User talk:Irpen

• User talk:Irpen/archived closed issues
• User talk:Irpen/archived closed issues 02
• User talk:Irpen/archived closed issues 03
• User talk:Irpen/archived closed issues 04
• User talk:Irpen/archived closed issues 05

• If you left a message at my talk, I will most likely respond here rather than at your own talk to preserve the context of the discussion, so please stop by later. However, please consider in many cases to use the article's talk for the issues related to specific articles. Similarly, if I left the message at your talk earlier, I ask you to respond there for the same reason. Don't worry, I will see it!
• I never censor my talk page from most anything, including the criticism of myself left by others. However, I may remove clearly trollish entries, personal attacks on myself (unless I find them amusing) and on others (even less tolerance to those). The rest will be occasionally archived.
• I can speedily delete postings that appear to me as instances of m:copyright paranoia as I see fit.
• Please stop by at the Wikipedia's Ukraine portal and Russia portal.
• Thank you! --Irpen

Allow me 1

I, Ghirlandajo, hereby award you this Order of Bogdan Khmelnitsky for your great work on topics pertaining to Ukraine and especially for your exceeding patience and resilience in discussing controversial issues on talk pages. Keep it up!

Wow! Thanks :) , I am honored! Actually, I am trying to contribute to Russia-related article too. But, due to a much larger number of great editors there, my contribution to RU remains rather insignificant.

I was already thinking of awarding myself an Орден "Дружбы народов"' (Why can't I award myself if Brezhnev could?) but with this more prestigeous award, my vanity is more than satisfied for a while for now :). Cheers, --Irpen 22:47, 14 September 2005 (UTC)

Remember, Brezhnev awarded himself the Order of Victory, but it was taken from him after his death. Many of his honours were revoked, such as the Polish Order of Military Merit. Zach (Sound Off) 04:53, 15 September 2005 (UTC)

Well, you did not revoke Mikkalai's barnstar you awarded to him when he single-handily substituted it by the Hero of the Soviet Union that he chose for himself and still displays it on his page? So, don't try to scare me, I will award myself with something when I feel like doing this. If this gets revoked after my death, well, I will see what I would do then. --Irpen 05:05, 15 September 2005 (UTC)

Mikkalai rejected the Barnstar, and he replaced it with the HSU. I threw my hands up and moved on. Zach (Sound Off) 05:14, 15 September 2005 (UTC)

Well, self-awarding legitimacy, or lack of it, should not be affected by the fact whether or not it is accompanied by a rejection of a different award, should it? Anyway, I am extremely modest, at least as much as you are, as you could see. I only displayed a ribbon at my user page. Please note, that I was awarded an Order of B. Kh. 1st class skipping the lower two classes. As you can read from an article, 1st class is "awarded to front or army commanders for successful direction of combat operations that led to the liberation of a region or town inflicting heavy casualties on the enemy." I hope our enemies would not recover from such heavy casualties and no one will ever challenge from now on that our cabal rules the Wikipedia. Ура! --Irpen 05:26, 15 September 2005 (UTC)

While I agree about the cabal, I was not tyring to pick a fight. I was trying to inject some knowledge. Plus, I see that your taking my route on the ribbon bars. :) Zach (Sound Off) 05:29, 15 September 2005 (UTC)

Wołodarka

Ok, Irpen, let us end this whole dispute. If you please, just explain on my talk page how is it that the Russians achieved nothing and were defeated yet the Poles did not win. Halibutt 11:34, 14 September 2005 (UTC)

I will explain it at the article's talk itself for the one last time. --Irpen 22:50, 14 September 2005 (UTC)

I took your above words as a promise. Do you plan to keep it some day? Halibutt 15:15, 5 October 2005 (UTC)

Halibutt, I did respond at that time. Please check dates. To what you wrote later, there is nothing new to add and I view that I said more than enough. Since there are no new questions, there were no new answers for some time. The note about the dispute should stay unless other editors, not just you, views them unwarranted. Not everyohe has to agree, but there has to be an overwhelming majority. So far, to you were rejecting proposals from three (!) editors and insist on your version. I spent to much effort on this to abandon it now. Unless I see that several editors view my position unjustifued, I see no reason to withdraw my objections. --Irpen 19:29, 5 October 2005 (UTC)

Since you do not respond at my talk page and it is quite difficult to monitor talk pages of all the people I leave messages to, I replied in the article's talk page. I hope you'll respond there and not here. Halibutt 22:34, 5 October 2005 (UTC)

Ok, now that you have the article blocked, could yopu possibly PROVIDE SOURCES to the version you so fiercefully promote? Also, answering my question (only one, really simple question) would be a step in good direction... Halibutt 01:32, 7 October 2005 (UTC)

it is easy to figure percentage of speakers

• http://www.uceps.org/ua/opros/15/?show_q_id=46&idTema=0&m_razdel=101
• http://www.uceps.org/ua/opros/15/?show_q_id=47&idTema=0&m_razdel=101

Ilya K 18:53, 6 October 2005 (UTC)

I know about the census. But there is a caviat. Please take a look at Ukrainian language#Independence and modern era (last paragraph) as well as talk:Ukrainian language#Percentage of speakers. --Irpen 18:58, 6 October 2005 (UTC)

You have not understood, follow links. But unfortunately here - http://www.prozorist.org.ua/modules.php?name=Sections&op=viewarticle&artid=161 different numbers (although more Ukranianistic:):( . But I beleived in surves afer presidental elections Ilya K

I am sorry, internet problems :(. I got it now. The links are indeed useful. I should use them for ua-language article because I only had Kiev numbers at hand when I was writing this section. However, please note that this numbers prove that the statement at ua-L that "Ukrainopohones became a minority in their nation" removed by AndriyK was factually correct. We should return it there then, shouldn't we? Thanks for the useful link and for your participation. I am glad to work together on more article. --Irpen 19:13, 6 October 2005 (UTC)

Welcome here - uk:Мовна ситуація в Україні. Ilya K 19:18, 6 October 2005 (UTC)

Thanks! These numbers seem sensible. I can't do much more right now. Please keep an eye on Ukrainization because it got totally disrupted. Also, I left some comments to your recent edits at talk. Actually, you may see that I was against this article to be started at this point because it mostly duplicates the section from the history of ua-L. But once it was started I was just trying to see it not going into excesses and moderating it. I hope it can be made encyclpedic. The wholesale delitions by one user will just make it slower and will not accomplish anything. Regards, --Irpen 19:25, 6 October 2005 (UTC)

http://www.dif.org.ua/publics/doc.php?action=11/us5

Чи доводилось Вам за останні 12 місяців стикатися з випадками дискримінації (утиску прав та інтересів) щодо людей таких національностей?

e1. Чи доводилось Вам за останні 12 місяців стикатися з випадками дискримінації (утиску прав та інтересів) щодо… Українців?

1994 1995 1996 1997 1998 1999 2000 2001 2002 2003 2004 2005
1. Так 6.8 7.2 9.2 6.6 9.6 8.5 8.4 12.6 7.1 7.3 6.4 7.2
2. Ні 88.1 92.5 90.4 93.1 89.6 90.4 91.0 87.1 92.6 92.3 93.2 92.7
Не відповіди 5.1 0.3 0.4 0.3 0.9 1.1 0.6 0.3 0.4 0.4 0.4 0.2

e2. Чи доводилось Вам за останні 12 місяців стикатися з випадками дискримінації (утиску прав та інтересів) щодо… Росіян?

1994 1995 1996 1997 1998 1999 2000 2001 2002 2003 2004 2005
1. Так 8.6 9.5 9.3 7.4 8.8 8.5 5.7 10.4 5.8 5.9 4.4 6.1
2. Ні 85.7 90.0 90.1 92.2 90.2 90.6 93.6 89.1 93.6 93.4 95.2 93.8
Не відповіди 5.7 0.5 0.6 0.4 1.0 0.9 0.6 0.5 0.6 0.7 0.3 0.2

So nobody's complaining. Ilya K 19:58, 6 October 2005 (UTC)

more http://www.livejournal.com/community/ukr_nationalism/324195.html Ilya K 20:08, 6 October 2005 (UTC) Thanks for the useful links. I will be happy to use them. Could you repair Ukrainization (I have server problems right now and can mostly edit talks only). It is a total mess not just content-wise but broken pieces too. Also, you may want to revise the intro in view of my comments at its talk. If you can't do it, I will do that myself later. However, the broken pieces and pieces of paragraphs have to be fixed asap. --Irpen 20:22, 6 October 2005 (UTC)

Allow me too 2

		An Award
		I, User:Alex Bakharev award this Barnstar to Irpen for his heroic work protecting Wikipedia from the Bad Faith Edits and Vandalism

I am SO glad you are back! While at it, is there a ribbon for this star? If not, could you make one for me? Thanks! --Irpen 01:48, 6 January 2006 (UTC)

Irpen, take Image:WikiDefender rib.png. Thanks again. Zach ^{(Smack Back) Fair use policy} 02:03, 6 January 2006 (UTC)

Apology

Irpen is awarded this barnstar for his particularly fine contributions to Wikipedia.

!מזל טוב

from Izehar

Hello Irpen, I've been thinking that since the "bad tempered anon bickering" incident, there has been a gap between us. I would like to apologise for having been on the wrong side of WP:CIV and hope you accept this barnstar for patching up. Izehar 23:12, 8 January 2006 (UTC)

Thanks a lot! I, from my side, fully retract my remarks about the possibility of bad faith on your side (that is if I made any, which I don't think I did in relation to you anyway). Thank you for taking an extra care to check for the possibilities of open proxies. Could you show me how to do it? Next time, I will revert any contributions from such IP's on sight. --Irpen 23:18, 8 January 2006 (UTC)

amusing entry

Irpen !!! Are you ukrainian nazionalist ? — Preceding unsigned comment added by 83.22.217.116 (talk • contribs)

Дуже дякую

conferred by Khoikhoi

Thank you again for you help today. Next time Bonny comes back, I'll know who to contact! ;) —Khoikhoi 01:16, 16 April 2006 (UTC)

Don't mention it (Template:Lang-uk) :)!. But also do ask others as well because those who fight Bonny's socks don't make new friends among more reasonable Romanian contributors who still unfortunately make use of him as a battering ram because he promotes the right POV despite in the wrong way. I am not generalizing over an entire community and I don't want to call names here as well. In any case, we should spread the duty of guarding WP from bad-faith users somewhat evenly. That said, as I always did, I won't hesitate to do all I can to keep such fellows at bay. It's just that if more people actively get themselves involved, life would have been way easier around here. --Irpen 01:25, 16 April 2006 (UTC)

Yeah, I already asked Ghirla, who else do you think we need help from? --—Khoikhoi 01:33, 16 April 2006 (UTC)

The good place to consider would be regional notice boards, like the urgent announcement sections of Portal:Russia/New article announcements, Portal:Ukraine/New article announcements and, yes, a Wikipedia:Romanian Wikipedians' notice board. Some Romanian users feel ashamed by such compatriots and may help as well. Cheers, --Irpen 01:46, 16 April 2006 (UTC)

Alright, thanks again. --—Khoikhoi 02:13, 16 April 2006 (UTC)

Our discussions

I was going to commmend you on your remarkable civility and, as always, amazing dedication to WP. I will alternate my postings, but am generally more interested in improving the state of dance and music articles. I marvel at the combined work of all the Polish, Russian, and Ukrainian members. Sure there will be times to disagree about certain articles, but the manufacture of content from that area is stagerring to be sure.

Thank you for the additional links about language issues. The present system seems ill-suited to stave of our stubborn-headed colleagues (we all have some in our respective communites), and I hope discussions will lead to further reforms. I hope you realize by now that I am not the type that intends to begin any warring, but I am known to back up others when their actions seem sincere. Good luck with KK; he seems like he would make for a good time out with friends :)

Not a big fan of the Ukrainian Canadian dialect. But I would like to tackle Ukrainian Americans at some point.--tufkaa 23:37, 28 April 2006 (UTC)

PD-UA-exempt

Would the images on this official site qualify for such a tag? As the company is state owned. If yes that means that I'll be able to do all the stations of the Kiev Metro and then it WILL altogether become a featured article. In the meantime I still would like to upgrade DnieproGES to the FA standard and nominate it. --Kuban Cossack 13:55, 30 April 2006 (UTC)

Kazak, any Ukrainian logo qualifies. The law speaks inclusively of symbols and signs of enterprises, institutions and organizations and does not even say "state only". Reread the tag, item d)--Irpen 18:58, 30 April 2006 (UTC)

I meant photographs! I could not care less about logos.--Kuban Cossack 19:12, 30 April 2006 (UTC)

Sorry, got you wrong. Give me a couple of days to email them with the request for permission, which I don't expect will be a problem. You could email them too, but I think it is more courteous to write to them in Ukrainian rather than in Russian. So, I will gladly do it for you. --Irpen 19:30, 30 April 2006 (UTC)

Actually they had a Russian version which after their update back in late 2005 was purged. I e-mailed them a few times and got no reply whatsover. Given how often they update I cannot promise a reply. But go to the Dnepr station and have a look the photo there is the same as in our wiki. I think that might reply that all of their photos are in public domain...--Kuban Cossack 19:38, 30 April 2006 (UTC)

Still, I will email them again and we'll see. --Irpen 19:42, 30 April 2006 (UTC)

Prometheism

You keep complaining about this article. But why not just follow the Wikipedia practice and edit it, introducing changes which will make it less POV? This is the Wikipedia way, after all. Be bold. Sitting on the sidelines and telling others to fix articles is not going to accomplish anything. Balcer 03:12, 1 May 2006 (UTC)

I am not a specialist enough in international politics. The editors who are, and who wrote it, are Poles. So, I chose the best venue. I also asked user:172 to look at it. If he gets interested, the normalcy of the article is them assured. --Irpen 03:18, 1 May 2006 (UTC)

Ukrainization

Would this and this (scroll down to Лингвистический лохотрон) be of any use to you?—Ëzhiki (ërinacëus amurënsis) • (yo?); 15:38, 12 May 2006 (UTC)

Davies WERS

I have it now next to me. I think I already asked you for a list of terms to check, I am sorry if you gave it to me but I can't find it now - I remember we talked about the list...--Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus ^Talk 20:30, 22 May 2006 (UTC)

Thanks! First of all, I would like to know the names, Davies uses in the English (original) version of his book for the towns/villages listed in Template:Campaignbox Polish-Soviet War. I am almost sure that Wołodarka, Nowochwastów, Wasylkowce and others have to go from en-Wiki to pl-wiki where no one in sane mind would object to them. Check the table for other names (Mironówka anyone?). I would also be very much interested whether he mentions such thing as the Battle of Wołodarka and, if yes, whether he mentions a "Polish victory" there. If you could hold on to the book for a while, I will come up with more questions. Please keep checking out my talk once in a while. There will be plenty of entries, including by myself, in response to some comments as I have missed replying to several on time due to real life things. I really appreciate that so many people, read my talk and care to comment. I know you are busy with other things than scrutinizing my talk, but just check for responses, if you can. I find it extremely important that the questions and answers are kept at the same page. Regards, --Irpen 21:23, 22 May 2006 (UTC)

"Quick jumping to blocks"

Irpen,

I just wanted to thank you for this. It was good to read some reasoned thought, both about how our sysop temperment is changing as newer, less-encultured people become sysops, and on the individual cases, how mis-application of and sometimes shear insouciance to the guidance can distort our policies into damaging the encyclopædia. Certainly, it makes a rather nice change from the reactionary stuff that so-often pervades AN. Keep up the good work, etc.. :-)

Yours,

James F. (talk) 09:17, 10 July 2006 (UTC)

Allow me 3

Bronze Editor Badge

Book of Knowledge

For your outstanding contributions to Wikipedia and for passing the strict criteria of newly created Senior Editor rank 1 badge (10,000 edits including 5,000 mainspace edits and two years of service (starting from 3 June 2004 in your case)), you are awarded the Bronze Editor Badge and its Book of Knowledge! Geeze, I'm jealous :)

Cheers, Grafikm ^(AutoGRAF) 15:30, 16 July 2006 (UTC)

Wow! Thank you very very much! --Irpen 20:26, 16 July 2006 (UTC)

Give me a little bit and I will see what I can do about ribbons. User:Zscout370 ^{(Return Fire)} 00:35, 19 July 2006 (UTC)

O Canada

Strange request time: can you make this article into a nice stub at uk:О, Канада? I ask you this since I found the Ukrainian lyrics at [1] and it should give you a head start. TIA. User:Zscout370 ^{(Return Fire)} 07:34, 28 July 2006 (UTC)

Hey, Zachs, good to hear from you! Will do when I can but let me know if this is urgent. --Irpen 05:06, 31 July 2006 (UTC)

Image:Kiev St Andrews night.jpg

Hi Irpen,

Is there any way that you would be willing to consider releasing Image:Kiev St Andrews night.jpg under the CC-by-SA 1.0 license? Thanks. -- Wikitravel Sapphire 07:15, 29 July 2006 (UTC)

Hi Sapphire! This is not my image. I contacted the owner of the image (listed at the image page) and asked him, whether we can use his images in WP under GFDL and he said that yes we can. That's all I have. We can contact him again if GFDL is insufficient for you. If you want, I can contact him myself. Regards, --Irpen 05:28, 31 July 2006 (UTC)

I'd appreciate that, because unfortunately I can only use CC-by-SA 1.0. I could contact him, unless he only speaks Russian or Ukrainian, which, if he does I'd greatly appreciate it if you could ask him. Thank you. -- Wikitravel Sapphire 04:37, 12 August 2006 (UTC)

Political reform in Ukraine

Irpen, I notice you create red links to "Political reform in Ukraine" and "Constitutional reform in Ukraine", but I don't think it requires a separate article. I think it should rather be a section "Constitutional Reform (2004)" in Constitution of Ukraine article. Also, the terminology you are using seems to be disambiguous, as 2004 reform is one of many political (constitutional) reforms in Ukrainian history. --KPbIC 01:48, 11 August 2006 (UTC)

I think the reform warrants a separate article, because a section in the Constitution article would naturally be devoted mainly to the changes of the constitution themselves and there was much to the process itself that is outside of the Consitutiona article. I think "Political reform" is more correct since it is more widely used. To disambiquate, we can add a year (or years) to the article's title. --Irpen 01:56, 11 August 2006 (UTC)

Allow me...

For defending articles with valor and for being wounded in these defensive operations, this PH for you, Irpen :) -- Grafikm ^(AutoGRAF) 14:51, 23 August 2006 (UTC)

Hope you don't mind receiving an American award for that, but sadly, there was no similar award in the USSR... -- Grafikm ^(AutoGRAF) 14:51, 23 August 2006 (UTC)

I don't mind any award but I don't remember being wounded :). --Irpen 19:02, 23 August 2006 (UTC)

Language tables

Take a look at my quest from Zscout370 for two tables with language break down in Ukraine by students studying in a specific language (secondary school students only). If you object to their future use, let's let Zscout370 know now so that he does not spend his time on making them. The request is located on his talk page @ http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User_talk:Zscout370#Png_question --Riurik ^(discuss) 21:25, 27 August 2006 (UTC)

History of the Soviet Union (1953-1985)

I have no interest in an edit war but no time either to rewrite the paragraph in question in such a way that it will attain any acceptable level of encyclopedic writing.

Therefore just a few short remarks to show that the paragraph is on the one hand totally out of place and full of errors on the other:

1. The article as such is (like almost all articles concerning "communist" and/or "Soviet" topics in the English WP) so utterly flawed, biased and distorted that it would be but a insignificant cosmetic change if I were to rewrite one paragraph of it.

2. It is absolutely inappropriate to imply that Andropov's "major legacy" to the Soviet Union would have been his "discovery" and "promotion" of so dismal a figure as Gorbachev. Andropov was a highly intellectual and reasonable politician as well as a convinced communist that strove for a thouroughgoing improvement (or "reform", although the word can be tricky !) of socialism in the Soviet Union and beyond. THAT is his major (but due to his early death tragically unfulfilled) legacy !
I don't know whether you are able to read German, but if you do, take a look at the article on Andropov in the German WP (a continuous work in progress !) which has been largely written by myself and also takes the newest Russian secondary literature into consideration. There you could see what a decent and objective discussion and evaluation of Andropov's plans and efforts for an all-round renewal of socialism should look like together with a clear confrontation of this drive to improve with Gorbachev's fury to destroy.

3. If anybody "discovered" Gorbachev, then this dubious honor belongs to either Suslov or Kulakov (or even Shevardnadze) and only in the third or fourth instance to Andropov.
And anyway - Gorbachev, the archetype of a dishonest and sly opportunist, tried hard to maintain friendly personal relations with anybody who could help him in his careerist ambitions - Brezhnev, Andropov and especially the kind but intellectually mediocre Chernenko.

4. Gorbachev was since 1978 CC secretary for agriculture, not "personnel". Rather, Ligachev (whose world views were and still are far more corresponding to Andropov's than Gorbachev's ever did) was nominated CC secretary for personnel questions during Andropov's time in office in late 1983.

5. If Gorbachev is mentioned as a "protegée" of Andropov, then his other (and often much closer) collaborators should also be named - for instance Ryzhkov, Ligachev, Romanov or Aliev to mention but a few.
Many different but agrreing accounts have it that Andropov became more and more critical of Gorbachev and his increasingly obvious incompetency on the one hand and unprincipledness on the other during his time as General Secretary. With this (well founded) assertion I do not wish to present a "hagiographic" picture of Andropov but simply to counteract erroneous historical legends.
It is, of course, true that Gorbachev at the beginning of his glorious reign of happy and unforgettable memory revived some of Andropov's reform schemes. But very quickly he diverted from this path and promoted a very different agenda, the results of which are well known (and felt). And already in 1987 Gorbachev branded so-called "orthodox" adherents of Andropov's original "perestroyka" as "half-breeds" (which was, by the way, also rightly understood as a hidden anti-semitic remark aimed at Andropov's possible Jewish ancestry).

