the CQG report :

However a referee for Journal of Physics A, who later went public, might not agree

Might not agree with what? With the paper published in CQG of course! There is no other way to read and understand this phrase.

In the last version he proposed (this very day), rbj continues to present false informations as if he had done a serious work on it. An example? In order to justify the use he does of the text of JPA referee, rbj does not hesitate to write that our "KMS State..." paper was published in Journal of Physics A when IT WAS NEVER PUBLISHED IN THIS JOURNAL!

in the talk page, Igor says: The Eli Hawkins report exhibited by rbj is NOT a report for CQG but for "Journal of Physics A" . It was on that basis of that information that i changed it from CQG to JPA and now he says that it wasn't JPA. so YBM or someone else went and got the precise citings and put it in the article. i have no idea what it is that Igor is complaining about if i "correct" the reference to what he says it is. if it was wrong, i'm sorry, but it was on the basis of what Igor said. and we fixed it right away. r b-j 05:07, 30 September 2005 (UTC)

It is only after having rewritten this article (precisely on the basis of the critics made by the referee) that we submitted the new version to Chinese Journal of Physics where it was published.

So it is evident that rbj's presentation is FALSE and shows his irrepressible tendancy to invent informations or situations just because he HAS to present us as negatively as possible.

Igor has to back that up with evidence. i can make mistakes by making corrections based on Igor's information, but i have never "invented" a single fact or quote and no one should believe such a pathetic charge without requiring hard proof. they can complain about "timeline" (a phony argument intended to get unflattering content removed) or about being "not exact" (another bogus argument, when bona fide inaccuracies of content was revealed, they were minor - regarding which journal vs. another journal but there were never any substative errors of fact that i put in the article), but they cannot credibly claim that i fabricated content. proof is required.

in addition, i do not invent identities to make it appear that my falacious POV has more popular support than it does. other than Laurence67, XAL (a.k.a. Sophie), and CatherineV, there is no evidence of other real flesh-and-blood supporters for Igor. and there is no evidence that either of these three supporters know anything about physics other than reading Igor's and Grichka's book (which means they still wouldn't know anything about physics). i'm merely and electrical engineer, but any EE who is worth his salt knows some classical and introductory modern physics. i do not claim to know the hard core detail of cosmology but i can read what other physicists say, i can evaluate their credentials, and, even for this mere electrical engineer, it is obvious that The Emperor is naked, and Igor and Grichka are the weavers of the fine cloth the Emperor is "wearing". r b-j 05:07, 30 September 2005 (UTC)

In my opinion, this is a typical manipulation of facts in order to satisfy rbj's personal views upon the subject. Since he wants the article to appear as negative as possible he organizes "his" article the way he wants (even if it is necessary to deform badly the chain of events or the reality of things).

the problem for Igor is that 95% of physicists understand their publications to be nonsense and have publically stated so on various blogs, websites, and USENET postings. when the prevalent opinion of their "work" is so one-sided, a balanced and objective article about it will not reflect that as 50% - 50%. it is not 50-50, but more like 95-5 or 20 to 1. Igor seems to think that when 20 physicists say damningly negative things about his "work" to one or two who said lukewarm positive comments, that somehow this means a fair article would express that as 50-50. "fair" is not stupid and Igor really underestimates the intelligence of those he is debating with. and he greatly overestimates the persuasiveness of his argument. sometimes we have the energy to take him on, point-by-point, but so often, there are just dozens of ineffective, weak arguments that it just isn't worth the energy to address each frivolous point. r b-j 05:07, 30 September 2005 (UTC)

Statement from Laurence67

First, just a comment about Snowspinner's list of "Involved Parties" : why is Igor not there ? Has he no right to stand up for himself, in spite of the fact that he is, with his brother, the most concerned person ? This "omission", in my opinion, is particularly representative of this "Bogdanoff Affair Affair".

Indeed, I find that the worst aspect of this revert war is the rudeness and the unfairness with which Igor is treated by some contributors and, a lot more serious, by some administrators, particularly Snowspinner. The latter decided arbitrarily that Igor's contributions were "repeated vandalism", just because he is the subject of the article, so he banned him and, what's more, encouraged the other contributors to revert his posts "on sight", without worrying about the 3RR.

