Case Opened on June 5, 2005

Case Closed on 20:04, August 21, 2005 (UTC)

Please do not edit this page directly unless you wish to become a participant in this request. (All participants are subject to Arbitration Committee decisions, and the ArbCom will consider each participant's role in the dispute.) Comments are very welcome on the Talk page, and will be read, in full. Evidence, no matter who can provide it, is very welcome at /Evidence. Evidence is more useful than comments.

Arbitrators will be working on a proposed decision at /Proposed decision.

Involved parties

Statement by ChrisO

Since joining Wikipedia on 16 May 2005, User:Argyrosargyrou (talk / contribs) has mounted a literally daily campaign of edit warring on articles related to Cyprus. This has involved the creation of wildly POV articles, multiple recreations of said articles following votes for deletion, POV forks of protected articles, a complete disregard for the 3RR, persistent refusal to debate contentious changes, refusal to compromise with other editors, personal abuse of other editors, the systematic use of open proxies to evade temporary blocks and the large-scale use of sockpuppets to pursue revert wars and influence votes for deletion.

In the relatively short time that he has been editing, he has shown absolutely no willingness to engage with the community in any way other than blunt opposition and uncompromising partisanship. His willingness to make illegal use of open proxies indicates that he is willing to go to extremes to force his POV into Wikipedia articles. He has been informed of the conduct and content standards expected of editors but clearly has no intention of abiding by them.

My own involvement in the ongoing conflict over the articles in question comprised an attempt to rewrite parts of Cyprus reunification referendum, 2004 to comply with the NPOV requirement (which Argyrosargyrou promptly reverted) and votes for the deletion of his POV forks. I have blocked him once for 24 hours following violations of the 3RR and have systematically blocked open proxies as he has used them in sequence to evade his block.

It is worth mentioning that his involvement with Wikipedia seems to be part of his wider anti-Turkish campaign on the Internet - see e.g. [1], [2].

Detailed evidence with diffs is at Wikipedia:Requests for arbitration/Argyrosargyrou/Evidence.

Statement by Argyrosargyrou

Please limit your statement to 500 words

ChrisO is a Turkish apologist that wants to rewrite history by equating the Greek Cypriot victims of Turkish perpetrated human rights violations and warcrimes with the brutal and savage aggressors. Every time I try to include the historical facts and figures which are accepted by the European Court of Human Rights and the United Nations such as the issues of misisng persons, the enclaved Greek Cypriots in Karpassia, the destruction of Cyprus Churches and other cultural heritage by Turkey, the illegality of the Turkish occupation regime and the pseudo-state in occupied Cyprus, the Greek Cypriot refugees property rights and the gross human rights violations contained in the text of the Anann plan, ChrisO and other Turkish apologists that he is in league with keep vandalising the pages and removing my contributions and rewriting or reverting the pages using unfounded Turkish propaganda in order to exonerate Turkey of all blame and cast the Greek Cypriot victims as villains. The pages edited or reverted by ChrisO use terminology intend to give legality to the Turkish occupation regime which is both illegal because it violates UN resolutions 541(1983) and 550(1984) which declared the pseudo-state in occupied Cyprus "legally invalid" and call on all UN members not to facilitate it in any way, and is also insulting to Greek Cypriots. ChrisO along with the other Turkish apologists he is in league with voted for the deletion of the page I created (with full references given) on the "Hellenic Genocide" which makes him a holocaust denier. Even though the vote of the RFD was overwhelmingly in favour of keeping the pages the page was still detested in violating of Wikipedia rules. It is is truly sickening that Wikipedia would go to such lengths to deny the genocide of 4 million Greeks whose ancestors had lived in Asia-Minor for over 3000 years. On top of that even though there was an RFD on the page on the non-existent "Turkish Cypriot Genocide" (which is not even referred to by Turkey) which was overwhelmingly in favour of deleting that page the page was still kept despite the vote. It is clear that Wikipedia is being used in order to promote unacceptable Turkish propaganda against Greeks.--Argyrosargyrou 15:51, 3 Jun 2005 (UTC)

Arbitrators' opinions on hearing this matter (5/0/0/0)