6. It was during Chernenko's (and not Andropov's !) long periods of absence due to his illness in 1984/85 that Gorbachev acted as the "Second Secretary" of the CC and therefore as the "deputy" to the General Secretary. During Andropov's illness no clear "deputy" was chosen.

I hope this makes my line of reasoning a bit clearer, Yours Elsmlie 09:59, 10 November 2006 (UTC)

Thanks a lot for such an interesting reply. I am least interested inrv wars as well. From experience, I know that most blanking edits should be avoided ir treated with suspicion. Now that you explained, I would agree if you remove the info again. However, please consider replacing the paragraph you view "incorrect" by a "correct" one. While removing of misleading info is useful, replacing it with the correct info is even more so. Thanks again! --Irpen 04:31, 11 November 2006 (UTC)

Transparency vs. Opacity

or, more explicitly,

"Open Meetings/Records" vs. "Behind Closed Doors"

Dear Irpen:

Thank you, many times thank you, for your recent comments on the need for transparency in admin decisions, as opposed to their being made secretly off-wiki with no record.

What I have seen over and over in real-world governance is the immediate tendency of secrecy to foster corruption. In part this might be the tendency of already existing corruption to seek secrecy as a growth medium; but I think secrecy has also weakened the resistance of the previously honorable with its continual tempting whisper of "no-one will know."

One of the alarming things about the recent WP:AN/I discussion was how open discussion was repeatedly subverted by admins who claimed their actions had support but declined to specify names, citations, or any other detail. (Perhaps "all the lurkers support them in email IRC.")

• An open consensus (no block) had been reached in the original main section, with all participants signing their statements on the open record...

• ... and then a block was enacted anyway, by someone who had said not a word in that discussion, but left an unsigned and undated statement elsewhere.

• That block was openly discussed and disputed in an appended subsection on AN/I...

• ... an admin engaged in the dispute (and made his own accusations) in the bottom entry...

• ... and then that same admin declared the discussion closed — while claiming review and upholding by (likewise unnamed) "uninvolved sysops" — after which no rebuttal or denial of his accusations was possible. (I had been under the impression admins were not supposed to protect pages on which they themselves were engaged in disputes.)

It is all too vivid a reminder of the block-plus-false-accusation-of-"threats" on Commons for which the blocking admin would not give even specifics, let alone cites (and said "other admins" had asked him for the block, though again he gave no names; where did this asking occur?)...

... and of the entire RfA talk page deleted because one person had asked an awkward question. (Interesting question, too. How, right after two previous failed RfAs, did a candidate manage to win unanimously, 25-0, a third RfA for which all previous opposition disappeared — or, as the asker noted, of which previous opponents had not heard? Why would anyone delete an entire page to keep that question from being seen, rather than either answering or ignoring it? It would have been easy enough to reply "You snooze, you lose.")

Open meetings and open records, allowing everyone to see what's really going on, let people learn to trust their administration — if the actions so revealed are worthy of trust.

A cloud of secrecy, from which emerge (even occasionally) lies and injustices, tends to have the opposite result.

Further, making an official habit of dishonesty (e.g. using false accusations to justify admin actions) cannot bode well for an encyclopedia project, which after all should be honest and verifiable.

The Wikipedia/Wikimedia community faces a serious problem, even if most of its members simply don't know it yet, even if many will remain blithely unaware. Your recent comments have shown the clearest awareness of this, made the clearest statement of it, that I have seen to date. Again, thank you. – SAJordan ^talk_contribs 08:55, 17 Dec 2006 (UTC).

Question on Kyiv spelling

Irpen, Kyiv spelling of the capital of Ukraine is the official spelling, according to the Ukrainian national system of transliteration. It's also one of the well established spellings of the city (Google test: more than 5mln hits). Thus, I would like to ask what is your view on the scope of usage of this spelling in Wikipedia? Should it be used, as a reflection that the spelling is a valid spelling, which has its usage? Or, should it be excluded from each and every page? --KPbIC 22:58, 17 December 2006 (UTC)

Well that can be said about the Kharkov and thousands of other Ukrainian cities that have Russian spellings. Considering that all (except western Ukrainian ones) in google give more hits by their Russian translit than Ukrainian one,, should they too be excluded from each and every page ? --Kuban Cossack 23:32, 17 December 2006 (UTC)

Good question. Do you know the answer? As well as this one. --KPbIC 00:02, 18 December 2006 (UTC)

So I was right about reverting the Kharkiv Metro station moves, thanks, I'll keep that in mind. --Kuban Cossack 01:09, 18 December 2006 (UTC)

If you wanna talk about Google tests, "Kiev" gets about 34 million. So you should find better reasons than that. -- Grafikm ^(AutoGRAF) 23:44, 17 December 2006 (UTC)

Actually why not create a bot that will go and change this throughout wikipedia...ie. Kyiv to Kiev... and at the same time other cases like Odesa to Odessa? --Kuban Cossack 23:47, 17 December 2006 (UTC)

Grafik, it's true that at this point, Kiev spelling is used more widely than Kyiv. The question is: Should Kyiv be excluded from each and every page of wikipedia? --KPbIC 00:02, 18 December 2006 (UTC)

Well based on naming conventions alone, in most cases, YES! Now there are exceptions, particulary those where Kiev actually reffers to a name not to the city. e.g. FC Dynamo Kyiv. In other cases, per name of the article, particulary historical articles.--Kuban Cossack 00:14, 18 December 2006 (UTC)

Nope. Not only in the cases of Kyiv being a part of a name, but also as a name of the city. What you are failing to recognize is that Kyiv has its historical usage. This is the current official name of the city used by local authorities, it's the name used by some foreign and international entities, and it's the name used by many people, including some Wikipedia contributors. If someone within an article wrote Kyiv in today's context (for example, in the list of recently established Ukrainian postal codes), there is no need to substitute by what you believe the name should be. The name is what it is, what people actually call it. Please, read the example in WP:NCON. You are mistakenly following a prescriptive approach, changing Kyiv to Kiev, and saying that this is what should be. Wrong. Wikipedia follows the descriptive approach, in particular, don't "fix" links that aren't broken. --KPbIC 00:59, 18 December 2006 (UTC)

Well in ENGLISH Kiev only has two historical terms, Kiev, Kijow and Kiev for the three different time periods. Now in today's context you have a 34 mln vs 5 mln google hits, and the postal codes actually do not use the term Kyiv, but Киïв as cyrillic, not latin is the alphabet. Now then like it or not, but guidelines are only guidelines, and the redirect passage mostly adresses points like Acidic or Acid. Kiev and Kyiv on the other hand are different points and are ultimately drawn from WP:NC which is a POLICY, not a guideline. And in a conflicting case, as here, the policy has an upper hand. --Kuban Cossack 01:09, 18 December 2006 (UTC)

OK, I was pleased to log in and find out that my page became a field for a productive discussion. Since it was conducted at my page, I assume that all that took part are interested in my opinion. Here goes. First, the general statement. Based on the combination of the current Wikipedia policies and the modern prevailing English usage, Kiev should indeed be used throughout Wikipedia, except for the proper names where Kyiv is part of such name, such as football clubs, enterprises, organizations, etc. It should also be used in the discussion in the "Kiev or Kyiv" section of the Kiev article and, ideally, in the yet non-writted Name of Capital of Ukraine article, similarly to the existing Name of Ukraine.

That said, I do not make it my priority to hunt for Kyiv all over Wikipedia and change it for Kiev because I have other things to do. At the same time, users who do so, act in accordance with the policies and they should not be reverted for frivolous reasons. Personally, I usually only change Kyiv by Kiwv in two cases. One, when I edit the article for other reasons, like expanding it. Two, when someone Kyivizes the spelling that pre-exists. I am not bound to do it that way, as this is my volunteerly soft self-restriction. Kuban kazak may have a different view on how tolerant one should be to non-policy name and he is entitled to act as he sees fit because this is actually what policies prescribe. I do not see Kyiv within current policies.

A separate, and yet related question, is that the usage in articles does not have to coinside with the main article. True enough, the historic names, as found in historic literature written in English may be used. However, Kyiv does not prevail in English usage in any particular context. As such, historicity is not a valid reason for this particular city.

I view the argument Krys frequently brings about the desires of the city residents largely irrelevant. Curiously, I am not even sure that an opinion of the residents of the city is known. Truth is that the population of the city is both overwhelmingly Russophone and overwhelmingly supportive of the Ukrainian independence. How one is to derive the residents' view of the particular question is a mystery to me and however one does it, that's original research. I am not aware of a sociological survey where the city residents were asked the particular question. I must say that this would be extrely interesting to know. --Irpen 04:45, 18 December 2006 (UTC)

Again, one of the facts is that Kyiv provides more than 5mln hits. This is, for example, more than about 2mln hits on Kuban, the home region of User:Kuban kazak. Then, why should the usage of Kyiv be ignored? If there is such usage of Kyiv, then the question is not "Is there any historical context for Kyiv?", but rather "What is the proper context for Kyiv?".

I thought, to find a clear answer, instead of relying "on the combination of the [unspecified] current Wikipedia policies and the modern prevailing English usage", it may be reasonable to submit RfC on the issue of clarifying the context for Kyiv usage. Kuban kazak was trying to prove that WP:NC(UE), which is a guidance, should take priority over WP:REDIRECT, which is another guidance. Weak argument, to say at least. It's possible that if there is a clear result out of RfC on this particular case, it could make our life easier. So, would you like to cosign RfC asking community on the context of Kyiv usage (if any) within Wikipedia? --KPbIC 23:32, 18 December 2006 (UTC)

There are plenty of google hits for Warszawa and Munchen as well. There is no usage of the term in Wikipedia. Similarly, Kyiv is not "ignored". It is not used in WP except few circumstances. There are only two contexts for the city name: modern and historical. Kyiv does not prevail in either of those.

If you you don't see a clear answer, you are free to spend your time pursuing it. I do see a clear answer and consider this a pure waste of time. Therefore, I do not see a need for RfC and will not help it happen. If it happens, I might comment on it at some point but I view initiation unfavorably not because I like the status quo but because I don't see any merit in your claim.

To summarize, I cannot prevent you from pursuing the issue anywhere you want but I do not want to facilitate another empty discussion which will bring nothing. --Irpen 23:43, 18 December 2006 (UTC)

Warszawa is a name of the city in Polish language, first of all, and only then in German or in English. In addition to Warsaw, the name has been used in English Wikipedia as a name of the city ([1], [2], [3], etc, etc), without much of conflict from both sides (afaik).

Kyiv is the name of the city in English, not in Ukrainian. And contrary to other cases, Kyiv is a self-identifying English name. You continue to neglect the role of the government, hoping instead to get "independent surveys", which would show people as you want them to be. Government elections is the most valuable survey you can get. At least since 1990, Kiev was always inclining pro-Ukrainian way. Being yet mostly Russian-speaking city, Kievans not merely support independence, but among other things they do support the transition to the Ukrainian language. Contrary to parents being studied in Russian schools in Soviet time, they want their children to go to Ukrainian schools. Not each and everyone, but the people I know do just that, and they think it's right. The spelling of Kyiv, among other things, is a symbolic element of the transition.

I thought it would be a good case when two opponents bring an RfC together. Too bad, you see it as an empty discussion. The issue cannot disappear by itself, especially if one side is self convinced the truth can only be on their side. --KPbIC 00:49, 19 December 2006 (UTC)

I am not for "independent" surveys as opposed to the government ones. I am against deriving the answers to a question A from the answers to a question B made by a Wikipedian on his own and then invoking the results of such original research to argue his points. The question to the city residents "How would you prefer your city to be called in English?" has never been asked and I would be very curious to see an answer to it no matter who conducts such survey. I see other baseless claims you made above, like "Kievans support" this or that. Not that this is very relevant to the Wikipedia naming, but I have no idea where you get this info from. I think the only way to know is to check how people answer questions asked to them. I did not see Kievans answering the questions like "Would you prefer your children to study in the schools with Russian or Ukrainian as the primary language of instructions, provided that both languages are studied comprehensively within the schools curriculum?" Neither I have seen specific Kiev-only answers to the question "Would you prefer Russian to be a second state language in Ukraine?" (I've seen the answers to this latter question asked Ukraine-wide and the answer of the majority of the population of the country is "yes").

This all is, however, beside the point. I commented on that simply because you like to invoke the will of the people baselessly purely on where you want the people's will to be or by deriving it from elsewhere without basis. Moreover, this has only an indirect and remote effect on the English usage as the latter is mainly affected by the English native speakers and those do not live in Ukraine.

"People I know" is not a valid statement as an argument in Wikipedia. Besides, I know many people who think otherwise. I am not invoking them because user:Irpen is not an authority to conduct surveys and argue their results. Neither is user:Krys. I can see that you personally want to see the English usage changed. I neither approve nor disapprove your interest in doing so. However, Wikipedia cannot be a vehicle to promote your personal preferences on what the English usage is better to advance your political goals. I have repeatedly supported the Ukrainian-based versions of the names within Wikipedia where such were warranted by the recent change of the English usage. I not only supported but also initiated the moves of Luhansk and Kharkiv. Unlike Kuban kazak, I consistently use LvIv and CherkaSy not only in main but also at talk pages (while you act more like Kazak by insisting on using Kyiv in talk space, but, hey, this is just talk space and you are both free to deflect from conventions dictated for mainspace to make your point). As soon as (also if) the prevailing English usage would change towards Kyiv, I will support the change of the article's name and will use the name in modern context in the articles I edit.

Re your point about Warsaw, see this. As you can see Polish editors rejected your claim.

You want to start an RfC about something that has been discussed to death and a new RfC will add nothing to it. If this is how you want to be spending your wikitime, go for it. I am not interested in the endless discussions about something where everything has been already said. --Irpen 02:09, 19 December 2006 (UTC)

Few days ago I added to Kiev results of survey by Research & Branding Group. Reading yesterday, an interview with the director of R&B, I really regret mentioning the "sociological company" and their results. The guy is all in politics, and I doubt something is left for true sociology. And I doubt someone can be pleased with the quality of Ukrainian surveys, unless that someone is picking the results (surveys) he likes. That's why I rather put emphasis on elections, and on the actual people’s choice. Kievans do favor Ukrainian schools for thier children. The actual choice brings responsibility. There are no lines for Russian classes, no waiting lists, no oversized classes. They do have choice, and they make their choice. Contrary, surveys lack responsibility. Your answer to "What would you do if you had a million?" is likely to be different from the way you would actually spend the million, if you are in fact is given one. Then what's really relevant?

With respect to Kyiv, I don't have time to respond today, and it looks like your position is stone clear. I do see the benefits of using the same name in all articles, as in Britannica, and other authority encyclopedias, but I see no indication that you see the benefits of allowing Kyiv as well as Kiev, and Kharkov as well as Kharkiv in such open voluntary-based encyclopedias as wikipedia. --KPbIC 06:18, 19 December 2006 (UTC)

I am tired of discussing with you some irrepevant issues. Your assertions about knowing and being able to derive the wishes of the residents are flawed but I already explained why.

As for comparison of Kyiv with Kharkov, the difference has been explained to you. All the E.L. WW2 literature uses Kharkov. It also uses Rumania and, frequently, Tarnopol. Kyiv is not used by much of the English language books iun any historical context. That's what makes it different from Kharkov and Lwow. --Irpen 06:40, 19 December 2006 (UTC)

Possibly unfree Image:A Voloshyn.jpg

An image that you uploaded or altered, Image:A Voloshyn.jpg, has been listed at Wikipedia:Possibly unfree images because its copyright status is disputed. If the image's copyright status cannot be verified, it may be deleted. Please go to its page for more information if you are interested in it not being deleted. Thank you. Nv8200p talk 15:15, 9 January 2007 (UTC)

An uninvolved admin says....

Now would be a great time to drop it. Please discontinue the argument at WP:RFI or I will drag the warring parties apart while adopting a policy of actively not caring who, if anyone, is right. Same goes for Piotrus. Guy (Help!) 21:21, 23 January 2007 (UTC)

Hey, did you actually read what I was saying? Shutting it down was what I was actually calling for all along! --Irpen 21:23, 23 January 2007 (UTC)

Yes, but Dan's actions merited investigation and the firefight stopped that happening. Sorry to be heavy-handed, but really the meta-arguments were impeding genuine attempts to investigate (and no it certainly was not all your fault, or all anyone's fault) Guy (Help!) 22:08, 23 January 2007 (UTC)

• I can't disagree. Piotrus brings a lot of this on himself. Peter pointed out that the thing I was looking for was WP:NCR, which I think gets a lot closer to what I meant than what I actually said :o) Guy <small>(Help!) 23:30, 23 January 2007 (UTC)

New day, new hope

Since you tried talking to me, let me repay the good intention, especially as I still think you are a decent person, and we are having a terrible misunderstanding. Plus if I can work things with Ghirla (in mediation), I am sure it should not be more difficult to patch our relations.

So. You think that I am responsible for Ghirla leaving the project, yes? I don't think so. We were doing well in mediation, I was mostly satisfied with his replies and I didn't see any sign he was unsatisfied with mine. So I don't think I was the reason he left our project. Further, as I wrote before, I would be happy to cosign a request to get him back. He is a valued contributor, and as we have been doing good progress dealing with the incivility issue I see no reason not to want him to come back and continue contributing to this project, avoiding our past problems with the civility parole he himself recognized as acceptable and useful.

Second. I am offended by your accusations that I try to get my opponents blocked. You should know well I spend a lot of time in discussions, and in my years here even you could find only several examples where I was forced to take this action. Blocking policy exists for a reason, and if an admin finds that a person who disagree with his POV seems also to be violating polices whose violation is blockable, what can that admin do? He cannot block that person himself, obviously - so isn't the only choice (assuming he has tried to talk to that person first but failed to reach a solution) to ask other admins to investigate that matter (again, assuming that that admin thinks the case is relativly simple and violates a policy whose violation is blockable)? Do note that investigation may result in a block but may also in recommendations for DR or just plain 'you are overreacting, let it go'. As I wrote before I don't believe any of my actions were over and beyong what is perfectly normal and to be expected behavior of any user.-- _{Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus | talk}  18:03, 24 January 2007 (UTC)

Piotrus, as I said before, I find editing articles with you quite possible. In fact much easier than with Halibutt, who I also hope will stay despite all the problems he gives to me and all his opponents. The fact stands, however, that I don't remember Halibutt submitting reports on his opponents all over the place.

Ghirla left because of overall stress of which his conflict with you was the major part. You were running a campaign against him in every space he was posting. Your invoking his RfC multiple times even at WP:DYK suggestion page goes beyond pale. Placing him on the civility parole would me most fiercely oppose by me. As I said at Halibutt RfC, civility is not a core problem of these conflicts. Halibutt has also been at times incivil. I would oppose any action against Halibutt as well. This is not a manners forum. This is the encyclopedia and we should concentrate on the content writing. Your tendentious edits (you may say Ghirla's or mine tendentious edits, if you think so) and overall editing disagreements is the core of these problems. The recent example is what happened with the Russian Enlightenment article and there are multitudes of similar cases. But in any case, such disagreements should be allowed to be resolved in due course without involvement of the admin powers, be it yours or those you call in.

I have by far less problems editing with you than with many of your friends. It is easier to reach a compromise with you than with, say, Halibutt and, unlike, say, Lysy, you did not make offensive remarks about me (except that single accusation in Polonophobia of which I am not making a big deal). Perhaps things have slipped from my mouth too when things were hot.