This bias had an ill effect on some other contributors, who interpreted this "blessing" as a right to revert any text from which the least extract could have been in favour of the Bogdanovs. To justify this, any contributor who seemed to be "for" the Bogdanovs was suspected to be a sock puppet, which was an excellent excuse to feel free to revert us as easily and systematically as they did for Igor ! Then, when it became obvious that we were not, they created an idiom for us ("meat puppet") which meant clearly that they admitted we were not Igor himself, but which suggested we were "revertable" as well. A good example is given by "Professor Ying" here : 29 september, 11:24, as he writes by reverting me : "reverting a revert of a Bogdanov's sock puppet called Laurence67". This comment is all the more hypocritical as, whereas I have been officially considered to be a "possible" sock puppet (it was inscribed on the top of my personal page), now my name has been removed from the list after I prooved I was a "real person". And what is more, "Professor Ying" knows me for monthes and monthes as a "forumer" (among others on sur-la-toile.com) and knows better than most Wikipedian contributors that I'm "real"...

Because of this lack of fairness, the article has become excessively negative and partial, all the more as most contributors don't even take the trouble to read the details given by Igor in the discussion page - just like r-b-j, who gets 2 journals mix-up but persists in reverting "his" version of the facts.

Moreover, beside the quality and the pertinence of the article itself, I find also that the administrators should be a little more motivated to fight some serious "incivilities" against Igor, who is regularly insulted, without the perpetrators being sanctioned. One of the worst example : "You are bastards", "You are cheaters, liers, fraudster and incompetent in almost any field." (YBM, 26 September, Bogdanov Affair - Archive 3) ; other version, by r-b-j : "They are hucksters, swindlers, con artists" (r b-j, Bogdanov Affair - talk page - archive 2, 03:26, 17 September 2005), before suggesting to add the category "excrement". More recently, by the same "contributor", whose style becomes more and more hysterical : "he [=Igor] lies and lies and lies and lies. that is how he got to the position he is at today. (...) it [=The Bogdanov Affair] is what it is. it stinks. the stink is of the Bogdanoffs' own making and no amount of room freshener will remove that stink." (r b-j 17:42, 29 September 2005).

Beside these incredible "direct" insults, there are many others, more "discret" and indirect, sometimes in the article itself : some contributors try to insert external links, categories or "See also" whose content is very insultating in this context, like "The Emperor's New Clothes", or more recently : "The crackpot Index", an article about "incompetence" etc. (Bogdanov Affair - talk page - archive 2, 03:26, 17 September 2005). Obviously, this kind of contributions is designed only to destroy as much as possible the Bogdanovs' reputation. How a "real" encyclopedical article, which is supposed to be objective, could be written in such a malicious context ?

That's why I think that the "Bogdanov Affair" must be written / supervised above all by neutral contributor(s), and I find that Maru's idea - looking for a "neutral Wikipedian" - is very good. There can be one or 3-4, as suggested by Igor, I think that their number doesn't matter much, as long as they don't try to settle a score by means of the article, as some current contributors do.

Laurence67 21:27, 29 September 2005 (UTC)

Just one quick point: "Why is Igor not there?". Igor's there. He's represented by "various IPs", which is unfortunate, but it's his own doing. Igor has not responded to any of my suggestions that he start editing from a name account. I don't have any right to insist on this, and I haven't been, but I recently posted yet another appeal in response to his own complaint about his rapidly rotating assigned IP's causing him to accidentally violate his blocks. No reply. Bishonen | talk 08:31, 1 October 2005 (UTC)

Update: Igor has now registered the account Igor B., and edited the article from it. I appreciate it, and I hope he'll find the convenience of using a single name account. I'm assuming he intends to edit from it exclusively from now on, so I'm leaving the briefly used Igor Bogdanoff account permablocked. If any lingering autoblocks or other remnants of the confused IP situation should bite him through no fault of his own, I appeal to admins to help keep the new account unblocked. Bishonen | talk 16:47, 1 October 2005 (UTC)

OK, I understand. I just found it was not clear if Igor had the right to defend himself or not. Thank you a lot for your explanations !

Laurence67 19:15, 2 October 2005 (UTC)

Update October 3: sweetness and light!