We will continue to work on the articles here. I hope Ghirla will rejoin. The only thing I must insist on, is that you drop resorting to the boards every time you are unhappy. Happy edits, --Irpen 19:02, 24 January 2007 (UTC)

I guess we differ in our view on our little community. I believe that foul-mouthing and generally personal attacks are not only not helping, but they are damaging the content as they drive editors away. Thus I believe that editors who violate those policies must be forced to change their ways, and in extreme cases, blocked. Just like in real life, a few offensive words can be taken, but when somebody launches a large-scale, long campaign of slander, or does similar actions, he needs to be called to order. One can express all of his POV without being offensive. Those who cannot just have to learn it - sometimes, the hard way.-- _{Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus | talk}  20:26, 24 January 2007 (UTC)

Piotrus, I agree that civility is an asset. I agree that incivility is not helping. All I am saying is that policies should not be used as a weapon in edit or personal conflicts. I never reported Halibutt or Lysy for their abusive language. The price of your actions is a loss of an invaluable editor, while Halibutt is still around. Could be if I was harassing Hali over civility the same way as you were harassing Ghirla, Hali would not have been here as well. And I am not even mentioning the extreme offense about my ethnicity I took from Lysy. I will not sit idly if this practice continues while I will do my best to ensure the improved civility overall. --Irpen 20:53, 24 January 2007 (UTC)

Irpen, if I may chime in, it is every editor's right to report others for repeated incivility. You may not wish to do so, but don't expect others to take abuse in silence. As for your promise to "ensure the improved civility overall", I can't say I have high hopes; I was very disappointed by your passionate defense of Ghirlandajo in two clear-cut cases of incivility against me. Appleseed (Talk) 21:08, 24 January 2007 (UTC)

I did not defend his incivility, that's for one. Besides, he was constantly provoked by the campaign that some were running against him. I did talk to him about overal tone of his messages and about not taking the bait. Unfortunately, it had only some effect. If your goal was to eject him, you succeeded now. Happy edits, --Irpen 21:11, 24 January 2007 (UTC)

New day, new hope - 2

It's hard to respond to your accusations because they are so nebulous. What campaign? Who were these "some" who were waging it? Me? Considering my two unhappy encounters with Ghirlandajo were my only encounters with him, it must have been a very short campaign. What baiting and provocation are you referring to? If you consider this a provocation, or my discussion of two article titles, then I see why we're having trouble understanding each other. Appleseed (Talk) 21:41, 24 January 2007 (UTC)

By campaign I mean being followed everywhere with links to his a year old RfC, which even included WP:DYK pages, being faced with WP:TE attacks, like in Russian Enlightenment and other whatnots. I repeat that I agree that Ghirla has somewhat a short temper. So does Hali. Piotrus and myself have a thicker skin. I have the thickest one. The crux of the matter is that editors like Ghirla and Hali should not be harassed but protected for the benefit of us all thanks to the enormous amount of material they bring here. They should not be reported to all sorts of boards on every minor instance. --Irpen 21:53, 24 January 2007 (UTC)

Ghirlandajo's "somewhat short temper" is the understatement of the year. You're taking about someone who used an obscenity because I was discussing (not even proposing) a new article title. Everyone knows that he writes a lot of articles, but you're asking too much of your fellow editors if you expect them to give him carte blanche. How many editors does Ghirlandajo have to chase away with his incivility before it becomes clear that they could have accomplished much more than he alone, and in a pleasant atmosphere to boot? Appleseed (Talk) 22:08, 24 January 2007 (UTC)

He has not chased away a single editor. I can tell you more. My first interaction with him was a long and stubborn argument at the talk of the the Great Russian language article. After two days of arguing over the disagreement, he gave to me my first barnstar that you can see at the top of my page. He can be reasoned with if you do it properly. If, OTOH, one does it like Piotrus and Halibutt was doing, yes, he looses temper and responds inadequately. Still, I am aware of no more valuable contributor to this project and I am willing to tolerate occasional incivility from such editors, similar to how I tolerate Halibutt and oppose any harassment he has been taking lately. --Irpen 22:12, 24 January 2007 (UTC)

In the course of your discussion, did Ghirlandajo accuse you of somethingcentrism, curse, threaten to report you, or speak to you in a condescending fashion? How many edits such as this do I have to endure before Ghirlandajo gives me a barnstar? I'm afraid I that I'm not interested in learning the "proper" way to reason with Ghirlandajo--I'll stick to common decency, which WP makes explicit in WP:CIV. Appleseed (Talk) 22:31, 24 January 2007 (UTC)

Yes, he accused me in Russophobia. I just ignored it and moved on. Since then we became wikifriends and I did not chase him to demand an apology as I do not demand apologies from Piotrus for accusing me in Polonophobia or others here who called me worse. I am proud that Ghirla considers me his friend because, as I said, I know of no other contributor to this project of such quality (perhaps Giano would be the only exception). I am also pleased to see the respect from Piotrus whose contributions are also immense and I only regret that Halibutt does not think of me much. --Irpen 22:59, 24 January 2007 (UTC)

Since my name was mentioned here I take the liberty to reply. Indeed I'm considering to return to the project, partially because Ghirla is away. I admire Piotrus' patience in dealing with him, I lost all hope in that Ghirla could become a civilized and civil editor a long time ago, around the time he's been chasing my every step, accusing me of a zillion of absurd things and violating almost every policy - usually with the aims of either driving me mad or discrediting me. Finally I got carried away once or twice, which was the reason I decided to leave. Ghirlandajo has been doing for years what I've done once or twice. That's why I believe your if I was harassing Hali over civility the same way as you were harassing Ghirla, Hali would not have been here as well remark is both misleading (intentionally, I'm afraid) and unfair. If you want to compare mine behaviour with that of Ghirlandajo, please be so kind as to compare specific diffs and their reception by the community. Check both RfCs if you like. Otherwise please don't use me as an example of "Ghirla-like, yet unpunished" since I'm not. There is a huge difference between us and it's not nationality I mean here.

Halibutt, I am not to spend time comparing who of you two is more incivil. Personally, you offended me much more and with stronger words than anyone except, perhaps one or two of my ultra-nationalist compatriots and one exceptionally insulting remark from Lysy. I just moved on. As I said, I consider civility secondary and content creation primary. --Irpen 22:59, 24 January 2007 (UTC)

I beg your pardon? When did I offend you? And how? //Halibutt

Well, you said things to me that I would rather not recite. --Irpen 01:37, 25 January 2007 (UTC)

See? It's always easier to accuse others of being incivil that finding a single piece of evidence. This way everyone will know that I'm a bad guy, regardless of whether I really did something wrong or not. That's the very same tactics Renata and others have adopted. //Halibutt 01:49, 25 January 2007 (UTC)

Right, there is an anti-Halibutt conspiracy. Listen, I just hate to find exact diffs. The first time you offended me was at the time of the infamous Wolodarka dispute. Than you called me a liar. I will rather not elaborate. --Irpen 03:52, 25 January 2007 (UTC)

It was not meant as an offence, it was a mere description of facts. I presented two sources, you tried to convince everyone that I presented only one. If you're offended by the word lie, how about you deliberately distorted the reality or you were untrue? //Halibutt 08:58, 25 January 2007 (UTC)

Not again! I will not be go over the Volodarka nonsense with you for the N+first time. Sorry, my friend. --Irpen 17:27, 25 January 2007 (UTC)

As to chasing away other editors, I was on the verge of being chased away by Ghirla and the like. Ghirla himself admitted a long time ago that he chased away Rydel from Wikipedia (the diff should be in Ghirla's RfC if you don't believe me). I don't know if there are more people directly involved, but the fact remains that Ghirla's inability to behave creates an overall bad atmosphere in Wikipedia, which is not what this great project deserves. Even if it does not drive anyone out of the project directly, it creates a bad precedent. One could say "look, Ghirlandajo told everyone to fuck off and called them idiots, and so can I" (check the RfC for diffs again). This already happens - and Ghirla had definitely his hand in it.

Sorry, but Rydel was just a troll. If I am responsible for the departure of AndriyK, which may or may not be the case, this is not something for me to loose my sleep over. Those fellows brought nothing here but edit wars. At the same time, several Lithuanian editors made it clear that they are living because they can't deal with you anymore. --Irpen 22:59, 24 January 2007 (UTC)

See? It's all a matter of perspective. For me Ghirlandajo is the same kind of fella. As to the "several Lithuanian editors", I bet you're referring to the outraging piece of slander by Renata, who was back to wikipedia in two weeks and whom I asked repeatedly to post a single piece of evidence for her absurd accusations. To no avail. //Halibutt

Well, that you call him "the same kind of fella" as Rydel and AndriyK speaks lengths. There is no more to disscuss. As for Lithuanian editors you chased away, Renata is only one of them. Lokyz and EED come to mind. --Irpen 01:37, 25 January 2007 (UTC)

Yeah, right, I indeed drove Lokyz away. For two days. I won't comment on EED, just like I wouldn't like to comment on Zivinbudas and other similarly-minded people. //Halibutt

Well, comparing EED to Zvin just does not fly. So, cut it. --Irpen 03:52, 25 January 2007 (UTC)

Finally, so far I found only one way to deal with Ghirla's phobias: sources. In cases where a heathen debate starts it usually helps to expand the article with as many sources as possible - then Ghirlandajo suddenly disappears - and starts his usual mumbo-jumbo in another place (check the history of the articles on Warsaw Uprising (1794) or Katyn massacre for examples). However, I believe that the limit of offences one can commit is over for him and I can't say I'm not happy about that. If he learns how to control himself - great. If he doesn't - great as well. The latter would mean that we'll loose a valuable editor, but this would be a lesser evil - at least from my perspective.

Bullshit. Nothing can be a greater evil for the project than loosing editors who create most of its content. Grow a thicker skin and write articles. Same as I do. --Irpen 22:59, 24 January 2007 (UTC)

Not bullshit. The same tactics was applied in a plethora of articles - and it always worked. //Halibutt

Oh, and I appreciate your declaration that you oppose the harassment I've been taking lately. It's very nice of you. Too bad you did not oppose it when it was Ghirlandajo to start it, but that's another story, isn't it. //Halibutt 22:33, 24 January 2007 (UTC)

Hey, you are not the one to talk about niceness either, my friend. But you may go back to your own RfC and read my statement. I chastised your opponents for making a big deal about your manners and asked them to leave you alone. The problem I have with you is POV pushing and stubbornness, not the names you called me. If you come back fully, so the better. I will do my best to have Ghirla returned as well. --Irpen 22:59, 24 January 2007 (UTC)

Irpen after reading New day, new hope, and New day, new hope - 2, and all of the comments and recriminations posted here, it looks bleak from my perspective. I would like to take a moment to tell you I intend to follow WP:Civil to the letter in the future, and will be expecting the same in return from everyone. By no means will I cease to question or challenge any kind of false information, propaganda, or POV. Hope you will return to the project in full, and can get Ghirla to consider all of the reasons his return is necessary. Dr. Dan 02:04, 25 January 2007 (UTC)

Russian colonialism

You may be didn't know, but for over 2 years I've been fighting tons of bullshit in -phob- article. I was never successful in deletion of idiotic articles, kind of chiroptophobia, murophobia, etc.) The only thing worked was actually writing a reasonably sensible article myself (fear of bats, fear of mice, etc.), redirecting these pseudomedical neologisms there and keeping bullshit out of them. Applying to your case, you will never delete the title, because the term became fashionable, and you will never reach any reasonable agreement about how thin the term "colony" may be stretched. And you will never prove that the life in an oppressed "colony" of Malorossia was way better than, say, in Gzhel (btw, look into it; needs an eye) or in mines and plants of Demidov. So I would suggest to write a sensible article on the policies of tsarist government on the peripheries and painlessly kill this one. `'mikka 02:16, 26 January 2007 (UTC)

But that article would have nothing to do with this one. Neither it will have its name. I will prod it then. --Irpen 03:29, 26 January 2007 (UTC)

Ivan Chernyshyov

Hello Irpen! A Count (or General) "Czernichev" is listed in Giles MacDonogh's Frederick the Great: A Life in Deeds and Letters as being the advisor to Catherine the Great that suggested to Prince Henry of Prussia that Frederick take Warmia, leading up to the First Partition.[2]

This book about the Seven Years' War mentions a "General Ivan Chernichev", while this book about Sweden mentions "Czernichev" visiting Finland. If you have time, could you investigate and confirm that this is the same individual as Ivan Chernyshyov (which lacks military info)? Cheers, Olessi 07:36, 1 February 2007 (UTC)

Ukrainian-German collaboration during World War II

Hi Irpen,

Though it was no longer relevant to my RfA I would like to respond to some of the the comments you added to the discussion (and then removed).

As to the first three edits of mine you listed as evidence of my POV pushing: all of those were taken from said paper by Yehuda Bauer. Let me just copy and paste what Bauer writes about Ukraine if that's what's necessary:

"It is true even in, say, the Ukraine, where the Germans were originally enthusiastically welcomed by most people, though even there there was an important though unquantifiable pro-Soviet minority as early as 1941. Ukrainians in large numbers participated in the murder of the Jews, volunteered for pro-German police, collaborated with the German administration – but soon deep disenchantment took over. The Germans did not permit any kind of Ukrainian autonomy, treated Ukrainians as lesser beings, and then deported hundreds of thousands of them as forced laborers. The mood changed rapidly. Also, the fact that large numbers of Ukrainians were serving in the Red Army made their relatives under German rule tend more and more towards the Soviets. When the choice was between rule by Germans or by Ukrainian communists, the majority of Ukrainians in the end chose the Soviets. The Red Army was welcomed as liberators, except in Volhynia and parts of Eastern Galicia, where the armed anti-Soviet OUN underground maintained a foothold until about 1950."

Concerning my edit related to German-Ukrainian sexual relations I would like to ask you if you even read my edit summary. I was simply reverting a removal of that questionable content which was reasoned with the claim that the quotations were a copyright violation. I was not the one who added the content, I just feel that removal of content like that should be discussed on the talk page and not done on grounds that are obviously wrong. I would also like to know when I was uncivil as you claim in the RfA. And my calls for you to calm were because you were snapping at somebody just because they were mentioning a fact that you seemingly just didn't want mentioned.

As I have mentioned dozens of times probably I agree that this article is a mess and that I'm not siding with any socks or trolls as you claim.--Carabinieri 16:43, 8 February 2007 (UTC)

Carabinieri. before contributing controversial material, especially to the article like this one, one should always familiarize oneself with the subject a little more closely than read a single paper, particularly of the scholar whose main speciality is not the subject of the article. I cannot vouch for or against Bauer scholarly credentials overall but the claims he makes in the citations you provide contradict the basic facts one can find in widely published numbers on how many Ukrainians fought the Nazis in the Red Army, how many evacuated and contributing in the home front, how many were murdered under evacuation, how many villages were burned and how many were taken to slave labour and how many fought the Nazis in the Soviet partisan units. One can have a very clear picture of the extent of the collaboration by comparing these numbers with the numbers of people who volunteered for Polizei, division SS Galizia and even UPA (note too that the latter was not purely a collaborative force and had a history of both collaboration and military confrontation with the Nazis). I can add countless stories I've heard from witnesses and survivors of that horrific time, my relatives and not, but this is not the place for that. But to anyone familiar with the history in a least bit this quote you were pushing into the article that "most Ukrainians were enthusiastic about the Nazi's except for a small pro-Soviet minority" is an outright nonsense.

As for your returning of the disgusting pictures and even more disgusting claims added by a sock that the Ukrainian women were just eager to give Nazis the sexual pleasure, this goes beyond pale, I said all there is to it at the article's talk and I do not care what excuse you used to return that crap. Copyrighted or not, that stuff did not belong there and you knew it full well as well as that there was nothing more to be "discussed on the talk page" on this horrendous slander before removing it. You revert warred on the side of the confirmed socks who created the article purely to troll and grind an axe of ethnic hatred and this is all I was saying.

Finally, as to your behavior at AfD, your calls to "calm down" and "be civil" was clearly provoking and unwarranted. Nowhere I made a single uncivil remark and as such your calls were merely condescending and uncalled for. --Irpen 22:17, 12 February 2007 (UTC)

Thanks for your response.

If the information I added to the article is truly wrong, then please excuse my lack of knowledge on this topic. When I first saw this article, I was shocked, it was terrible. I thought the best way to help would be to find one or two reliable sources on the internet (the paper by Bauer and this infoukes website, whose reliability was, however, soon questioned on the talk page, so I stopped using that one) and add information to them to the article, even if it's not much.

As far as my re-adding of the images goes: the reason for their removal was obviously phony, so I reverted that edit, there is not much more to be said about this.

My calls for you to calm down on that AfD discussion were not meant to be condescending at all. Again, if I misinterpreted your comments, I'm sorry, but they seemed pretty rude to me, but I guess that's one of the dangers of communicating over the internet, people can't see each other's facial expressions, hear their tone of voice, etc, so sometimes confusions like this arise.

Look Irpen, overall I'm pretty much tired of this discussion. Looking through some of your contributions I really respect the work you've done on Wikipedia, let's just get back to that.--Carabinieri 22:37, 12 February 2007 (UTC)

I said it all about the image adding, no matter what was the reason for it. Here and here there is an entire set of my contributions to the AfD discussions. Please point a single entry that, as you claim, may seem "rude" with or without "seeing facial expression and hearing the tone of voice". Truth is there is none.

In any case, I am happy to accept the olive branch. My most frequent objection to anyone's adminning is lack of interest in the content creation. This clearly does not apply to you and whatever your particular position was in that article, I think you will make a fine admin. Happy edits. --Irpen 00:10, 13 February 2007 (UTC)

Trouble with Piotrus

I noticed your comments on the talk page of the RfC for User:Piotrus. Just wanted to give you a heads-up on the harrassment he is attempting on my own talk page. A user contacted him after the fact of a situation that was handled, and not only did Piotrus attempt to re-warn me on my talk page, he also sent one of his minions after me. I tried to inform him several times, and he continues to persist on my talk page. His actions are so against any admin I have come across. Rarelibra 16:42, 14 February 2007 (UTC)

Re:On reporting Piotrus

Hello Irpen! Nice to notice that you have time to write to me. You and Dr. Dan's speak truth, but the process of user:Piotrus 3RR is under way, and I am not imposition to stop it, and after reading his reply on 3RR board there he trying to escape responsibility once again accusing other contributors of vandalism and bad faith leaves me no space, only to bring this case to the end. But I promise that I will have your words for the future developments.

You are experienced contributor and in the light of this event I would like to hear your advice, despite that I am already made the decision about this. Probably you are aware that Piotrus and his ally Lysy trying to remove some information from one article.(the same which P.P. was reported) In the heat of edits, contributor Lysy came to help a bit to our dear Piotrus. And imagine situation, at first Lysy conducted small changes but suddenly out of nowhere appears so called annon vandal from USA, and blanks the page [3] and of course dedicated contributor Lysy "reverts" this so called vandal [4] (please see edit summary vandalism by anonymous editor). Every thing would be fine if not one and big but, after comparison of two version - before so called vandal and after so called restoration, vital information was lost (yes you right the information which is not pleasant to Polish eyes) - [5]. Huge parts of article simple disappear! It is impossible to lost info if you reverting to the previuos version of edit only, which had it, of course if you do not remove it during restoration of version, but Lysy's edit summary is silent about this. Later he tried to update one part of article during so called restoration process and to show that he is removing it publicly [6], you see this is only one part; other vital info was not restored in any attempt. This situation I see as clear sneaky approach to receive upper hand in content dispute. How do you see this situation? M.K. 11:31, 20 February 2007 (UTC)

Irpen, I will just note here that indeed, I'd appreciate your input on the attempts to portray the Ponary massacre as carried by Poles and Russians...-- _{Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus | talk}  17:09, 20 February 2007 (UTC)

On [7]: care to elaborate when did I violate any policy against you? Or is it just the usual piece of offence one gets when he doesn't agree with your unsupported beliefs, as was the case of Volodarka? And finally, should I adopt the very same tactics and start accusing you of things you never did just to discredit you and slander your name, the very same way you do? Just let me know, I'll be happy to follow your ways. //Halibutt 15:44, 20 February 2007 (UTC)

Halibutt, you 3RRed and not once and I chose to never report you. This is just one example. --Irpen 00:28, 21 February 2007 (UTC)

Yeah, sure, and you called my mom a cucumber and told me you hate me because I'm a Jew. Yet, I never reported you either. So what? //Halibutt 01:56, 21 February 2007 (UTC)

??? --Irpen 01:57, 21 February 2007 (UTC)

Did you really call his mother a cucumber? Dr. Dan 21:20, 21 February 2007 (UTC)

That's the very same thing you do: invent things and then accuse me of them. But no, never in the face, that would be too easy to refute, right? You do it in discussions with other users so that I could not defend myself. And never, I say never post any diffs and links, just throw empty accusations. Perhaps I should start acting likewise? //Halibutt 10:52, 21 February 2007 (UTC)

Oh, I see. As for the cucumber, I meant the cat of the mother of the wife of your third cousin. You just got it all confused. As for my alleged hatred of you because you are a Jew may I refer you to the conversation with Lysy right below. I never call you any names in secret, btw. Diffs are always there to see when and what I said. You want diffs and links of what? Of WP:POINT? of WP:3RR? Of driving editors out? I mean, i can put aside some time and find them if you seriously deny that it happened and you really think digging them out is worth my time. Other than that, what is that you want? Note that when you are being hit, like your RfC, I do not join the festivities, unlike you who just can't wait for a new ArbCom on Ghirla to write a new statement. I try to limit my interaction with such fierce opponents like yourself to the article's talk pages and this is why I do not go to your talk too often. If I invoke you as an example talking to, say, Piotrus, I do it openly and you can always find out what I said and when I said it. No secrecy whatsoever. --Irpen 07:32, 22 February 2007 (UTC)

Mitrofan Dovnar-Zapol'skiy

Thanks for the support :). You needn't worry about such petty behaviour, though. For my part, seeing such as those, I'm just smiling. Let him make a spectacle of himself. :)

On the more to-the-business note, would you keep an eye on the Talk:Polonization, too? I admit I expected somewhat better of Piotrus, as a presumably intellectually honest person, than to go into sophistics instead of just presenting some good specialist refutations either of the DZ view of the 19th cent. in Belarusian lands, or at least the view of the 19th cent. as detailed as DZ's and differing in the key aspect. If there actually is one, of course. Yury Tarasievich 10:19, 23 February 2007 (UTC)

Forgot to add, now that I've found even F.K.Dmochowski (see Talk:Polonization), I don't see why anything directly relevant of my first entry should be twisted like it was. (Some of the text on Academy was redundant, that's true). What do you think? Yury Tarasievich 10:27, 23 February 2007 (UTC)

Polonization

The section is still incomplete - we should expand (with modern reliable sources!) on how it did work, indeed. But it is very relevant to note that the process was counteracted by others, and that much of what supported Polonization in other eras (i.e. Polish state and its support for it) did not exist in that era.-- _{Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus | talk}  20:02, 23 February 2007 (UTC)

Please may I suggest discussing changes you want to do to that article first on talk?-- _{Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus | talk}  03:52, 24 February 2007 (UTC)

Piotrus, I am half-way done. Sorry other things sometimes deflect me on and off. But when I hit that save instead of the preview button, nothing can prevent you from correcting me. In the meanwhile, you may want to study sources, I am suing. One is D-Z, the other two are the academic articles (you brought one of them yourself).[8] [9] While I am still editing, you may spend some time reading. Actually, they both support D-Z despite you presented one of them as countering him. Anyway, let me please finish integrating their material in the text. --Irpen 03:57, 24 February 2007 (UTC)

I agree that the article is more neutral and expanded now. You did a much better job then Yuri presenting the facts in a more neutral manner (with all due respect for Yuri, he doesn't have neither your experience nor nowledge of English, I am afraid - although I hope he will stick around and get experience). Please update your references per my comment. And please don't remove relevant information: you cannot talk about peace without mentioning war, heat without cold, etc. - and you cannot speak about polonization without mentioning the very significant 'depolonization' countertrends in the 19th and 20th centuries.-- _{Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus | talk}  05:16, 25 February 2007 (UTC)

Tour book on Kiev from 1900!!!

I just discovered this book through google books (not sure if you've seen it already), but it's absolutely amazing!!! It's been out of copyright and the entire thing is available in PDF! Published in 1900 it goes over a really old history of Kiev, not to mention the then considered "current events" and places. The book is in old russian and contains some excellent sketches of places (which are all out of copyright as well). Old Kiev Tour Book. -asmadeus 14:14, 28 February 2007 (UTC)

Ah, just reminded me. From "attic", I've dug out the remains of "Illustrated history of Ukraine" (pub. c.1912-1913, pages after 480 are missing). Lots of interesting illustrations (hetmans, bishops, cossacks), which are of little value to me directly, as I'm more into Belarusian history. If there's a specific interest in some topics, let me know, as I can't just scan everything outright. Yury Tarasievich 07:38, 1 March 2007 (UTC)

Thanks guys! Asmadeus, I bookmarked the book. Will print all of it when I have time. Would not be easy to OCR, I guess.

Yuriy, I think you mean the Hrushevsky's book LCCN 62-0. This is indeed a rarity to have in home library. Some versions are available online. This is one of such web-sites. Is it this the book? Thanks a lot for your offer anyway. Even if this is not the one, I can't make you do all the work of scanning the whole book. Please stay in touch. --Irpen 09:05, 1 March 2007 (UTC)

Yes, this book, only this is its Russian translation, which was published about 1 year later. The illustrations are all with descriptions, too. Like I said, my book looks like it endured some, so no titlepages to go with it, and it "ends" at p.480 (national Renessaince chapter, paragraph 117, portrait of Skovoroda). The quality of illustrations and print is quite outstanding, anyway. Most of the modern books look like ..., compared. Yury Tarasievich 10:51, 1 March 2007 (UTC)

If you have no use for it, and decide to put it up on eBay, I'll bid ;) -asmadeus 17:49, 1 March 2007 (UTC)

Kiev Images

I am currently planning a trip to Kiev in May (I live in Chicago, USA). I have evolved much as a photographer in the recent years, and plan on making one of the main focuses of my trip photography of Kiev. I will be compiling a list of places that I want to photograph. Leave a note on my page, and let me know if you have any specific requests. (Example of my recent photography from Belize). -asmadeus 20:43, 28 February 2007 (UTC)

Added a note to the top of my Kiev album for photos taken back in 2001 giving permission to be used on wikipedia under cc-by-sa tag as you suggested. Thank you for that!

Any reason why not all images are displayed in the Gallery (missing Image: tag) on National Art Museum of Ukraine? Are you just waiting to confirm them? For example - I'm positive that Image:Vasylkivsky_cossacks_in_steppe.jpg is in the museum - my tour book shows the same image for the museum. The rest I can't confirm (so far). -asmadeus

Yes, the syntax error. I fixed it. There are more images to upload and add to the gallery from the list of sources in the end of the article. I think we should remove those we can't confirm. Cheers, --Irpen 18:31, 1 March 2007 (UTC)

Wikipedia:Requests for arbitration/Occupation of Latvia

This arbitration case has closed and the final decision is available at the link above. The parties identified in the decision as having acted poorly in the dispute regarding Occupation of Latvia 1940-1945 are admonished to avoid such behavior in the future. That article is placed on probation, and any editor may be banned from it, or from other reasonably related pages, by an uninvolved administrator for disruptive edits, including, but not limited to, edit warring, inciviilty, and original research. The Arbitration Committee reserves the right to appoint one or more mentors at any time, and the right to review the situation in one year, if appropriate. The parties are strongly encouraged to enter into a mediation arrangement regarding any article-content issues that may still be outstanding. If the article is not substantially improved by continued editing, the Arbitration Committee may impose editing restrictions on users whose editing is counterproductive or disruptive. This notice is given by a Clerk on behalf of the Arbitration Committee. Newyorkbrad 23:35, 9 March 2007 (UTC)

Thanks :). A small piece of trivia is that myself and Vecrumba, the parties that were actually arguing were not identified in the list of the users to be admonished and lightly sanctioned were the innocent onlookers who came in to help us. A sadder part is that those users were admonished for not so much out of the way remarks (and I feel this unfair). The discussion was somewhat robust but nowhere near the threshold and a few outbursts were nowhere near the level of general disruption, where NPA and CIV policies should kick in.

Also, disapointing, is that the whole case was merely a giant waste of time that did not solve anything, as I predicted in my statement. Hopefully, the article can be changed/split/rewritten/renamed now and if editors spent time on that rather than on the arbitration page, it could have been half-way done, by now. Hopefully this can happen now. Cheers, --Irpen 23:50, 9 March 2007 (UTC)

City template

Dear Irpen, as I known you are usually a voice of reason, can I ask you to take a look at the discussion on User_talk:TAG.Odessa#Re:_template and tell me if I'm being unreasonable? Regards, Calgacus (ΚΑΛΓΑΚΟΣ) 20:21, 11 March 2007 (UTC)

Irpen, thanks for lending your voice. About the Russian names ... am I wrong to see their absence from the template as a flaw? I ain't trying to support "Russian imperialism", but make wiki informative. Surely wiki can't ignore the fact that Russian is the indigenous language of eastern and most of the southern Ukraine, and is used to some extent by most Ukrainians. No? Calgacus (ΚΑΛΓΑΚΟΣ) 17:40, 12 March 2007 (UTC)

Calgalus, let's just separate the issues here and discuss the narrow one at hand, which is the addition of the "English name" field to the infobox. It is the existence of the English name (or lack of it) is what we are discussing and not the prevailing name used by the local people. The latter is a valid point to note but name used by the town's residents is nowhere in our naming conventions. And the name used by locals may or may not affect the English name.

I agree that the russophone city in Ukraine would need the Russian name mentioned in the first line of the article but not because this is an "english name" which may or may not be the case. The English name which is a different issue.

Unlike Russian and Ukrainian languages which have regulating bodies, the respective branches of the Russian and Ukrainian academies of Science, respectively, there is no single body that determines the single English name of the city and we infer the latter from the current usage. Dictionaries and English encyclopedias do the same thing, btw. I know of no better way to determine the most wide-spread usage than the media analysis. I performed such analysis and described the results at the TAG.Odessa's talk page. I was pleased to see that the usage by Britannica (which also uses "English names" for the article's titles) matches that by the anglophone media. As such, the name of an important city in the eastern Ukraine is Харків (in Ukrainian) and Харьков (in Russian). As for the English name, there are two of them Kharkiv and Kharkov and both are valid and neither is less English than the other. Kharkiv is more common in the modern context but Kharkov is still common enough to be mentioned in the article as an alternative name but not as a "single most common English name" as the field "English_name" in infobox suggests. Also Kharkov is the prevailing name in the WW2 context. No one is trying to rename the Battle of Kharkov and all the WW2 literature will likely continue to use it indefinetely. --Irpen 02:16, 19 March 2007 (UTC)

Arbitration re: Abu badali

Hi. I am writing you because you were one of the respondants on the RfC about Abu badali that was started back in November. There has been no substantive comment there for over a month and User:Abu badali has never bothered to respond to the RfC. The last comment on the talk page of the RfC was a suggestion to take it to arbitration, which is what I propose we do. Accordingly, I have created a shell/draft listing to add to the list of Arbitration Committee matters here. I've listed your new there, preliminarily, as a complaintant. If you are not interested in participating, please remove your name. If you are, please add your comments as we must prepare a 500 word summary of the case. Thanks for your attention - Jord 15:31, 12 March 2007 (UTC)

Red Army Atrocities

Zdorovenki buly. Since you have already looked at this in the past (seeing your name appear on the talk page), perhaps you could have a look at this Red_Army_atrocities and particularly the last Treuenbrietzen addition? I do not know how good your German or Italian is, however. I know that we normally work on the basis of "two wrongs do not make a right" - but this is going a bit far, I think. Znovy dzhakuyu! --Pan Gerwazy 10:23, 16 March 2007 (UTC)

Seeing that you are very busy, and since people keep adding new chapters there - let me ewplain that this request for comment was about the Treuenbrietzen problem. And nothing else. Though it is funny that one of the guys in German wiki pushing for the falsification on Ehrenburg (combinng a statement from 1942 with one from 1945 and leaving out "leave the women and children alone" to prove that someone advocates wholesale raping IS a falsification) to be included in the article is someone you and I probably know from other debates ([10]).

Actually, I think it is not a coincidence. These guys first push their POV in German wikipedia, and when being corrected there, they come to the English wiki, confident that people here will not be so at home with these sources. --Pan Gerwazy 15:11, 17 March 2007 (UTC)

Well, this article is such a mess and what it needs is a total cleanup and rewrite, not a correction or two. Luckily, most editors who are here for a while do not expect much from the articles whose title include strong terms like "invasion", "occupation", "massacre" and now "atrocities". While those are all valid topics and the articles on them could be written, Wikilife is such that most of them get created as ax grinding exercises to set the stage to air some political grievances of certain users. So, I mostly stay away from those articles except those where the topic is really something else and they need both the renaming and editing, like several invasion and occupation articles.

The point is that if the article is really about an encyclopedic event or a history period, I treat is as such (as if its title is neutral, like "History of...") and edit its content while, at the same time, trying also to convince my opponents to rename it. If, however, not only the title but the very subject of an article is likely to make it a magnet for POV-pushing, I usually do not edit it at all as this is a fruitless exercise. Sorry for not being of help. --Irpen 19:18, 19 March 2007 (UTC)

Thank you

For making me spend so much time on Soviet invasion of Poland (1939). If it were not for your edits, I'd have never put enough effort into making this article GA/A class. Keep it up and I am sure we will see it on FAC in the near future :) -- _{Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus | talk}  20:32, 16 March 2007 (UTC)

Piotrus, this is one step too far. You used to avoid needlessly inflaming matters which this post is nothing but. --Irpen 20:59, 16 March 2007 (UTC)

Why, Irpen? I trully find your actions motivate me to work harder on Wikipedia. I did not plan to spend any time today editing Soviet invasion, alas, you have made me change my plans, and the article is now even larger, with more refs and pictures. And it is you who motivated me to do so - so I am thanking you for that, even if that wasn't exactly your intention.--<;sub> Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus | talk  21:23, 16 March 2007 (UTC)

I will not feed you anymore. --Irpen 21:27, 16 March 2007 (UTC)

Irpen, whenever you attempt to disrupt an article pushing your POV, you are feeding me. I look forward to the day you truly stop.-- _{Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus | talk}  21:36, 16 March 2007 (UTC)

Disrupt? I would have said "Shame, Piotrus", but I have doubts you have any. Now please stop harassing me. The next harassment entry here will be just reverted. --Irpen 21:40, 16 March 2007 (UTC)

Translation

I don't have time for that; there is nothing offensive in those posts and besides 1) they are private messages from Darwinek to me and 2) your knowledge of Polish should be sufficient to understand and translate them if you really think they are important.-- _{Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus | talk}  06:46, 24 March 2007 (UTC)

I can understand only part of that and not fully. Not fully enough to use at the ArbCom page. I do find them relevant to the case. Too bad you don't want to cooperate. --Irpen 06:49, 24 March 2007 (UTC)

I find nothing in there which would be relevant for the ArbCom. I don't have time to translate every single message Darwinek has posted in Polish for you to analyze; I am afraid you will have to find somebody else for that. Consider, however, that if nobody has felt offended by those messages before - and thus never complained - digging through the archives looking for some 'dirt' may be somewhat counter-productive. I am sure there are better things you can do with your time (edit articles, etc.).-- _{Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus | talk}  06:53, 24 March 2007 (UTC)

Piotrus, I do edit articles and to be accused of neglecting the mainspase is rather bemusing. I hate digging diffs. I mostly remember things anyway and when i tell what I remember it is you who always cry bring diffs precisely forcing me to waste my time that I could have spent on articles.

Now, from what I have seen and partially translated, the messages were offensive. Speculations about usefulness for the user to move to the West to experience some civilizing culture, speculations that progress can be achieved only after certain users leave Wikipedia, speculations of ABF on behalf of users to a degree that they would be committed to derail the nomination of any Polish article, be it even about Polish kitchen (btw, you repeated these accusations today) and continuing to post in Polish right below the request to cease are the things I am talking about. You think this is all harmless. Too bad. --Irpen 06:58, 24 March 2007 (UTC)

I am sorry Irpen. There were times I might have agreed with you. Alas, recently, after witnessing your defence of several very incivil editors, my standards might have lapsed. With limited time, I am afraid you have to pursue your presumed offences; I will concentrate on dealing with what I have to.-- _{Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus | talk}  07:07, 24 March 2007 (UTC)

True enough, the Wikipedia might have seen some more blunt talk than what I am pointing to here. But it is these entries being repeatedly posted offensively in the foreign language that adds an insult to an injury. Anyway, ArbCom will look at this. Too bad I will have to provide my highly unreliable translation based on my very poor understanding of Polish. ArbCom deserves better than that but there is nothing esle I can do since you refuse to give me any help. --Irpen 07:13, 24 March 2007 (UTC)

Have you considered asking Darwinek for translation?-- _{Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus | talk}  07:25, 24 March 2007 (UTC)

I did and he ignored my request and posted another entry in Polish right below my request to translate the bevious one: see [11]. --Irpen 18:10, 24 March 2007 (UTC)

About the "Żyrandol" nickname

Hi, I'm explaining it in your talk since the RFArb is probably not the right place. The nickname is stupid and childish, and should have no place in wikipedia, I fully agree. However there's nothing offensive in it. Probably calling someone a tomato would be more of an offence. --Lysy^talk 06:56, 26 March 2007 (UTC)

Seems like a play on the "similarity" of Ghirlandajo and Zhyra'ndol (light fixture) in Polish, if I'm any judge. Not exactly offensive, but certainly somewhat pejorative (was used in context of "between us buddies", right?). Yury Tarasievich 09:05, 26 March 2007 (UTC)

Yes, that's my view as well. Kindergarten level nickname, but not an insult. Or maybe "Ghirlandajo" proved too difficult for some Poles to spell. --Lysy^talk 16:33, 26 March 2007 (UTC)

I said all I have to say about this. Nicknaming other users is pejorative and Darwinek have continuously done so with an obvious intent just to bug another editor since Ghirla made it clear earlier that this deliberate distortion of his username annoys him. Darwinek has this habit of continuing to say or do things he was clearly asked not to, be it bashing others in Polish or play with others' names. The user seems to enjoy just to annoy others for the fun of it. --Irpen 19:49, 26 March 2007 (UTC)

Please provide diffs proving that he has used it 'continously'. Thank you,-- _{Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus | talk}  16:56, 27 March 2007 (UTC)

You are being inconsistent Pitorus. When I say things you know to be true you tell me to find diffs despite you perfectly remember the incidents thus only forcing me to waste time. When I do dig diffs, you accuse me in digging through dirty laundry. I already showed you some diffs lately and even asked you to translate which you refused. Need diffs for that? --Irpen 17:05, 27 March 2007 (UTC)

You conveniently omit the fact that the diffs you occasionally dig are rarely relevant to your accusations...-- _{Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus | talk}  18:25, 27 March 2007 (UTC)

Huh? Another empty statement, Piotrus. Anyway, I said it all on the subject where I said it. I pointed the offensive statements to you and asked you to translate them. The ball is in your court. --Irpen 18:43, 27 March 2007 (UTC)

And I and others remarked to you there is nothing offensive in them. The ball of yours, Irpen, like usual, was full of hot air, I am afraid.-- _{Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus | talk}  19:09, 27 March 2007 (UTC)

Why don't you just translate "Myślę, że problemy rusko-polskie uda się załatwić tylko wtedy, kiedy ten użytkownik przestanie edytować." as I asked? --Irpen 19:14, 27 March 2007 (UTC)

Because there is nothing offensive in this statement, and you should be able to translate it yourself - I may correct errors if they are important enough.-- _{Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus | talk}  19:30, 27 March 2007 (UTC)

• 'Note: For those interested in an English translation it reads, I think that the problems between Russians and Poles (Russian-Polish problems) can be solved (resolved) only when that contributor ceases his editing. Dr. Dan 19:41, 27 March 2007 (UTC)

DYK

On 27 March, 2007, Did you know? was updated with a fact from the article Ukrainian Autonomous Orthodox Church, 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.

--Carabinieri 12:10, 27 March 2007 (UTC)

Infamous "Death Threat"

Regarding the Death threat that Ghirlandajo is purported to have made against one of the most prolific and bemedalled (sic) members of WP's contributors out of Poland. See talk Alytus. Do you have any knowledge of this accusation or where it stems from? The accuser himself is not going to provide this information, and although I'm virtually sure it is because it never happened, I'm trying to be fair and get to the bottom of this. Thanks. Dr. Dan 17:11, 27 March 2007 (UTC)

Well, all I can say is that if these accusations against Ghirla were ever made, those are ridiculous and do not merit a response. --Irpen 17:17, 27 March 2007 (UTC)

Unfortunately the accusation was made (although no evidence has been provided to substantiate the claim). And this kind of thing cannot remain unchallenged or ignored. Sorry to bother you with it, but I hoped you might have an inkling of what it was all about. Maybe someone else might know. Thanks. Dr. Dan 17:29, 27 March 2007 (UTC)

Yes I agree such attack on editors is not acceptable. It should be investigated if such "threat" was ever made. M.K. 12:11, 29 March 2007 (UTC)

Wikipedia:Requests for arbitration/Betacommand

Hello,

An Arbitration case in which you commented has been opened: Wikipedia:Requests for arbitration/Betacommand. Please add any evidence you may wish the arbitrators to consider to the evidence sub-page, Wikipedia:Requests for arbitration/Betacommand/Evidence. You may also contribute to the case on the workshop sub-page, Wikipedia:Requests for arbitration/Betacommand/Workshop.

On behalf of the Arbitration Committee, Newyorkbrad 00:24, 30 March 2007 (UTC)

Request

Feel free to write how bad I and other Polish editors are on your talk page. Feel free to start a RfC or use other means ohttp://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=User_talk:Irpen&action=edit Editing User talk:Irpen - Wikipedia, the free encyclopediaf asking others for input. But don't spam my talk pages with your grudges after I have politely asked you to stop several times. By all means, feel free to reply / repost / do whatever you want on your talk pages.-- _{Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus | talk}  04:55, 8 April 2007 (UTC)

I do not need to repost anything. My goal was to relay to you a certain message. Since you read it, I don't care whether you deleted or not. That you deleted it is not something that concerns me in any way. --Irpen 04:57, 8 April 2007 (UTC)

FYI

I stopped reading your messages on my talk page some time ago; repeated PAs - as pointed out by others - are not something I want to spend my time reading.-- _{Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus | talk}  05:02, 8 April 2007 (UTC)

You can tell that you do not read all you want. But saying that you do not even listen when other editors attempt to talk to you does not make you look constructive. Especially in view of the obvious fact that you do read of course. --Irpen 05:06, 8 April 2007 (UTC)

If it makes you feel any better, you are the first person on Wikipedia I have decided I should stop paying attention to.-- _{Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus | talk}  05:11, 8 April 2007 (UTC)

Yeah, right, while you even read my responses to you at my own talk... Anyway, as long as you keep your baseless accusation of myself to our talk pages, I care little since I am used to those. It is your spreading them elsewhere is when they become my concern. --Irpen 05:16, 8 April 2007 (UTC)

Ten chlopak z Katowic nie ma szans? :-).Vlad fedorov 10:37, 8 April 2007 (UTC)

Was ist das? --Irpen 20:25, 8 April 2007 (UTC)

Das ist jezyk polski (Polnischen). Piotrus says that he's leaving, but he can't actually, so I asked if this fella from Katowice has any chance? :-) I always enjoyed talking with Polish nationalists while being in Poland. Vlad fedorov 03:44, 9 April 2007 (UTC)

Soviet invasion of Poland

I am pleased with the way this article is progressing. I've spent enough time on it now that eventually I would like to see it at FAC. However, I'm only too aware of criticisms re POV from you, Mosin, and Grafikm, and though I have done quite a lot, I think, to increase the information in the article about the Soviet view of things, I would be pleased if you could check it over again. I would rather directly address criticisms from you now than at FAC; and I hope you will have time to edit the article yourself.

Those elements, like the title, which are well-sourced, cannot be removed (though I have added that the Soviets called it the "liberation campaign" and have made the Soviet view as clear as I can), but there is, of course, room for parallel interpretations of events, if sourced. At the moment I am looking at figures and will be making some edits clarifying the differences between old and newer figures for the deaths and deportations (at the moment the figures are something of an inchoate smattering). Anything you can do to help the article will be appreciated. As you probably know, arguments between Polish and Russian-speaking editors don't interest me: I have a high regard for yourself and Ghirlandajo, as well as for Piotrus and Halibutt, and I would love it if this article could pool all your brains together instead of pulling them apart. qp10qp 21:35, 9 April 2007 (UTC)

Vlad

Thanks for putting in a word. I appreciate the effort -- I have a hunch he's more likely to listen to you than anything I could say. ;) – Luna Santin (talk) 06:22, 10 April 2007 (UTC)

I think you are right in this. This is exactly why I am trying to convince this user to cool it a little even though I understand his frustration. --Irpen 06:24, 10 April 2007 (UTC)

Thanks for advice

Thanks Irpen. I know they work in groups in order to win revert wars and stuff. Anyway, that's so irrelevant.