Crossposted from WP:AN/I. Update: Bogdanov Affair is eerily quiet just now, after a huge edit war. I removed one POV rant from each side, and everybody (that I've heard from) seems quite happy with the result. Igor Bogdanov has registered a name account, and declared that he doesn't feel any need to change the article any more. And hey, it's a good article, much better than before the wars! Admittedly, this may be the calm before another storm, as the talk page remains a horror story and I just had to threaten to ban two editors--acrimoniously discussing everything but Bogdanov Affair--from it. Bishonen | talk 01:43, 3 October 2005 (UTC)

Not convinced: Article is swamped by recently added cites [6]. Talk page conflicts the same as ever. --Pjacobi 21:40, 4 October 2005 (UTC)

Arbitrators' opinions on hearing this matter (4/0/0/0)

• Accept Fred Bauder 14:08, 27 September 2005 (UTC)
• Accept. James F. (talk) 17:49, 27 September 2005 (UTC)
• Accept ➥the Epopt 23:26, 28 September 2005 (UTC)
• Accept Theresa Knott (a tenth stroke) 14:07, 3 October 2005 (UTC)

Further Comments

What a silly ruling! I realize Wikipedia is not a democracy/lots of other stuff, but with the pretense towards objective ruling that this arbitration makes process (with "defendants," etc.), one would think that the "findings of fact" would include facts that are significant to the ruling, and that the ruling would be based on those findings of fact. Instead, the ruling is just to ban lots of people from editing, apparently mostly people on one side of the issue, ignoring the extensive arguments on both sides. It seems rather arbitrary, but then it is called "arbitration." There's no principle behind the ruling. It might solve this particular issue - like slapping on a band-aid stops bleeding - but states no principle that could help to solve future issues in advance. Luckily this bleeding doesn't appear to come from hemophilia, but it could, couldn't it?

(Granted, this is coming from someone who just recently came across the article/issue in question, has no real opinion or basis or background to talk about the issue, and doesn't really care either way. But a ruling should have a reason behind it, I would think. And no reason is stated, much less supported.)

zafiroblue05 | Talk 05:26, 3 May 2006 (UTC)

Clarification regarding the Bogdanov Affair

Yes, the thorn-in-the-side returns! Three sock puppets — Bester (talk · contribs), Stern (talk · contribs) and Tron (talk · contribs) — have in the last three days vandalized the Bogdanov Affair article, subject of a 2005 ArbCom ruling. All of their accounts are older, in contrast to the one-shot sockpuppet accounts created to muck with that article earlier, but they have been inactive for a long time (Bester since 3 July 2005, Stern since 2 August 2006 and Tron since 26 February 2004). Edit mannerisms (diff, [7]) are similar or identical to the sockpuppets encountered last year (such as these).

Samuel Blanning (talk · contribs) and I both suspect that these may be compromised accounts. In that light, I'd like to request an emendation of the enforcement decision which currently states the following:

New user accounts and anonymous IPs which focus on editing of Bogdanov Affair shall be presumed to be participants in the external dispute and, despite not being specifically mentioned in this remedy, are subject to it.

Is it possible to amend this statement so that it also applies to user accounts which have been inactive a significant length of time (say, greater than six months) and which may be compromised, particularly if they exhibit the same editing behavior as known offenders? These are, I should add, very predictable puppets. Anville 22:57, 28 February 2007 (UTC)

Edit to add: Sam Blanning has created a long-term abuse entry for this matter, which see. Anville 23:12, 28 February 2007 (UTC)

I've been operating under the assumption that previous rulings, e.g. RFAR/Iasson: One user or several? (a ruling repeated in other cases which I don't remember offhand), allow for the blocking of such compromised accounts, but a change to the wording of the specific case would be appreciated. Only place I disagree with Anville is that I don't think it would be a good idea to include a time limit ("greater than six months") in the amended ruling. The length of time isn't the giveaway, it's the fact that these accounts first display none of the characteristics, then they fall dormant, then they suddenly spring up as Bogdasocks. I wouldn't like to be in a situation where the fact that the account had been compromised would be as obvious as in the case of Bester, but it only fell dormant five months ago.

Arbcom rulings are generally slow to change and risky to ignore, so the Arbcom shouldn't, in my opinion, seek to set out exactly how administrators may act to fight a specific abuser once they've ruled that they need to be dealt with - whether a particular account has been compromised should be left up to the judgement of administrators and the community in general on a case-by-case basis. --Sam Blanning^(talk) 23:26, 28 February 2007 (UTC)

Per Sam Blanning's comments and upon further reflection, I've struck out the "six months" part of my remark. Anville 23:31, 28 February 2007 (UTC)

I think you're on safe ground blocking the accounts as socks. I don't believe it's necessary to formally change the remedy. The Uninvited Co., Inc. 01:20, 3 March 2007 (UTC)