Could you advise me how to push through my mediation case on Boris Stomakhin. Biophys has eliminated all the sources and has article blocked. Only one mediator approache my case. I need a second one. Vlad fedorov 09:17, 11 April 2007 (UTC)

ArbCom/Piotrus

Case has been started, probably you will be interested: [12] M.K. 10:21, 20 April 2007 (UTC)

Irpen, please help me with tendentious editing by Piotrus

I have created a small subsection in Institute of National Remembrance dedicated to criticism of IPN by russian sources. Piotrus deleted at once that section without any dispute and marked his deletion as follows "16:49, 24 April 2007 Piotrus (Talk | contribs) (10,195 bytes) (rv - per Internet brigades, Russian newspapers are not reliable when describing Polish-Russian relations, this is unnecessary detail)"

Please note that now Piotrus references to Internet brigades articles - completly conspiracy theory and original research article, to justify his tendentious editing. Vlad fedorov 17:02, 24 April 2007 (UTC)

Old bad habits

Old habits die hard. Sorry. Vlad fedorov 18:23, 24 April 2007 (UTC)

Orange Revolution peer review

Wow, this is sure not what I expected... Looks like you're the only one who reviewed it. Sigh. — Alex^(T|C|E) 05:15, 25 April 2007 (UTC)

Well, sadly the world does not care much about Ukraine. Either Klitschko's, or Ruslana or Andriy Shevchenko are better known worldwide than the OR but imagine how even less would we have been known without those celebrities plus the OR? Anyway, I think we should take an effort in referencing the OR better. I am mostly satisfied by it, that is given its current size. It can be expmanded and be made better that way, but for the size that is now, it is IMO, reasonably neutral and comprehensive. That is withstood the 2+ year time test without major changes after the last expansion by Michael and myself is the proof of that. If we just find more in-line refs, we could push it to the GA status. --Irpen 05:26, 25 April 2007 (UTC)

Zaporizhian Cossacks

Could you please, if possible, pay attention to the problem of constant erasing of alternate (ukrainian) point of view in the articles Zaporizhian Sich andZaporizhian Host. Or do you think that picture should be one sided? Ans-mo 11:08, 25 April 2007 (UTC)

Seriously, review this user's contribs, just look at the propaganda infested statement such as this: [13]. The sources that he uses are also excellent, with feaces like this [14]. --Kuban Cossack 22:10, 25 April 2007 (UTC)

Where are you? The user continues his assaults. --Kuban Cossack 12:45, 28 April 2007 (UTC)

Whatever much I would love to have 48 hours from midnight to midnight, I cannot be everywhere, sorry. With the crucial Time of Troubles article being numbed, a certain editor recruiting help against his content opponents and seeking assistance from the medium we used to criticize together and the usual suspects popping up from there with nonsense statements, I simply had no time for this. With a dozen of sem-finished articles never submitted and continued attempts of vigorous nationalist POV-pushing taking even a new route, I can't now promise how soon I will get to the article you ask me. Sorry, buddy :(. But, I will still be around :) --Irpen 19:10, 28 April 2007 (UTC)

Wikipedia:Requests for arbitration/Piotrus

Hello,

An Arbitration case involving you has been opened: Wikipedia:Requests for arbitration/Piotrus. Please add any evidence you may wish the arbitrators to consider to the evidence sub-page, Wikipedia:Requests for arbitration/Piotrus/Evidence. You may also contribute to the case on the workshop sub-page, Wikipedia:Requests for arbitration/Piotrus/Workshop.

On behalf of the Arbitration Committee, Picaroon (Talk) 20:33, 30 April 2007 (UTC)

Desysop this, desysop that

Always with the de-sysoping, you! I know, I know, when your only tool is a hammer, all your problems look like nails, but c'mon Irpen, there's more to life than tilting at adminmills. There are plenty of avenues of conflict resolution available to people who invest the effort. - CHAIRBOY (☎) 22:54, 30 April 2007 (UTC)

"When your only tool is a hammer...", right! But the hammer here is the block button. And don't you tell me about "investing the effort." Go write some articles, like I do, and we can then discuss investing efforts. It is much more fulfilling but somewhat more difficult than running around telling others what to do, blocking on the whim thus making oneself feel important or plotting another act behind the curtains (yes, you understood me correctly.) Desysopping is an extreme measure but it is an extremely sparse one and I have seen only one undeserved desysopping to this date. Whimsical blocking of established editors occurs much more frequently and by whimsical I mean just those, unilateral, spiteful, vengeful, or just "happy to show who is the boss" blocks. Any user may deserve a block but failure to confer at ANI in advance of the potentially controversial block (note at ANI, not there, you know) has always been disastrous. "Cool-off blocks" have always been disastrous.

Repeated bad judgment blockers is a huge burden as they harm editors to an unconscionable degree, radicalize them, turn them away or simply make them behave like assholes. The more committed the editor, the more good content s/he brought to the project, the cleaner was his/her block log, the more devastating the effects of such blocks are to them.

But this was about bad judgment blockers. The wrongly motivated "I am sooo important" blockers is even a bigger problem. Finally, unethical behavior has been the worst of those all. Those are much more grave dangers for the projects than vandals of the worst kind and not because vandals are better people but because this project learned to successfully deal with Vandalism. This project is only starting to successfully deal with the abusers. It's taking much slower, but I see some progress lately. --Irpen 23:37, 30 April 2007 (UTC)

AZP

I wonder if you could help me with one thing. I created a page 57 mm AZP S-60 and I would need help from a Russian speaker with the abbreviation "AZP". I believe that it stands for "automatic anti-aircraft gun" (автоматическое зенитное ________) Could you help me correct and complement this? Many thanks in advance. --MoRsE 18:06, 2 May 2007 (UTC)

See article. And you are very welcome. --Irpen 18:45, 2 May 2007 (UTC)

I owe you one :) --MoRsE 07:23, 3 May 2007 (UTC)

Project endorsements for Errabee

You may want to modify your statement on Errabee's RfA to clarify or give links to where the votes were held, I went to the Russian History talk page and main page and came up cold. Others may as well. Just a suggestion. I think it quite interesting that projects chose to do this even after Kelly seemed to have stopped asking for it. ++Lar: t/c 19:56, 2 May 2007 (UTC)

To start with, I don't care what Kelly does or does not and I do not plan to comment any further on this. Demanding project endorsement is plain nonsense but demanding content writing from admins who want to engage in non-technical tasks, and especially, deal with live editors makes perfect sense. There is no such thing as an official project endorsement. There is such thing as having many members of the project(s) clearly supporting the candidate. This is what is happening here. Finally, I expect the promotion denied no matter what the vote count is by 'crats as per Carnildo's and Danny's precedents. This may be rather devastating from the candidate but, hopefully, not in this case since he seems to be warned and the whimsical denial won't be a surprise for him. Happy edits, --Irpen 20:24, 2 May 2007 (UTC)

I'm a little confused. You stated on the RfA that this candidate has endorsements from projects. I went to try to find them, and failed. All I'm saying is that if there are project endorsements, would you be kind enough to provide a link to them for the benefit of other readers? Or were you saying something else entirely? Perhaps I am confused by your wording. (perhaps also I should have not even added the last sentence in my original comment... please feel free to disregard it) ++Lar: t/c 02:37, 3 May 2007 (UTC)

If you look at the RfAdm, I clarified the statement after your very first message at my talk. HTH, --Irpen 02:41, 3 May 2007 (UTC)

Ah. I missed that you changed it as your reply here didn't mention that. A few words changed and it is all very clear now... you're saying that the comments of project members at the RfA are themselves the "endorsement"... I didn't get that from your original wording. An entirely novel theory, and perhaps one that will put paid to this quixotic quest for project endorsements... well done. I do disagree with you on the merits of the candidate, the stance on fair use is very concerning to me, but I think that you made an excellent point with that endorsement statement, now that I get it. :) ++Lar: t/c 03:23, 3 May 2007 (UTC)

Velykyy Bychkiv

Hey Irpen, you have any sources that state the current demographics of Velykyy Bychkiv? For example, how many Jews live there today? Khoikhoi 04:13, 3 May 2007 (UTC)

I will see what I can find. The 2001 Ukrainian Census web-page in Ukrainian is much more complete than the English version. And they are all rather unfriendly to navigate for a novice. Will post in a day or two. Cheers, --Irpen 04:19, 3 May 2007 (UTC)

Bronze Soldier

Hi there! We need a correct architectural classification. Can you come up with a more appropriate classification than Stalinist architecture. I thought "socialist realism" may sometimes be part of that style, especially since the monuent was erected under Joseph Stalin in 1947. -- Camptown 09:44, 3 May 2007 (UTC)

IMO Socialist realism would fit but we better ask an architectural expert. But it is definitely not Stalinist neo-classicism commonly associated with the the term. --Irpen 09:51, 3 May 2007 (UTC)

Why is it that one Swede and one Finn have to alone defend both the Russian and the neutral point-of-view in this article, againt a horde of agressive and hostile POV pushers from Estonia? Up to now there has been virtually no participation from Russia. -- Petri Krohn 08:52, 4 May 2007 (UTC)

Shame, I agree. I will see what I can do and thanks a lot for heads up. --Irpen 17:26, 4 May 2007 (UTC)

Thank you

Hi, I just wanted to leave a personal message that I greatly appreciated your comments in my RfA. It was an unconventional bid, and as such I was prepared that it might not succeed. In fact, I was surprised to see that many people support me. Thanks again, and don't worry about me. Errabee 18:31, 4 May 2007 (UTC)

Actually, we crossed paths as I saw that while previewing the message I was about to leave you. You will see it shortly. --Irpen 18:33, 4 May 2007 (UTC)

How very nice of you, that's really something to cheer people up. That's one of the points in which I should improve: helping others to get out of a rough spot. Errabee 18:44, 4 May 2007 (UTC)

Did you see this?

[15] Bishonen | talk 20:54, 4 May 2007 (UTC).

Your comment

Whatever this was, the Portal talk:Poland/Poland-related Wikipedia notice board is not the place to post it. Try the talk pages of the people you think are involved. Balcer 02:03, 5 May 2007 (UTC)

Thanks, Balcer, but I posted it exactly where I intended. And, no, I did not say you are involved in any way. No do I think so. --Irpen 02:07, 5 May 2007 (UTC)

You accuse a person active on the noticeboard of wrongdoing, without giving any indication of who this might be. Since I participate on that noticeboard, that accusation is also aimed at me. I consider this a personal attack, and a gross misuse of a Wikipedia notice board. Incidentally, the accusation is so cryptic, I have no idea what it is about. Balcer 02:14, 5 May 2007 (UTC)

All right. I am not going to persist in this silly revert war. It stays in history and will likely be read enough, to be sure. I do not care whether it beautifies the page (and its archives) forever. I hope you will fiercely remove the calls to get a hand in an edit war frequently posted at that board from now on. --Irpen 02:20, 5 May 2007 (UTC)

It is back in now, and I am not going to revert an admin. I invite you to remove your own message. If you don't, it stays in your "history", so to speak. Please think about it. Maybe the best approach here is to change your perspective: how would you feel if this message appeared on the Ukrainian and Russian noticeboard, accusing everyone there of (possibly) being indecent, without any explanation or proof. In essence, this message is saying: Someone on this board is an indecent bastard, but I am not going to tell you who, and I am not going to tell you why. Balcer 02:26, 5 May 2007 (UTC)

Balcer, "I am not going to tell you who" only because I don't have a 100% proof of who, but I do have a very strong circumstantial evidence on "what" (a duck test.) As for the Russian or Ukrainian boards, I am aware of the announcements in support of someone or something (like even the one in question) and, sadly, even calls to oppose something. But I am not aware of any similar campaigns run among the Russian or Ukrainian users behind the scenes. If this happened, I would not hesitate to use the board to find what truly was behind such incident in the Russian or Ukrainian community. --Irpen 02:38, 5 May 2007 (UTC)

If you are not sure, then don't make the accusation. If you have a hunch about specific people involved, take it up on their talk page. If you think that "Polish users" are responsible, that includes me, and everyone on that board. Clearly you must realize how counterproductive and harmful such accusations are.

Enough of this. Sorry to say this, but today you have taken another step towards taking Wikipedia to the toilet. Over and out.Balcer 02:44, 5 May 2007 (UTC)

Please read what I said at the board. What happened is indeed disgusting but my exposing it is aimed at making the repetitions less likely. --Irpen 06:08, 5 May 2007 (UTC)

Orange Revolution references

Hey, about those references... Can you convert all the non-specific references at the bottom into specific ones? (As in, specific references link to sentences they relate to.) I can't help much with that, since I don't know which reference relates to which sentence. Thanks. — Alex^(U|C|E) 21:50, 6 May 2007 (UTC)

Will try, but as a side project. Little by little. Thanks, --Irpen 01:20, 7 May 2007 (UTC)

Just as long as it will get done in about four days. :-) I'm sorry that I can't help. — Alex^(U|C|E) 04:37, 7 May 2007 (UTC)

Four days may be too tight. --Irpen 04:40, 7 May 2007 (UTC)

I'm just worried about the article having failed GA status, that's all... — Alex^(U|C|E) 04:44, 7 May 2007 (UTC)

I would not worry about labels too much, unless those a FA. GA does not mean anything. There are plenty of crap GA articles, much worse than OR. Also, I am aware of the OR's deficiencies and referencing is the main one since we wrote most of it before the current much higher referencing standards emerged. --Irpen 04:47, 7 May 2007 (UTC)

Commons

I completely agree, but I think it is completely outrageous to block me indefinitely. I needed to edit in Commons today as I spotted an error from the bot User:CommonsDelinker, and wanted to bring it to its owner's attention, and was (still am) very much annoyed when I couldn't edit. I solved it by tracking the operator here on en:wiki, but that's besides the point. Still, I'd better handle this alone, or I'd get all of you in trouble as well. And finally:

		The Random Acts of Kindness Barnstar
		Thank you for all those times you've stood by me! Errabee 20:35, 7 May 2007 (UTC)

Kyiv/Kiev

THe Kiev article has both names, why shouldn't Kiev Metro? — Alex^(U|C|E) 22:43, 7 May 2007 (UTC)

It may. Let's discuss it at article's talk. --Irpen 22:44, 7 May 2007 (UTC)

Okay, go ahead and voice your opinion there. — Alex^(U|C|E) 22:48, 7 May 2007 (UTC)

I don't know why I even bother... — Alex^(U|C|E) 23:24, 7 May 2007 (UTC)

C Праздником!

File:Red-flag-on-Reichstag, another angle, no smoke..jpg

НАШЕ ДЕЛО ПРАВОЕ — МЫ ПОБЕДИЛИ
-Kuban Cossack

Thanks!

Thanks for the award (very unexpected :-) ) and C Днем Перемоги/C Днём Победы! — Alex^(U|C|E) 03:19, 9 May 2007 (UTC)

Beatles fab four

Hi, Irpen. You know I'm a new user here and I'm not sure I'm going to be a constant one. Just a toy on holidays. I hope there is some there exists some institute of judges in wiki. You look like one of them. Because of that constant cheater DLX I had to slightly change my name. See User talk:Sandstein. I believe his complaints are mostly out of context. You saw yesterday one example. Look at the original discussion in the BS page. You see the topic is highly controversial and maybe I wasn't that cool. But I believe something something should be done with those aggressive user like DLX. Can you express your opinion? Beatle Fab Four 19:37, 9 May 2007 (UTC)

I am not a judge, LOL, but I will take a look. My advise to you is to stay cool no matter what. --Irpen 20:18, 9 May 2007 (UTC)

I'm still fighting. Take a look. Talk:Bronze Soldier of Tallinn#For some who try to forget and rewrite the history

LOVE AND PEACE 85.140.211.220 00:51, 11 May 2007 (UTC)

BTW. That Sandstein temporarily blocked M.V.E.i. who expressed his opinion too. MAKE LOVE NOT WAR 85.140.211.220 01:15, 11 May 2007 (UTC)

They try to raise their heads again. Unbelievable. Take a look.

Wikipedia:Administrators' noticeboard/Incidents#Block evasion of Beatle Fab Four. Beatle Fab Four 22:49, 12 May 2007 (UTC)

Some thoughts on the Baltics

It seems that all articles on the history of the Baltic States are versions of what I call the Baltic occupation myth: 50% political bias, 50% half-truths and exaggeration. The situation is not getting any better. The last chapter in this story was the deletion of "Republic of Estonia (1990-1991)", achieved by editors who's only previous contributions had been (one sided edits) to the Bronze Soldier of Tallinn.

Is there anything that can be done about the issue? Should we just publicly announce that Wikipedia is a collection of lies, and maybe stop contributing to it?

Some options:

1. Set up a project to handle articles with problems caused be ethnic and national disputes. If we could somehow get Asians and Africans to contribute on European disputes and vise versa, we could get a more balanced result. Or, is the English language Wikipedia so much influenced by the Anglo-Saxon NATO agenda that it should in fact be called Natopedia?
2. Create two alternate versions of history. I do not really care what the articles are called, as long as they get the story right and acknowledge the existence of an alternate view. We could have History of Estonia (truth) and History of Estonia (Soviet lie).

The first question is however to decide how to discuss “tactics”, without this turning into a shouting match against nationalists. The Baltic noticeboard will not do.

-- Petri Krohn 23:58, 11 May 2007 (UTC)

Petri, this problem is as old as the Wikipedia is. There is no single way to solve this once and forever. Forking is certainly not the reasonable option. What is needed is diligence, persistence, and good-faith sourced edits. You know, the usual stuff. I will try to help within the time I have these days. Sorry for being of little help :(. --Irpen 00:56, 15 May 2007 (UTC)

Babi Yar

Irpen,

would you mind terribly taking at look at this edit. The two sources disagree, and the new one is far more reliable, but some verification from a Ukrainian speaker would be good. thumb|150px|left||Here is the original document in Ukrainian (I can see from my broken Russian that neither version is perfect). As far as "zhid," we are talking about German translated into Ukrainian in Kiev in 1941. The translators could have been Kiev natives, Ukrainians from further west, or Germans. My intention is to stick to my guns, I don't like feeling bullied, and I am reasonably certain I have the better version. But if I am completely off, please stop me! Thanks, Jd2718 00:04, 13 May 2007 (UTC)

I will look. Please allow me a little time to sort out too much. --Irpen 00:56, 15 May 2007 (UTC)

Bohdan Khmelnytsky article

There is some controversy over the content of the article, I was wondering if you have an opinion on the subject? Thanks in advance.--Hillock65 17:27, 14 May 2007 (UTC)

I am pleased you contacted me on this matter. I will post my thoughts at the article's talk but a general comment is that this one same argument needs to be carried at only one of the two pages (rather the uprising than the bio article, if you ask me) and to avoid forking lots of info should be moved from the bio article to the uprising one. --Irpen 00:56, 15 May 2007 (UTC)

This was exactly my argument: the same stuff is forked from Uprising into Bio. Besides, there is some doubt in regards to the validity of some of the sources. As a counterbalance I tried to post Subtelny's note on casualties - it gets thrown out because they don't like it. You can read my suggestions at the discussion page. For the time being I am staying away from it all, I have no desire for revert wars. --Hillock65 02:09, 15 May 2007 (UTC)

Wikipedia:Requests for arbitration/Abu badali

Hello,

An Arbitration case involving Abu badali has been opened: Wikipedia:Requests for arbitration/Abu badali. You have expressed an interest in this before, so please add any evidence you may wish the arbitrators to consider to the evidence sub-page, Wikipedia:Requests for arbitration/Abu badali/Evidence. You may also contribute to the case on the workshop sub-page, Wikipedia:Requests for arbitration/Abu badali/Workshop.

Thanks, - Jord 16:33, 15 May 2007 (UTC)

Ethnic Russians in Ukraine

I need your help. --Kuban Cossack 14:56, 16 May 2007 (UTC)

Khmelnytsky Uprising

I am surpsised you are not there. For once I thought we would be on the proverbial same side of the barricade... -- _{Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus | talk}  16:12, 20 May 2007 (UTC)

Evidence phase

Hello Irpen. If you intend to present evidence on the Piotrus RFAR, could you please do so soon? Thank you. Picaroon (Talk) 17:44, 20 May 2007 (UTC)

Template:PD-UA-exempt

Hi there, I noticed you edited the Template:PD-UA-exempt awhile back. You are welcome to contribute on a related Rfc page here, Wikipedia:Requests for comment/FC Vorskla Poltava image. Much appreciated, --Palffy 21:19, 21 May 2007 (UTC)

Portal:Ukraine/New article announcements

Hey again, can you explain what you meant by Please consider moving some (definitely not all though) to Board two but totally up to you.? Thanks, --Palffy 21:51, 21 May 2007 (UTC)

If you look at the top of the page, there is an explanation there about two boards and a rough guideline on how to loosely decide on which one to choose for a particular article. All major league players surely pass a WP:Notability test, so the articles were rightfully created and your work is appreciated. The board, however, serves to prompt interested editors to add articles to their watchlist (at least that's why I created it.) So, if sufficient number of editors who watch the board can be expected to watchlist the article, it is board one. The rest goes by default to board two. The deciding factor on what qualifies for the board one are (IMO) the combination of importance of the topic in general and the degree of its relevance to Ukraine. Here are some examples in terms of sports (below are strictly my personal assessment and your mileage may vary)

Even very important articles unrelated, or almost unrelated, to Ukraine (don't belong to any of these boards) would be for instance the foreign sports club where the Ukrainian player happens to play (again, might depend on the player, you know what I mean.)

The article may be loosely related to Ukraine despite the topic's overall importance (board two), like important tournament series where Ukrainian participants consistently do well. Or the article may be fully related to Ukraine but the topic is not likely to interest sufficient number of editors to watch it (relatively little known player from the Ukrainian club.)

Finally important sports people (Viktor Aleksandrovich Maslov, Oleg Oshenkov), clubs, organizations, series, unquestionably go to board 1. I think it is just as well if we keep all of those articles you posted at board 1. I just wanted to prompt your attention to the board two in case you find some of the articles more fitting there. Never mind and thanks again. Any chance we get these two red links blue? --Irpen 08:51, 22 May 2007 (UTC)

Pechersk School International

Could you possibly give a better prod reason than obvious--I can think of a few, we want to set a good example. But considering its troubled history, maybe AfD. Up to you. DGG 02:00, 22 May 2007 (UTC)

No, it is up to you now since you removed the prod. As for the reasons, I don't know where to start and "obvious" applies exactly. Additionally, it is a recreation as it has been deleted earlier. I wash my hands off it. --Irpen 02:13, 22 May 2007 (UTC)

Maslov dab

Done. Of course, disambiguation should be done by patronymic whenever possible, but for cases when patronymic is hard to find disambiguation by occupation will suffice. Anyway, I moved the racer to Viktor Maslov (racer) and redirected Viktor Maslov to Maslov disambiguation page, to which I added a few more Viktors, including the Dynamo head coach. All we need now is an article about him :)

Let me know if you need anything else or if you have questions. Best,—Ëzhiki (Igels Hérissonovich Ïzhakoff-Amursky) • (yo?); 12:58, 22 May 2007 (UTC)

Guberniya

I sure have a lot of interest in sorting this out (it is somewhat of a mess, as you rightfully noted), but unfortunately what I don't have is the time. As far as guberniya goes, the article was left at this title as "guberniya" is a loanword, but since it is not really well-known to Anglophones, a well-fitting translation ("Governorate") was used to title the articles on actual guberniyas. All those articles are supposed to have a link to "guberniya" somewhere in the lead, so it is absolutely clear to readers that both terms refer to the same thing. I am not saying this is the best way to handle the situation, but so far it has worked reasonably well. It's fairly easy to fix, though—we can just redirect "guberniya" to governorate, where it would be included as a section, or split existing governorate into governorate (Arab countries), governorate (Russia) (to which "guberniya" would redirect), and governorate (Germany) (or whatever a better term for this one would be).

As for "namestnichestvo", fixing that requires research and time committment which I currently cannot afford. Sorry! Note, however, that even when "namestnichestvo" is pretty much the same as "guberniya", it is a different term, so it would not be incorrect to translate is as "viceroyalty" instead of "governorate".

Finally, "General Governorship" (генерал-губернаторство) was a unit that comprised several governorates and/or oblasts. I am, however, not sure what you mean by Little Russia Governorate and Little Russia Governorship General being different—I don't recall hearing the latter name (but I could just be a bit rusty on that topic :)).

Sorry for not being of more help.—Ëzhiki (Igels Hérissonovich Ïzhakoff-Amursky) • (yo?); 17:20, 22 May 2007 (UTC)

I googled a little and those two were untis that existed at different times. --Irpen 18:08, 22 May 2007 (UTC)

Little Russia Governorate existed in 1764–1781 and in 1796–1802, but it was called a "guberniya" during both of these periods. Which of these entities (if not both of them) were a part of a larger (Little Russia) General Governorship, I cannot say at this time without checking more sources.—Ëzhiki (Igels Hérissonovich Ïzhakoff-Amursky) • (yo?); 19:01, 22 May 2007 (UTC)

annexation

You replaced "annexed" with "gained" more than one time, without any explanation on the talk page. Could you please explaine your reason on the article talk page?--AndriyK 18:01, 22 May 2007 (UTC)

Sure. Thanks for asking. --Irpen 18:06, 22 May 2007 (UTC)

Your edits on Annexation were reverted by Philip Baird Shearer. He criticized the phrase "In international relations the term annexation is usually applied when the emphasis is placed on the fact that territorial possession is achieved by force and unilaterally rather than through treaties or negotiations." If you think that you are right there, please prove this at Talk:Annexation. Otherwise, "gained" has to be replaced with "annexed" in Little Russia.--AndriyK 17:15, 23 May 2007 (UTC)

You reverted Annexation for second time, without answering Philip Baird Shearer's objections on the talk page. Please note, that edit warring is not a legal way to dispute resolution. Please use the talk if you have solid arguments.--AndriyK 09:51, 24 May 2007 (UTC)

AndriyK, it's nice to find you concerned about "legal way of dispute resolution" all of a sudden. If genuine, this is a huge step and I am looking forward towards working with reformed AndriyK on the articles. However, the entry above is misplaced/ I used the talk page, I explained myself in edit summaries, and, most importantly, if you have an article specific comment, post them at the article's rather than my talk so that other concerned editors will see the discussion. Best regards, --Irpen 20:54, 24 May 2007 (UTC)

I posted my comments to the article talk pages and still am waiting for your answer.--AndriyK 17:25, 29 May 2007 (UTC)

I remind you once more: I am still waiting for your answer on Talk:Little Russia and Talk:Annexation.--AndriyK 08:00, 30 May 2007 (UTC)

I answered at talk:annexation and in the edit summaries. Respond there please. --Irpen 08:15, 30 May 2007 (UTC)

You did not answer to my comments|.--AndriyK 09:18, 30 May 2007 (UTC)

Use of templates

You have reverted warnings to Petri Krohn with the summary of "improper inflammatory entries, templates are to communicate with newbies". I recall you have expressed such a stance before, but I can't find the diff right now.

Update: the diff is here. Digwuren 09:17, 26 May 2007 (UTC)

My understanding is that warning templates are there mainly to avoid breaches of civility, and for that purpose, are worded with particular care on neutral wording. I do not recall the "newbie" clause in the relevant policy, but I might just not have found it.

Can you direct me at the appropriate policy? Digwuren 03:04, 25 May 2007 (UTC)

Commons sense is your friend here. The goal of such communication is to convince the person in question to do or not do something. This is more likely to be achieved by talking nicely than planting templates. Especially inflammatory is planting the Vandalism templates at the talk page of the users whose edits do not qualify to be called such according to WP:VAND. As a rule of thumb, established users never vandalize, that is act with the goal "deliberately to compromise the integrity of Wikipedia" which is the very definition of Vandalism. Every vandal should be banned on the spot and what you have here really is the allegation of the WP:NPOV violation. NPOV is much more subtle policy and should be discussed with care with the strawman V-word not ever invoked. --Irpen 03:12, 25 May 2007 (UTC)

I agree that the template choice might have been the best possible. I used WP:TW's "factual errors" option and was somewhat surprised myself that it explicitly considered deliberate introduction of factual errors into vandalism in the manner it did.

Still, given that warnings are also a part of official communication protocol, which policy document recommends against their usage and for manually composing warnings to the same effect? Digwuren 03:27, 25 May 2007 (UTC)

Following the commons sense and a seeming consensus of the community on the issue is a very sound way to go. It would be a big mistake to "manually compose warnings" when you have a conflict with an established users. Instead of warning, seek common ground when you have conflicts. You will be surprised how much more results you would achieve. --Irpen 03:31, 25 May 2007 (UTC)

So ... no WP:POLICY? Digwuren 05:58, 25 May 2007 (UTC)

WP:DICK is not a policy, so you are right. No policy, just common sense. Just to add to that, I know a couple of RfAdm failed because users were found to use such tricks. Many times the community made it clear that this is unacceptable at WP:ANI and elsewhere. If you think it will help you make friends or help Wikipedia, carry on but I usually remove such entries when I see them as this is clearly baiting that can bring nothing but inflaming the conflicts further. --Irpen 06:03, 25 May 2007 (UTC)

Another useful reading on the matter is Wikipedia:Don't template the regulars. While essay and not a policy, it accurately reflects the community sentiment from what I can tell. Also, see {{templater}}. --Irpen 06:40, 25 May 2007 (UTC)

"When I see them". Should I ask, how come you saw this particular one almost instantly? Digwuren 07:40, 25 May 2007 (UTC)

Yes, Petri's page is on why watchlist because we talked in the past. When I saw in my watchlist the edit to his page whose summary included "Warning" and "TW" I thought that this is likely WP:DTTR. That's how I found it. --Irpen 07:53, 25 May 2007 (UTC)

You must check your watchlist rather sporadically, then. Somehow, you missed Alexia Death's warning (which you removed along with mine), which had stood on the page for a day and a half. Digwuren 07:57, 25 May 2007 (UTC)

I don't get what is that you want to say. Anyway, --Irpen 07:59, 25 May 2007 (UTC)

I pesronaly am a newbie and did not know anything about templating regulars, I figured this to be a standard policy. Id have apreciated a note about this. This however does not excuse you from unilateral removal of other peoples substantiated warnings.--Alexia Death 10:28, 25 May 2007 (UTC)

Correction: non-substantiated. Moreover, vandalism accusations in contravention of WP:VAND may be considered a personal attack. --Irpen 14:46, 25 May 2007 (UTC)

It's funny that you would bring up. As you can see from [16] the warning issued by Alexia Death concerned personal attacks, made on Talk:Ethnocracy. It doesn't mention vandalism anywhere. Digwuren 15:02, 25 May 2007 (UTC)

Well, yours does but both were unhelpful. Anyway, what matters is you talk to people in human language if you want to edit articles with them and you use templates if you want to inflame the dispute further. Give it a good thought and move on. --Irpen 15:05, 25 May 2007 (UTC)

• I have reverted your removal of these warnings. As can be seen here, Petri Krohn himself does not share your disdain of template-based warnings. Digwuren 12:11, 26 May 2007 (UTC)

Little Russia

Just wanted to express my compliments on your recent editing efforts at Little Russia. Good work. --Lysy^talk 06:52, 25 May 2007 (UTC)

Thank you. --Irpen 06:54, 25 May 2007 (UTC)

Any suggestions?

I was wondering about what you thought about it and whether I should report it? About this[17] (especially the last sentence in that diff). Any suggestions on the course of action? Thanks--Hillock65 19:16, 25 May 2007 (UTC)

I think these comments are unhelpful. I will comment there to such degree but note that much worse stuff has been said at the similarly disgusting uk-wiki board amusingly called "Ksenofobii - NI!" and no one was admonished. I stopped responding to attacks posted there and now I don't even bother to go there after the incident that you are aware. To your question on course of action my advise is ignore it. But I will try to talk reason to the user. --Irpen 20:21, 25 May 2007 (UTC)

I hope you see the difference between "come and help with article XXX" and "come and help me put user YYY in his right place". I am afraid we are talking about two different things.--Hillock65 20:35, 25 May 2007 (UTC)

No, I understand what you mean. However, the uk-board in question was filled with personal attacks against the users labeled anti-Ukrainian. Lengthy discussions on how bad is this or that user were quite hateful. Or perhaps it was not this board but some other page related to it. Its talk maybe. I won't remember. I would have gone there and shown you the exact page if you have a difficulty to find it, but I gave myself a pledge to not ever go to that wiki anymore to avoid the accumulation of stress as the community seems to be unwilling to adequately address the incidents of grievous abuse. So, you will have to find it yourself. --Irpen 20:40, 25 May 2007 (UTC)

Well, without trying to sound too philosophical, everything happens for a reason. I happen to share your negative view on that message board and even nominated it for delition at the beginning of the year. That motion was soundly defeated and the board stayed, because there is a reason for it, even if you don't share their sentiments. In my view, it is juvinile and amateurish but I understand that's how people in that community express their frustrution and anger for being labelled nationalist and hounded for their political views. If you think you were labelled unjustly anti-Ukrainian, think maybe someone else was unjustly labelled nationalist here, and maybe even by you too. I happen also to share that same frustration that you have with uk-wiki, except my frustration is with this one, which I see inherently anti-Ukrainian. Ukrainian editors with whatever views they have had were virtually driven from this encyclopedia and that board is the childish way to vent their anger and frustration. However juvenile it is, this is the way they express their frustration, at least I am happy no one is recruiting revenge squads against certain users like in the example above. As I understand AndriyK was banned among other things for the very same reason. Somehow, rabid russian nationalists are tolerated way better than Ukrainian ones, even though some of them are just as bad, if not worse. If you think I am wrong, look at Kazak's history of edits in Ukrainian articles. Again, there is a difference between calling someone names and recruiting others to get someone. That is the perceived double standard in this encyclopedia, and mutual animosity and distrust will continue as long as one side will always blame the other one. --Hillock65 21:55, 25 May 2007 (UTC)

First, about trying to recruit outside support in revert wars, it simply does not work. I mean it may work for a day or two, perhaps a week even, but few of the recruited users actually stay and those who do were likely to come here anyway. A relative small minority of Ukrainian (or Russian or Polish or other E. European) public can really contribute to en-wiki as this requires individuals with a huge interest, involvement, good internet access, relative well-being in RL (one is unlikely to be able to commit time to the project when one really struggles to put bread on the table, has to battle health problems and other real life disasters), good English, etc., etc., etc. As you see, this limits the pool of potential contributors to a very small segment and posting calls at internet forums will unlikely affect the number of the users who will stay.

About nationalists, all nationalists have a hard time at Wikipedia and most long-term users are those with moderate views. Strongly nationalist editors find themselves in trouble soon enough and I am familiar with several instances of Russian nationalist users ending up banned or having left due to "frustration". Wikipedia is a more welcome place to moderate editors, be them Ukraino-, Russo- or Polonophile. Contrary to your assertion, there are several actively working Ukrainian editors right now and they manage to not run into any trouble. And there are also users who manage to get in trouble all the time. Now, to the user in question, I would agree that he is somewhat exceptional in that he may be called a Russian nationalist indeed and he gets in trouble only on the very rare occasions. However, the important distinction is that the user's activity in Wikipedia goes by far beyond picking and fighting the nationalist crusades and running endless revert wars. User contributes a whole lot of content to the project and some topics of his interest and giant contributions have no relation to the nationalism whatsoever. There is another thing, though, which makes this user different from his opponents he mentions in the link you provide. In the UA-RU conflicts where the user is involved he does not scatter the general hatred towards the Ukrainians, something that his opponents do all the time in their talk page entries and edit summaries.

I agree that when sides blame each other all the time, mutual animosity and distrust is inevitable. Point is that only a small part of each "side" play this game, and the rest manage to get along without developing the hatred and distrust. --Irpen 22:44, 25 May 2007 (UTC)

Well since this discussion began about me, can I just add a few points to dear Hillock. First of all in that comment I never mentioned about Ukrainians in general, nor did I ever say that all Ukrainians show bad habits, I named those that I know are a disruption to wikipedia. Secondly, if you are so keen to discuss me, then I must say, from day one when you showed up, I was not impressed with your approach, and when Ghirla offered me to comment on ru-wiki about the trouble with uk-wiki I simply let the Russian wikipedia know about what is going on in en-wiki. Finally the comment dates after the article was locked (something I was aware off, as I requested that Bakharev lock the article) so seeing its last sentence as a call to arms for Russian wikipedians looses all its value. Its intention was for others to join the talk page of the article after my failed attempt to put some sense into you, and as illustrated by the examples your stubborn attitude was what caused the tone of the comment to be the way it is. I cannot be blamed for your personal insecurities on the topic, its your attitude that caused it to be the way it is and it certainly not helped us out of the deadlock in the discussion. You are totally uncompromising and also simply put, подлый (I can't even translate that on top of my head). And yes, I care about wikipedia and its articles, I don't want to see that article locked, but if the dispute is to be solved, one has to be eager to make concessions in favour of consensus, my experience with you clearly show that you are not prepared to make either concessions or even want to have consensus, you want the article to look like you envisioned it and that is it. Unfortunately, wikipedia does not work that way. You can't have everything your way (as Irpen said most leave out of frustration, or get blocked) and you must learn that if you want to have a successful career as a wikipedian.

On a personal note, next time, instead of pointing fingers at others have a look in the mirror. Last but not least, I said that before I will say it again, my wife is Ukrainian, western Ukrainian. --Kuban Cossack 00:24, 26 May 2007 (UTC)

My RfA

Hi Irpen. I'd like to thank you for your support of my RfA. It was closed at surprising 75/0/0, so I'm an admin now. MaxSem 22:50, 25 May 2007 (UTC)

Thanks

		The Random Acts of Kindness Barnstar
		For reverting vandalism on my user page. Thanks! :-) — Alex(U|C|E) 23:54, 25 May 2007 (UTC)

Cooperation proposal

I thought we could try to resurrect the spirit of understanding that we seemed to reach there once, and try collaborating on some article. Perhaps Khmelnytsky Uprising would be a nice candidate? Together with Bohdan article, it seems to be a topic many editors we know of - including Hillock and Ghirla, both of whom I saw active at them at one point of time - seem to agree on (with rough regards to POV), and edit without stepping on each another toes.-- _{Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus | talk}  02:41, 26 May 2007 (UTC)

Developing these articles would be a good idea. First thing, IMO, would be to defork lots of historiography from Khmelnytsky's bio article. Please take a look at this discussion on the issue. I asked Hillock to move around a lot of useful info he added to BKh article because, as an author, he is in the best position to do it. He did not object but did not express a full agreement either. He just said that this should be looked at later. Maybe now since the uprising's week-long conflicts about casualties seems to be getting resolved is a good time to move on to the next steps. You may want to comment at Hillock's talk to continue that discussion. --Irpen 02:47, 26 May 2007 (UTC)

I believe I have agreed up with you on that at that very section. Somebody just needs to do it... -- _{Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus | talk}  08:09, 26 May 2007 (UTC)

Meltyukhov

Irpen, do you consider Meltyukhov's book a reliable source ? The more I read him the more suspicious I am. --Lysy^talk 09:00, 28 May 2007 (UTC)

I see no reason not too. He is a respected scholar from what I know. --Irpen 09:02, 28 May 2007 (UTC)

If he is the one using the "concentration camps" term, this is pretty strong for a respected scholar. Aren't you concerned about this ? You know what I mean, there are different authors, and one can often find some extremal ones, even among the academics. The sources should be carefully selected. I'm usually trying to avoid citing authors who exhibit clear POV pushing in their works (like e.g. not citing Professor Edward Prus about Polish-Ukrainian conflicts, as I know he is biased). --Lysy^talk 09:29, 28 May 2007 (UTC)

Mikhail Meltyukhov is notable. As for his reliability, however, the article only claims he is an employee of Russian Institute of Documents and Historical Records Research, a red-linked institute that we don't know nothing about. What is important in estabilishing a person's reliability is primarily: what institution creditentials is he backed up with, what venue publishes his works (the one's we cite, particulary) and how are they received (reviewed) by the academic community. Currently we lack all of those crucial pieces of information, the best we can say is that he is a Russian historian with a PhD publishing books/articles/ebooks but with no info on reliablity of publishers (for all we know he can be self-publishing them). As such, he is definetly having problems with WP:RS.-- _{Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus | talk}  17:53, 28 May 2007 (UTC)

Nice, Piotrus, that you dare speak about RS wrt to an academic work after insisting that crackpot theories published in Polish press are acceptable and even trying to change the policy to accommodate your views. This fresh example of using double standards in POV-pushing will be added to your arbcom. --Irpen 20:01, 28 May 2007 (UTC)

Irpen, I apologize for bugging your userpage, but I addressed you and not Piotrus. I'm puzzled as to why he responded in your talk page instead of you, and you did not. Do you understand and agree with the point that I was trying to make above ? --Lysy^talk 20:12, 28 May 2007 (UTC)

Lysy, I responded to Piotrus' entry because it seemed asking for response. You don't have to apologize, since I never minded being asked at my talk. Now, I responded to your earlier inquiry and all I can add is to repeat that MM is as good a source as any other academic, a professional historian, researcher (not sensationalist journalist, ask Piotrus about those) and whose work appears in scholarly publications such as books and peer-reviewed journals. His "Stalin lost chance" was received with raving reviews and I don't see the reason to dismiss him except "not liking" what he says, which is not a valid reason anyway. --Irpen 20:19, 28 May 2007 (UTC)

Thanks. --Lysy^talk 14:37, 29 May 2007 (UTC)

Just wondering

Don't you think your talk page is a bit long? :-) Almost kills my browser every time I go here. — Alex^(U|C|E) 05:02, 29 May 2007 (UTC)

I know, have been lazy but will do now. --Irpen 05:05, 29 May 2007 (UTC)

Heh, laziness. Happens to everybody. I've been feeling like a WikiBreak lately. — Alex^(U|C|E) 06:42, 29 May 2007 (UTC)

If you feel like map-drawing, please take a look at Hillock's talk. There is a link to a map there and what can be made sourced to it would be maps of short-lived post-revolutionary pro-Soviet republics in modern-day Ukraine. --Irpen 06:44, 29 May 2007 (UTC)

Okay, I'll take a look. — Alex^(U|C|E) 00:14, 30 May 2007 (UTC)

It might take me a while to get around to it, though. My life's a bit hectic at this moment, I haven't been able to commit to any project for a while. But I'll try. — Alex^(U|C|E) 00:17, 30 May 2007 (UTC)

Little Russia

Hi Irpen, it would have if you had submitted it on the 24th of May, since on the 19th it was about 2.8k and on the 24th it was about 14k. Basically if it was x5 in the last five days, then yeah, but in this case it was too late. Blnguyen (bananabucket) 06:12, 31 May 2007 (UTC)

Too bad. In my experience exposing my work at DYK is the best way to attract copyediting by native speakers. Besides, this underrepresented part of the world could use some advertisement at the main page to attract more editors. But rules are rules. I should have known better. --Irpen 06:15, 31 May 2007 (UTC)

Image question

Could you please take a look at this image? Can it be improved by photoshopping or whatever since it seems hazy. Maybe you would find it more convenient to proceed from the image's original source (listed) out of which the image is cropped. I know jpegcrop.exe for a good cropping tool and I use it but I know next to nothing about any other image processing issues. My grade in the school's drawing class was mostly a solid D. --Irpen 05:30, 31 May 2007 (UTC)

Well, since it's a scanned image, making it look sharp and good from its existing state would be very difficult. It would be much easier to just draw the map over. I looked at the original image, and it's also fuzzy. The question is, do you want me to draw the whole map (is it important enough?) or just that fragment? — Alex^(U|C|E) 06:59, 31 May 2007 (UTC)

As for this map, I'll draw it, too. But I can't promise anything in the next few days, school is almost out, and things are getting a bit chaotic here. :-) — Alex^(U|C|E) 07:07, 31 May 2007 (UTC)

As for the 16-th century map, redrawing it would probably be a bad idea. Its value for te article largely lies in its historicity, so if we can't improve the existing one, leaving it as is would be a better solution than replacing the historic map with the one drawn by a Wikipedian. As for 1918 events map, we do not need to redraw it. We can use it as is for the war aticle and the FU rationale. But it cannot be used as a fairuse in Odessa and Krivoy Rog Soviet republics. So, just drawing these republics' maps using the 1918 map as a source would be helpful. Thanks a lot, --Irpen 20:16, 31 May 2007 (UTC)

DYK

On 3 June, 2007, Did you know? was updated with a fact from the article Polish-Ukrainian Peace Force Battalion, 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.

Sean William @ 15:55, 3 June 2007 (UTC)

On June 4, 2007, Did you know? was updated with a fact from the article Pinsk massacre, 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.

Thanks again Irpen, and hopefully more fruitful multinational collaborations are on the way? Blnguyen (bananabucket) 02:42, 4 June 2007 (UTC)

Clarification

Irpen, I am perfectly aware that you a most voiceful opponent of Holocaust Denial, and hence I thought that you would probably be aware of the nature of the Institute for Historical Review, probably the most infamous and repellent revisionist organisation of them all. This is precisely why I was so shocked by this edit, and wanted an explanation from you as to what point you are making. I am glad you have now (rather late) explained what happened. Prompt answers to legitimate questions will help to avoid similar misunderstandings in the future.

I still stand by my suggestion that your comment with the link to IHR be stroked out, but the decision is of course yours. Balcer 20:36, 4 June 2007 (UTC)

No, I was not aware of the IHR at all. Never even heard of them. I have recently explained that after being made aware of them having such reputation I want their opinions to be completely discarded. I take the claim that they are indeed an HD institution at face value. I am not interested even at doing any fact checking here. You say it is HD, this is good enough for me. I made several talk page entries in connection with that matter:[18], [19], [20]. I don't understand how else I can be more clear. --Irpen 20:43, 4 June 2007 (UTC)

This is the correction I was suggesting. I am glad you made it, and now this matter is closed as far as I am concerned. Balcer 20:47, 4 June 2007 (UTC)

Lexis-Nexis

Hi, Irpen! I hope you don't mind if I ask you for a favor—could you, please, look up in Lexis-Nexis what spelling is the most common for the President of Tatarstan Mintimer Shaymiyev? The variants I'm interested are "Shaymiyev", "Shaymiev", "Shaimiev", and "Şäymiev". This is not urgent. Thanks!—Ëzhiki (Igels Hérissonovich Ïzhakoff-Amursky) • (yo?); 18:27, 8 June 2007 (UTC)

Please join

Wikipedia:Mediation Cabal/Cases/2007-06-10 Podilsko-Voskresenska Line. --Kuban Cossack 17:22, 11 June 2007 (UTC)

Прапор УНР

Шановий Irpen, прапор УНР було завантажено Вами. Зараз цей прапор змiнено користувачем Alex K. Який з них таки вiрний? --RoteArmee 18:42, 19 June 2007 (UTC)

RFC on Petri Krohn

You seem to be otherwise engaged, but since you have been involved in discussions concerning edits by both Digwuren and Petri, and Digwuren seems to have notified mainly Baltic contributors, can I draw your attention to Wikipedia:Requests for comment/Petri Krohn where you could probably voice an opinion, relevant to the problem at hand. The RFC was put up rather irregularly, so please do not be angry with me if it is already deleted by the time you get there. --Pan Gerwazy 09:38, 21 June 2007 (UTC)

Commons:User talk:Irpen

Hi, please see the message I left you there.   — Jeff G. (talk|contribs) 21:27, 28 June 2007 (UTC)

Transliteration policy

As a member of WikiProject Ukraine, you are invited to participate in the discussion about transliteration of Ukrainian words. I would appreciate your participation. Discussion is located here. Thank you. — Alex^(U|C|E) 17:54, 3 July 2007 (UTC)

Moscow Declaration

Please see Talk:Moscow Declaration#United Nations --Philip Baird Shearer 17:56, 3 July 2007 (UTC)

History of Russia FAR

History of Russia has been nominated for a featured article review. Articles are typically reviewed for two weeks. Please leave your comments and help us to return the article to featured quality. If concerns are not addressed during the review period, articles are moved onto the Featured Article Removal Candidates list for a further period, where editors may declare "Keep" or "Remove" the article from featured status. The instructions for the review process are here. Reviewers' concerns are here. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 21:10, 18 July 2007 (UTC)

request to move to kyiv

Hello,

I have set up a request to move the page Kiev to Kyiv.

I have outlined four key reasons for doing so in the discussion section of the page.

Looking through the archives, I saw that you had contributed to this page earlier. I would like to hear what you have to say on this topic.

Thank you

Horlo 02:47, 30 July 2007 (UTC)Horlo

Dear Holro, while I appreciate that you decided to use the proper process to achieve the change you want to achieve, it upsets me a whole lot that you show no interest to improve the wikipedia by adding content to any articles or starting new ones. Perhaps, a thought to consider. As for your proposal, I am sorry to upset you, but it will fail because it contradicts the Wikipedia's naming policy. Best regards, --Irpen

Disturbed

Where have you disappeared? Please come back as soon as possible. Wikipedia is a bleak place without you. --Ghirla^-трёп- 15:49, 19 June 2007 (UTC)

Ditto the sentiment. Briangotts (Talk) (Contrib) 17:51, 19 June 2007 (UTC)

And third that feeling.--Pan Gerwazy 09:36, 21 June 2007 (UTC)

О, мой сынок, мой дорогой, Из дому ты уйдёшь.

Where are you when we need your knowledge of Ukrainian? --Pan Gerwazy 12:11, 5 July 2007 (UTC)

Sorry, friend, for not being available when needed. You can figure out the reasons below. I was heartened by your concerns. Cheers, --Irpen 04:30, 30 July 2007 (UTC)

Gone missing?

Where are you, Irps? Bishonen | talk 23:52, 10 July 2007 (UTC).

Hmm... Hopefully everything's okay. But then it's summer. — Alex^(U|C|E) 00:00, 11 July 2007 (UTC)

Where's Irpen? --Mcginnly | Natter 09:54, 17 July 2007 (UTC)

Thank you all, dear friends for your concerns. I am OK. Great, actually. You can find why I stopped editing from my today's entries. Sometimes, the climate here makes it just impossible to edit. Hopefully, the situation will improve. All the best to you all as well! --Irpen 04:13, 18 July 2007 (UTC)

You're back!!! — Alex^(U|C|E) 04:50, 18 July 2007 (UTC)

Time will show, but thanks a lot. All of you! --Irpen 04:21, 30 July 2007 (UTC)

An apology

Irpen, it was never my intent to cause you distress and I am sorry about that - alas, the case is stressful to us all, and I myself have recently been seriously considering a wikiholiday, because every time I check my watchlist I dread "what other attacks on my person I will have to read now". After you declared that you are compiling your own evidence against me, can you blame me for drafting a reply? If you are distressed that it was semi-public, would you prefer I compiled it secretly in a *.doc or similar file as is commonly done - and presumably, in the form your not-yet-public evidence is drafted? If so, you could have just asked me to remove it from the web, and I'd have done so. Further, if this draft of an evidence was so distressing, please consider how do others - like myself - feel when they face similar accusations - coming from your person, too - near constantly, from article's talk pages, through user talk, public fora and DR cases.-- _{Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus | talk}  13:37, 18 July 2007 (UTC)

Piotrus, your so called "apology" upsets me because it includes more than one obvious not-so-truths. I would rather not continue this here but have this discussion at the workshop. Thanks for understanding. --Irpen 04:21, 30 July 2007 (UTC)

Few thoughts

Hey Irpen. Welcome back. I have read your newest posts on Arbcom. They are quite impassioned and a lot of thought clearly went into them. I am not going to respond in full here, as that would require quite a bit of reflection on my part, and I should let Piotrus speak first. Balcer

Balcer, allow me to interject your statement with my responses. I am looking forward towards your thoughts when you ae ready to post them. In the meanwhile, here are some answers. First of all, however it pleases me that so many people expressed their concern about my non-editing and several more welcomed me back (you among others), it is premature to say that I am back. Now, to your thoughts. --Irpen

Still, here are a few thoughts of mine, for your consideration.

1. You expressed your opposition to off-wiki communication. Please reconsider. One of the best parts about being a Wikipedian is developing friendships with interesting people, friendships which necessarily need to go off official Wikipedia channels for communication. If I want to discuss with Piotrus any non-Wikipedia topic of interest to us, obviously we are not going to use Wikipedia talk pages. Therefore, I resent your implication that Piotrus' request to me for IM communication was in any way illegitimate or suspicious. Balcer

I am a least bit concerned about your off-wiki discussions with Piotrus on the topics that are unrelated to WP. If you are discussing, politics, cars, stocks, girls, science, money or even Irpen, this is none of my business or interest. Also, I thought I never accused you in being a part of Piotrus' organized team. Of all editors concerned, I have a high opinion of your honesty overall and I even thought of you being a part of that workgroup that would help solving this conflicts. This is all despite our many editing disagreement of which many were not so sweet. I truly seek a solution that would help rather than to have my POV prevail in the articles as the ultimate goal.

OTOH, I disagree with your opinion that developing friendships is one of the goals we should seek from Wikipedia experiences. While I made some friends, yes, it was never my goal of coming here. I would rather say to the contrary. I think the "friendster" is one of the gravest dangers of Wikipedia. A whole bunch of people now, and most of them are admins, developed a whole IRC-centered friendster network which helps anything but making the WP a better place, more comfortable for editors and more interesting to the readers.

But in any case, your friendships is none of my business. I see off-wiki communication plain wrong, when it is used to quickly request an extra revert, mobilize voters, organize a block, etc. It is pretty obvious that this was being done and I don't think that you were among those manipulated that way. So, there is no contradiction in my statement that off-wiki communcation harmed the climate here and your opinion that it can be used for harmless purposes. We are actually not arguing here. -Irpen

2. Your outrage at the "list of offenses" that Piotrus was compiling seems boundless, but please make an effort to see things from his point of view. In the last months of last year, Piotrus went through a quite involved Wikipedia:Requests for comment/Piotrus, where plenty of evidence was presented against him by his opponents on Wikipedia. Obviously, presenting counterarguments on his part must have taken quite a lot of effort. Knowing that since the RfC did not result in any resolution, and that a similar effort was likely to be launched against him again (as indeed it was in the Arbcom), it seems perfectly reasonable for him to build up his side of the case beforehand.

I suppose that he regrets now posting this material on a page which he thought was private, but which of course in this day and age where Google is combing all Wikispace day and night, obviously is not. Balcer

Well, although I agree with your supposition that he regrets that his underground effort was discovered, this is acually not what Piotrus is saying now. He is now trying to to say that his posting of this stuff was done purposefully with the aim of a greater transparency. I don't even need to comment on the incredulity of this nonsense. You don't need to either.

As for this being a "defence" in advance being reasonable, sorry, I disagree. There is a whole bunch of pretty vicious people who view me their enemy. I assure you that there is no file on my hard-drive or anywhere where I collect the diffs on that folk to have it handy when needed. I think it is repugnant. Yes, I remember many events but if I need a diff, I need to go dig it.

One example, Piotrus called me Polonophobic at one time. I later reminded him of that and when he denied and challenged me for the diff, it took me a while to find it. Another example, Lysy, called me worse invoking ethnic sensitivities. I remember that episode vividly but there is no diff anywhere ready (while I would probably be able to find it. I just wouldn't want to, as this would make me read again his horrific slur which I am not looking forward to.) True enough, there is so plenty of evidence on some others, that I would not need to look too much. The bottomline is that I see no excuse for such a sneaky behavior as secretly collecting stuff to use when necessary to destroy your contributors. I find this shadowing your colleagues for kompromat disgusting and I can't see any way to justify it.

You say that Piotrus might have been expecting an Arbcom. I was not expecting this one, truly. Moreover, when it was started, I asked MK to stop this as I saw no solution of this via arbcom. I said so again in my statement posted for arbitrators to the Arbcom page before the case was accepted.

But back to the subject, you may remember that I never co-signed that Piotrus' RfC which I thought was too broad and ill-concieved. Under similar circumstances, I even supported Halibutt, when he was a subject of a difficult RfC (who I also supported even for Adminship although he still molests me from time to time). Yes, I wanted to post a narrower complaint to Piotrus' RfC but I never got to it.

Now, if Piotrus was compiling a statement and drafting it outside of the ArbCom case (publicly or privately), that would have been OK. I tried to start writing evidence too but never got beyond 2 or 3 sentences simply because this is such an unpleasant business. But fine, Piotrus wants to present some evidence that his opponents are nothing but troublemakers, he goes for it. No problem. What is a problem is that the page pre-dates the draft of the anti-Irpen evidence statement. It predates the arbcom itself as a whole. It was maintaned for months, way before this ArbCom was started and he was collecting diffs that he thought could be used against me (and others) in case he needs them for whatever purpose.

Also, an interesting twist, there were others posting there with diffs. I recognize one author adding a diff from the Warsaw IP (as well as the diff). The author did not get any onwiki invitations to post. This is the type of IM coordination I meant. How many more users took part in it? I really don't want to know and don't care. And please, lets be serious. If Piotrus wanted to do it openly, he would have done it in his enwiki sandbox and would not have kept it in the <!---comment out brackets---> in pl-wiki.

Also, an outright hypocrisy is his statement's being designed as if "spontaneous", if you read the overture, while in fact it was so meticulously prepared. But well, let Piotrus now live with his consciousness as well as with what others think of this once it came to light. --Irpen

3. If you really think Piotrus did something really reprehensible, while at the same time you admit that in many respects he is a great contributor to Wikipedia and a decent human being, try to put yourself in his shoes for a moment and try to figure out what induced him to do what he did. Could it be that there is something in what you, Ghirlandajo and others are doing that is in some part responsible for this situation? What part of your behavior could be changed? Balcer

A small note here. Piotrus as a human being is not a subject of this discussion. Let's stick to the editing issues. I will say it again that he is a very valuable contributor. But at least no less a great contributor is his main opponent who Piotrus was hunting for years with partial success. Your trying to do any finger-pointing at his opponents here is not helping. The problem here is not people but an inadequate system of the conflict resolution that allows to game policies, like WP:CIV, WP:NPA, WP:RS, etc., in order to POV-push. The system that makes block shopping, off-line coordinated rv warring and vote stacking, meatpuppeting, all this being parts of the content disputes' resolution is responsible for this mess. People won't change. They can be replaced but the new ones will be no different. There has already been a sufficient amount of fingerpointing at the ArbCom. I would rather let Arbitrators decide and pass the respecvtife FoF's.

Also, I am certain, Piotrus' continual attempts to present this as civility issues is not only wrong but insincere. For one, unlike the editor he chases most vigorously I am not an incivil editor (occasional slips might have happened but no more than with all of us), he still added me to his hit-list. Secondly, the incivil Polish nationalists were used as pet-trolls rather than called to order. As for the editing (mis)behavior which is a true reason of this drama, Piotrus and his friends are as guilty of the double-standard POV-pushing as the other side.

But even before your advise above I was trying to think of a solution that would have made the situation for better. BTW, for better in general or to Piotrus' liking? Forcing his opponents out is one option. Ghirla has been forced out for a very long wikibreak. I did not see any improvement in behavior of Ghirla-bashers in his absence, neither in Piotrus. Same shameless POV-pushing, double-standards with sources, taking turns in revert wars coordinated by IM, snowballing the votes, etc. Not one single side is guilty of this and neither people nor their behavior is going to change. What needs to change is the way this is handled. If an efficient way of conflict resoltuion is designed that would make block-shopping not an option in the content DR, that would make attacking/pushing the sources based on their POV rather than reliability impossible, then we may achieve some progress.

4. I join you in my dismay at the rather limited (or even nonexistent) positive role that Arbcom is taking in this situation. They contributed very little, and the rulings under consideration are rather meaningless general pronouncements which display no understanding of what is really going on here (I think we all agree on this at this point). It almost makes me wonder whether this whole issue could not just be resolved among the editors involved. Since Arbcom seems incompetent here, maybe that is the only hope left. Balcer 09:19, 18 July 2007 (UTC)

Yes. See my original statement I made before the case was even accepted. --Irpen 04:21, 30 July 2007 (UTC)

Pryvit

Hey, I've been keeping a lower profile, mostly to concentrate on real-life things, but it's good to see you continuing to edit, and to apply your moderating influence. Cheers. —Michael Z. 2007-07-30 05:40 Z

Thanks. Some see my influence as not moderating :(. Anyway, good to see you too! --Irpen 07:30, 30 July 2007 (UTC)

Re: "Proposing a novel solution that may actually work"

Hi Irpen. Welcome back. I am very glad to see you participating again. I have read with interest your remarks here, and have responded with some questions here. I'd be interested in your response. Anything idea that might help ameliorate the situation should be vigorously pursued. Regards, Paul August ☎ 19:14, 30 July 2007 (UTC)

Thank you, Paul. I will post a response without delay. Thanks again, --Irpen 19:16, 30 July 2007 (UTC)

Support

Could I get your support on this Category:Musicians born in Ukraine, has been nominated for deletion. The discussion is taking place at Wikipedia:Categories for discussion/Log/2007_July_31#Category:Musicians_born_in_Ukraine. The discussion was opened on July 31, and will probably close in two days, so if you wish to make a case for retaining the category, Thanks --Bandurist 04:54, 4 August 2007 (UTC)

Hi Bandurist. Frankly, I do not see much sense in this category. It is hard to define what constitutes Ukraine as a place of birth in historical sense, while the borders are very well defined for the last 50+ years. Secondly, I think, a Ukrainian musician is the one who played the Ukrainian music regardless of the ethnicity or the place of birth. A hypothetic Eurodance star whose career has occurred in Germany should not be a part of the Ukrainian music article whether s/he was born in Ukraine or not. Of course, I will not vote for the deletion, especially after you asked for support. But I am not convinced the category is needed. Thanks, --Irpen 06:34, 4 August 2007 (UTC)

Happy Irpen's Day!

Irpen has been identified as an Awesome Wikipedian, and therefore, I've officially declared today as Irpen's day! For being such a beautiful person and great Wikipedian, enjoy being the Star of the day, dear Irpen! Love, Phaedriel 00:03, 5 August 2007 (UTC) A record of your Day will always be kept here.

Ehm. Thanks, but why? And have we met? I hope I did do something well to get your attention. Best regards and lots of Wikilove from me as well. --Irpen 03:55, 5 August 2007 (UTC)

Do we need a reason to tell a great editor, and an wonderful person how greatly appreciated his work is, or how much we look up to him? I certainly don't, dear Irpen - and that's why, my humble gift is my way of telling you, you are all those things - even tho we haven't met directly until now. For this, you deserve the modest token of my admiration, and I hope you enjoyed your well deserved day. Have a wonderful day, dear Irpen! :) Love, Phaedriel - 23:00, 6 August 2007 (UTC)

Dear Sharon. I am afraid I am not the best model to "look up to", at least I would recommend others to look elsewhere for the model behavior. But I appreciate your award and will try to live up to it. Best regards, --Irpen 00:06, 7 August 2007 (UTC)

Makarov (diambiquation)

Hello, this is a message from an automated bot. A tag has been placed on Makarov (diambiquation), by JohnI (talk · contribs), another Wikipedia user, requesting that it be speedily deleted from Wikipedia. The tag claims that it should be speedily deleted because Makarov (diambiquation) fits the criteria for speedy deletion for the following reason:

Housekeeping. Non-controversial maintenance task performing a non-controversial page move like reversing a redirect.

To contest the tagging and request that administrators wait before possibly deleting Makarov (diambiquation), please affix the template {{hangon}} to the page, and put a note on its talk page. If the article has already been deleted, see the advice and instructions at WP:WMD. Feel free to contact the bot operator if you have any questions about this or any problems with this bot, bearing in mind that this bot is only informing you of the nomination for speedy deletion; it does not perform any nominations or deletions itself. --Android Mouse Bot 2 15:28, 5 August 2007 (UTC)

Sockpuppetry

There is some sockpuppetry occuring at Talk:Kiev. Six different IPs hold the same arguments with little to no other contributions to any other article. There are also registered users with little to no other contributions at any other article with the same arguments. I haven't figured out how to worke that damned sockpuppetry reporting page, but do you know how to file reports on there? Reginmund 20:07, 5 August 2007 (UTC)

I will look into it. --Irpen 20:12, 5 August 2007 (UTC)

Award

I have proposed an award at the Ukraine Wikiproject - You appear to be a member of the project and I would like some feedback from you - thanks // Finns

Talk:History of Ru-related

"Controversy" of having trade relations with Nazis

Whatever hypocritical and deplorable the practice to trade with non-human regimes is, in the cynical business of international politics everyone was (and still is) doing this. As every single major country continued to trade with Nazis supplying them with fossil fuels, ore and high-tech (IBM controversy comes to mind), there is nothing notable in Soviet doing what the rest did to single them out. Let's stick to facts that say:

• Soviets did trade with Nazis
• Soviets support of anti-fascist movement in Spain was their state policy
• Soviets were the only major power to oppose the disgraceful Munich deal and offered to intervene militarily.

These are facts. Whether this constitutes the "controversy", should be left to the reader. As for finding some ref whose author says something and including it into the Encyclopedia, we can go far with such approach. As far as interpretations, not facts go, many personal opinions may be "referenced". Please, let's stick to facts. --Irpen 20:22, 5 August 2007 (UTC)

And Soviets signed alliance with the Nazis (Molotov-Ribbentrop Pact). Yes, for most 1930s Soviets were notable opponent of the Nazi regime, but then for nearly 3 years they were their best allies. Those are the facts. There is also the Soviet-German cooperation article. Of course, you are right that many countries traded with the Nazis - but in the period 39-41, Soviet trade was an important lifeline of the Nazi regime.-- _{Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus | talk}  21:25, 5 August 2007 (UTC)

Please distinguish trade and aid. Any trade was an important lifeline of the Nazi regime. So, there is nothing specific about the Soviet trade. Besides, check the dictionary for the difference between trade (exchange of goods) and "aid". Your following my edits into this article which have not received any of your attention for a year and a half is amusing. Now I wonder how dared you accuse others of stalking you. But do as you please. There is nothing new in that. --Irpen 21:48, 5 August 2007 (UTC)

Look at the threads above. I am expecting an apology.-- _{Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus | talk}  22:31, 5 August 2007 (UTC)

Irpen - WP:Civil - I'm not saying you're wrong or right - I'm just saying that comments like this - "But do as you please. There is nothing new in that." - aren't necessary and do nothing to help your cause.--danielfolsom 03:04, 6 August 2007 (UTC)

Danielsfom, I am more interested in your opinion in the content dispute than in the policy quotes. I am familiar with policies. Piotrus sudden appearance among the article's editors after a 1.5 year break but immediately following my edit is not illegitimate even if he followed my contributions. However, he frequently invokes accusations of stalking and in view of that, this is a rather weird development. Anyway, here is the question. Following the 1939 MR-pact, the Soviets did have the diplomatic and trade relations with Nazi DE while the UK and France were at the state of war with Nazis, initially a phony war but still. But trading is not the same as giving an economic aid. I hope you realize the difference. SU was not alone in trading with Nazis. Many European countries continued the economic relations and so did the US. Does not qualify to call this "aid". Let's make this article piece sensible. --Irpen 04:11, 6 August 2007 (UTC)

I'm not interested in the content dispute - I'm not involved enough in the article to comment on that - what I am interested in is assuring that policies are followed on talk pages. --danielfolsom 04:47, 6 August 2007 (UTC)

I am sorry you are not interested in content of this article. If all you take interest is that Wikipedia policies are followed, please consider that citing them to experienced editors does not help in encouraging the civility climate. But lets carry the policy discussions at the appropriate pages and discuss the article here. Coming back to the article, can anyone explain how come the trade of goods for money or other goods qualifies to be called "aid" in this particular article? --Irpen 04:52, 6 August 2007 (UTC)

(for the record - I did cite it - WP:CIVIL)--danielfolsom 11:16, 6 August 2007 (UTC)

You are not helping. Please use the article's talk page to discuss the article and take other issues elsewhere. Thanks, --Irpen 16:09, 6 August 2007 (UTC)

It's hard to discuss content when one side is being uncivil, Irpen. It's as simple as that.-- _{Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus | talk}  16:19, 6 August 2007 (UTC)

I will not feed this thread anymore per WP:TLW. Please continue it elsewhere. Now, back to the topic and for the umpteenth time, can anyone point out how the trade relations (not uncommon even with the most despotic regime in the cynical business of international politics) turned into the "economic aid" in this article? Is there any evidence that the Soviets gave the goodies to the Nazis for free. Neither they were alone in trading with Nazis. Please stay on topic, ladies and gentlemen. --Irpen 17:26, 6 August 2007 (UTC)

Irpen - I'm trying to explain to you that regardless of who I think it's right, comments like "But do as you please. There is nothing new in that." create a hostile atmosphere. I am merely reminding you to remain WP:Civil, and frankly your response (which should have been either defending that statement or admitting wrongdoing) of "I don't want to talk about this" doesn't work. You're the only one creating an uncivil atmosphere - and your doing it on this page, so regardless of what you would like, if you repeate then I'll continue to remind you. Now I think you're a fine editor, and god knows I've made many uncivil mistakes, but let's just try and keep it clean for now - and if either of you have to be told to be civil, don't start freaking out.--danielfolsom 19:52, 6 August 2007 (UTC)

Thanks for your complements. However, please understand that your continued lecturing editors about policies at the article's talk pages contributes to the hostile atmosphere a great deal. I am not here to tell you what to do. I am here to develop articles. If you want to tell me what to do, do it elsewhere or better yet, reconsider. I would appreciate if the further discussion will concentrate on the article's content. In the last few hours Piotrus and myself made several edits that improved it and we are better off spending time continuing this work. I would welcome your joining us in this quest to make this article compliant with new more rigorous FA standards. I hope you will reconsider you stated lack of interest to its content. Moreover, I suggest to remove this discussion of policies and behavior from this page as it adds nothing to article's improvement. Unless Piotrus or yourself object, I will remove it. There are several pages already where Piotrus and myself hammer out our global disagreements. This isn't one of them and, frankly, one more isn't needed. But if you think it is important to preserve this important discussion, feel free to move it to my talk. Now, pretty please, help develop the article. If you need references, I would be happy to recommend you some. --Irpen 20:18, 6 August 2007 (UTC)

I don't mean to be lecturing you - and frankly you're the first one I told to be civil in a while - usually I do contribute to talk pages and mainspace articles, I'm just saying that (especially since there's a Wikipedia:Requests_for_arbitration/Piotrus arbitration case going on with you guys - you just need to remember to keep cool heads. Irpen - all I'm saying is that you made an uncivil comment - again I think your a great editor, it's just everyone lapses now and then. It was just a reminder, as I expect given that said case tensions are already high between you and Piotrus. It was not meant to be derogatory, and I'm sorry you understood it to be that, but simply put, I saw a comment that was uncivil, and I said try to not make these comments -there's really nothing more to it. I hope this incident has no bearing on any future interactions between us, and who knows, maybe if you're on an article I'm more active in we'll be able to work together.--danielfolsom 20:24, 6 August 2007 (UTC)

And by the way - if you want to say I haven't added references- why don't you look at my contributions - when spotlight started on this article there were 3 citations, we added 130 - myself adding at least 20 of those - so try to avoid making assumptions. And yeah, I'm fine removing this, however the comment still stands to both of you - especially after that comment - remain civil--danielfolsom 20:27, 6 August 2007 (UTC)

Irpen, first of all the whole point was to remind you and Piotrus (both) to remain civil - and Piotrus was also getting upset by some of your comments (as proved by an email he sent me which gave me the link to the arb case). I don't mean it to be derogatory, I just meant it as a reminder - however you took that reminder and stated that experienced editors shouldn't be told when they're not being civil, and then saying that I only edit to make sure people follow policies on talk pages - both of which are completely untrue and the latter of which is completely out of line.--danielfolsom 20:31, 6 August 2007 (UTC)

Daniel, I want to minimize the number of pages where Piotrus and myself develop our WikiLove relationship. But since you persist, I will respond to you. First, I am upset to see from your response that my opponent keeps using the untraceable channels to get others involved in this all. That he prefers to talk behind other people backs where they cannot respond adds the hostile atmosphere a great deal. I hoped that after recent exposures at the Workshop he was going to curtail such behavior. I am only saddened to see that I was mistaken. I would have preferred, actually, to not know even that this practice goes on. I would have been more comfortable living under the illusion that some things have changed for greater transparency and candor.

Now, if you insist that I "either defend my statement or admit wrongdoing" I can elaborate on what prompted this new development. Since Piotrus continues off-line communications, chances are that I will have to explain anyway. I have no way to know who and what he is writing next. That he maintained for months an off-wiki dump to collect diffs to present against me at the opportune moment has convinced me that his off-line activity can take many unexpected routes.

So, let's split the subjects. If you insist that I "defend or admit" I can elaborate on that. If you disagree that your involvement contributed to deepening the rift rather than healing it, I can elaborate on that. If you think it is all right to work off-line on the issues where no privacy is needed (or even hurts the climate of trust even further), I can elaborate on that either. Finally, please note that in the middle of this all conflict Piotrus and myself expanded the article and whoever of us made a first mistake in this recent incident (his purported stalking or not/my purported incivility or warranted tone/purportedly unwarranted (or warranted) lecturing editors at the article's talk), the article got developed and this is a good thing.

Piotrus is a valuable contributor, I never said otherwise, and the article is getting developed in recent hours by both of us despite your good-faith and well-meaning intervention that, unfortunately, was not helpful. I also have no beef with you and whatever you choose, I will try to be as helpful as possible in addressing your concerns. If you choose to let this stop here, fine with me either way. --Irpen 21:09, 6 August 2007 (UTC)

Archiving the History of Russia's talk

Sorry, I reverted your archiving as the discussion there seemed relevant. I am sure you've done it with best intentions, but those issues are tto recent to be archived yet. As for the off-topic discussion, I moved it to my talk where it can be continued if parties have an interest in that. Regards, --Irpen 20:39, 6 August 2007 (UTC)

The discussions are for the most part old - spotlight left a while ago, and the fact tag template has been resolved on user talk pages - if someone wants to bring it up again they can. And stop calling it the "off-topic" discussion - you made the comment on the talk page, I responded on the talk page, there's nothing off-topic in that. However, the discussion is over - as it was just a reminder that telling an editor essentially that they are stuck up and don't listen to anyone (seriously now - "do as you please. There's nothing new in that"?) isn't needed.--danielfolsom 20:43, 6 August 2007 (UTC)

I do not object to the second archiving you as you preserved the recent entries, unlike the first time. --Irpen 20:48, 6 August 2007 (UTC)

Cheers

Thanks. I'll buy the second round. Mandsford 11:56, 8 August 2007 (UTC)

English translation of the Valuyev Circular

Hiya. I stumbled through translating the Valuyev Circular into English, at s:Valuyev Circular. If you have a bit of time, please proof-read it and improve the translation. Thanks. —Michael Z. 2007-08-10 14:20 Z

Will do. --Irpen 19:51, 10 August 2007 (UTC)

Hello, please read

I also belive that this image: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Image:AntiRussianPoster.jpg has place to be in the section of Ukraine after the collapse of the Soviet Union in the Russians in Ukraine article, nevertheless, just like to you, the user Hillock removes it all the time. I hope you could again support the idea on the talk page of the article. Sorry i couldnt support the idea then when you brought it up in the first place, but i was blocked at that time. M.V.E.i. 21:01, 11 August 2007 (UTC)

About moving the list to a seperate page

I dont mind to it actually, but i think it should be sorted in an ABC way or somthing like that. Anyway, now it looks exellent to. M.V.E.i. 21:47, 12 August 2007 (UTC)

Thanks for your comment

Thank you for your comment on my RfA, which was successful. Lyrl^Talk _C 00:46, 13 August 2007 (UTC)

Map

Image:Russian Empire Map 1912.jpg

Found a nice map. I linked it to a few places, but you might think of more uses for it. It is quite detailed (11 MB). Balcer

Thanks. Useful indeed. It can be also cropped for regions article. A wonderful map. --Irpen 07:02, 13 August 2007 (UTC)

Question

Can Hillock NPOV anything he wants? I really dont understand what "neutrality" has to do with an argumant about puting or not puting a picture. And can he put it after by complete majority it was desided that this image should stay? Check his talk page, he was offered "meditation" because he has a similar fight on a different topic. Hope you also remember his fights with Kuban kazak a few month ago? When Kuban kazak added linked importent information, and Hillock added information about Ukrainians and how they co-suffered when Kuban tryed to explain him the article is not about Ukrainians. M.V.E.i. 18:19, 13 August 2007 (UTC)

I didn't make this section

See? he maid this section, i just chenged "Russian extrimists" to "Pro-Russians", so it would sound more objecive. M.V.E.i. 19:10, 13 August 2007 (UTC)

Edit summary of yours about terrorists? Slow down. Discuss content and not Hillock. --Irpen 19:11, 13 August 2007 (UTC)

But how are they radical? They make demostrations yeah, but that's not a crime. Evey political ideology eventualy has demonstrations. And i really belive Timoshebko and Yushinko are extrimists and terrorists. I mean, taking the Rada by force after loosing the election?? But nevertheless, i dont add the name "criminals" and others they desurve into articles. M.V.E.i. 19:55, 13 August 2007 (UTC)

Eating patterns

Are you following my edits around? Digwuren 05:06, 14 August 2007 (UTC)

RfAr link

Please check the link in the second-last paragraph of your arbitration request ("complaint by the blocking admin"). I think you may have inadvertently copied the wrong diff there. Newyorkbrad 18:08, 14 August 2007 (UTC)

I did indeed. Corrected now, thanks for pointing this out to me. --Irpen 18:22, 14 August 2007 (UTC)

Support

Hope i could get your support here: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Template_talk:WW2InfoBox#The_new_image

and here: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Talk:World_War_II#The_new_image

Because i belive that you will agree with me that having the Normandi battle picture in the size of two, and not having a picture of the Stalingrad battle in a world war two image is absurd. M.V.E.i. 11:14, 17 August 2007 (UTC)

president of Ukraine

About Ukraine, then we should delete the word "President" in the boxes of those three guys' articles... --Damifb 18:08, 17 August 2007 (UTC)

If we can find were to move this info, yes. Delete, no. Ukraine is too sparcely covered on wiki to delete a valid info. Maybe we need another article. Like Least of political leaders of Ukraine. Just thinking out loud. I simply don't have time to fix every problem. --Irpen 18:14, 17 August 2007 (UTC)

No, I meant removing just the word "President". The article already exists: List of national leaders of Ukraine, I just created it. Regards. --Damifb 18:17, 17 August 2007 (UTC)

Good thinking! Thanks! Also, note, that leaders of the Western Ukrainian People's Republic should be added there too. Cheers, --Irpen 18:21, 17 August 2007 (UTC)

Good team work! Now we have a decent article. --Damifb 18:49, 17 August 2007 (UTC)

3RR report

For what little it is worth, I had another look at your report and I now agree that a block was warranted. I'm still learning the ropes (so to speak) so please drop me a note if you see me messing up somewhere else. I'm very sorry for the time that my duff decision wasted. Spartaz ^Humbug! 20:11, 17 August 2007 (UTC)

All right. Thanks for being gracious :). Mistakes happen and making a mistake and not to block is always better than to block by mistake. So, when in doubt you made a right decision. --Irpen 06:32, 18 August 2007 (UTC)

Essay on how 3RR hurts the project and a proposal to fix it.

Hi! I would appreciate it, if you could give me your thoughts on this essay: Accusations of collaboration: 3RR hurts Wikipedia --Alexia Death the Grey 09:05, 19 August 2007 (UTC)

Wikipedia:Requests for arbitration/Piotrus

The above case is closed. A general amnesty for editors involved in Eastern Europe-related articles is extended, with the expectation that further editing will adhere to Wikipedia's policies. Future behavior problems may be addressed by the Arbitration Committee on the motion of any Arbitrator or upon acceptance of a request for inquiry by any user who edits in this area. For the Arbitration Committee, Picaroon (t) 19:10, 19 August 2007 (UTC)

Kiev

I moved your comments to Wikipedia talk:Requests for mediation/Kiev, and responded to both you and the filer. You are correct in noting that, unless everyone involved in the dispute is involved in the mediation, any resolution will not stick and hence the mediation would have been a waste of time. Cheers, Daniel 03:55, 25 August 2007 (UTC)

Orange Revolution

Hey, wanna resume attempts at getting the Orange Revolution article the GA/FA status? Maybe even a second attempt at a peer review? :-) — Alex^(U|C|E) 04:27, 25 August 2007 (UTC)

Seems like a good idea. I will go over it one more time. Thanks, --Irpen 04:29, 25 August 2007 (UTC)

Wow, you're fast. :-) By the way, I think you should participate in the Kiev mediation. My comments are on the talk page over there. — Alex^(U|C|E) 04:31, 25 August 2007 (UTC)

I wrote what I have to say on the mediation already. --Irpen 04:32, 25 August 2007 (UTC)

Well okay, it's up to you, but I feel you'd have a few good points to make if you joined. — Alex^(U|C|E) 04:35, 25 August 2007 (UTC)

I have made my points and will make them again if the new RM procedure starts. Mediation is not part of it and is started as a desperate attempt of a commited WP:SPA to try a new way to impose his view on the WP since all he tried before - failed. The article's name will not be non-compliant to the WP:NC and seeking for a new venue to protract this nonsense is not making the proposed name any more complaint. If he wants to change the convention, this would be another matter but it belongs to WP:NCGN talk page. --Irpen 04:40, 25 August 2007 (UTC)

Okay. I just felt that I needed to join the mediation because it might turn into participants trying to discredit each other. Anyway, just a suggestion. We'll see what happens. By the way, Happy Independence Day! — Alex^(U|C|E) 04:45, 25 August 2007 (UTC)

Oh yeah! Thanks! Forgot to blank my userepage this time with a last-year's greeting. --Irpen 04:48, 25 August 2007 (UTC)

Bettacommand

I see that Bettacommand is trying to regain his admin status. After disgraceful his block of you. and part in blocking me (memory refresher here [21]) you may,like me, have something to say on the subject. I'm not sure where is the best place t say it though. Giano 11:31, 25 August 2007 (UTC)

Your quote has been removed from the userpage

I should be grateful if you would avoid, as far as possible, interacting with User:Hillock65 in future, and consider the consequences of some of your postings - even if you feel that they are not contentious. Happy editing. LessHeard vanU 21:23, 25 August 2007 (UTC)

Thank you for your effort in resolving this matter. It is my intention to continue keeping the amount of my interaction with the said user to a bare minimum. Please judge the content of my postings from the postings themselves, not cherry-picked quotes. I gave a diff several times. Also, you must admit the irony of him claiming of wanting to have nothing to do with me and putting the out of context quote by myself on the top of his user page. I said everything there is to it already at ANI. If you want to study the matter in full, I would appreciate your feedback. If you are not interested, it is just as well. --Irpen 03:46, 26 August 2007 (UTC)

Wikipedia:Requests for arbitration/Digwuren

Hello,

An Arbitration case involving you has been opened: Wikipedia:Requests for arbitration/Digwuren. Please add any evidence you may wish the Arbitrators to consider to the evidence sub-page, Wikipedia:Requests for arbitration/Digwuren/Evidence. You may also contribute to the case on the workshop sub-page, Wikipedia:Requests for arbitration/Digwuren/Workshop.

On behalf of the Arbitration Committee, ArbComBot 00:04, 26 August 2007 (UTC)

Your note

Thanks, Irpen. :-) SlimVirgin ^{(talk)(contribs)} 01:14, 26 August 2007 (UTC)

Anytime. Who knew that certain self-professed wp-defenders would side with trolls of the worst kind. --Irpen 08:31, 26 August 2007 (UTC)

Kyiv mediation

Hello,

If you do not want to enter mediation, fine.

If you do not agree with me, fine.

However, do not spend all of your comments on a Request for Mediation page calling me names, and being generally uncivil.

Thanks, Horlo 00:59, 27 August 2007 (UTC)

Horlo, I was not uncivil. I suggest you devote some of your endless energy to the content creation. I have no intention to continue this argument for now. --Irpen 04:36, 27 August 2007 (UTC)

HelloLviv center image

I dont agree with your removal of the image of the vandalising of the Russian Culture Centre in Lviv. I returned it because i belive that this image adds to the article. M.V.E.i. 20:13, 27 August 2007 (UTC)

MVEi, please use article's talk for the article-related issues and use meaningful section titles for your messages. "Hello" is not exactly meaningful, is it? --Irpen 20:22, 27 August 2007 (UTC)

Ok yet you ignored what i wrote. This image shows anti Russian actions. And i also think that in the "Radical" pro-russian movements the image of an anti-NATO demonstration is totally, out of theme. There is nothing radical in opposing NATO. I think it's normal. M.V.E.i. 15:11, 28 August 2007 (UTC)

Thanks!

Thanks for reverting vandalism on my userpage! — Alex^(U|C|E) 06:46, 28 August 2007 (UTC)

apology

Sorry if I offended you per this [22]. What do you want removed? Ostap R —Preceding unsigned comment added by Ostap R (talk • contribs) 03:38, August 29, 2007 (UTC)

Ostap, you did not offend me as I don't take offense of most anything onwiki. The only time I remember seeing myself offended was when a sock with an ax to grind against my country produced this repugnant masterpiece and some clueless users, including several experienced ones, revert-warred and blocked on the sock's side, the affair having ended with this crap still beautifying the WP. I only ensured that the masterpiece is at least tagged accordingly. You can see my messages at the article's talk as well as my exchange somewhere at this very page with Carabineri. So, no, you did not offend me. I just think your userpage was divisive. Your last moderation was more than enough. Thank you very much. --Irpen 03:47, 29 August 2007 (UTC)

Now I see and I am glad you werent offended. I removed the divisive things. And that Ukrainian German collaboration article is worthless trash. Ostap R 03:57, 29 August 2007 (UTC)

Well, we happen to agree on more than one thing already :) I would just add that in addition to being useless, it is also offensive trash. The way out of this mess is a new article titled with smth like Ukraine in the World War Two. Then whatever is encyclopedic in this pile of garbage can be included and the rest trashed. After that, if there is an interested user with time, the new objective article on collaboration may be branched out of the history article. I thought of starting an article about the War but never got to it. --Irpen 04:03, 29 August 2007 (UTC)

I looked at the past versions of that article and I am surprised that that filth lasted as long as it did. Ostap R 09:39, 29 August 2007 (UTC)