Accept - rapid fire revert warring by both parties (see [3] for example) needs to be stopped ASAP. (This means an injunction will be forthcoming.) -- Grun t 🇪🇺 20:43, 2005 Jun 2 (UTC)
For the record, the 3RR does not apply to reverting edits by blocked users: "Reverts: All edits by a banned user made since their ban, regardless of their merits, may be reverted by any user. As the banned user is not authorised to make those edits, there is no need to discuss them prior to reversion." (Wikipedia:Banning policy) -- ChrisO 22:15, 2 Jun 2005 (UTC)
Actually, that's sort of fuzzy. I agree it'd make sense, but the penalty for 3RR violations is a block, which does not imply a ban (bans can only be made by Jimbo or the ArbCom at current), if I recall correctly. --W(t) 00:28, 2005 Jun 5 (UTC)
Accept Fred Bauder 22:10, Jun 3, 2005 (UTC)
Accept to consider issues concerning Argyrosargyrou only. Ambi 02:03, 4 Jun 2005 (UTC)
Concur with Ambi. →Raul654 02:32, Jun 4, 2005 (UTC)
Concur with Ambi. Neutrality^talk 07:40, Jun 5, 2005 (UTC)
Recuse I was heavily involved in Wikipedia:Votes for Undeletion#Hellenic_Genocide. Nohat 23:18, 12 Jun 2005 (UTC)

Temporary injunction (none)

Final decision

All numbering based on /Proposed decision (vote counts and comments are there as well)

Principles

Advocacy

1) Wikipedia is not a forum for issue advocacy, see Wikipedia:What Wikipedia is not.

Passed 5-0

Sockpuppets

2) While a Wikipedia user may edit under more than one account, misuse of Sockpuppets is not allowed.

Passed 5-0

Disruptive users

1) Disruptive users may be banned for a limited period from Wikipedia.

Passed 5-0

Findings of fact

Argyrosargyrou

2) Argyrosargyrou (talk · contribs) has since May 7, 2005 focused his attention on articles which involve the Cyprus dispute, see early edits: [4], [5]. As he speaks of restoring a section, it is likely he edited the article previously as an anonymous editor.

Passed 5-0

Argyrosargyrou's perspective

3) Argyrosargyrou (talk · contribs) takes a Greek nationalist point of view, expressing the effect of his editing as removing Turkish bias, see [6] and its comment, "E.A stop trying to sabotage this page and turn it into a Turkish propaganda site"

Passed 5-0

Opponents and other significant editors

E.A

3.1) Argyrosargyrou (talk · contribs) has been opposed by E.A (talk · contribs), a Turkish Cypriot, see [7] comment "Again re-instated neutral" and [8].

Passed 5-0

ChrisO

3.2) ChrisO (talk · contribs) contested Argyrosargyrou's edits to Cyprus reunification referendum, 2004: Argyrosargyrou's first edit. Later edit warring: [9], [10], [11], [12], [13] and using anon ip.

Passed 5-0

Snchduer

3.3 Snchduer (talk · contribs) has played peacemaking role at times, attempting to advance compromise versions, see Talk:Civilian casualties and displacements during the Cyprus conflict. Personal attack on Snchduer by Argyrosargyrou

Passed 5-0

Parallel articles (POV forks)

4) Argyrosargyrou (talk · contribs) has created several articles which are parallel to existing articles such as "Cyprus Issue" (deleted copyright violation, must be administrator to view). This article was deleted as a copyright violation, being a copy of this release of the Greek Cypriot government's Press and Information Office, see original post of copyright violation, viewable only by Wikipedia administrators. Another article which was created in this way Turkish Invasion of Cyprus, created while Cyprus dispute was protected survived Votes for deletion. See also Cyprus problem and recreation of deleted article "Hellenic Genocide" (viewable only by Wikipedia administrators), see Wikipedia:Votes_for_deletion/Hellenic_Genocide

Passed 5-0

Sockpuppets

5) Argyrosargyrou (talk · contribs) has created a number of sockpuppets to advocate his positions. They are likely to include SaintJerome (talk · contribs), TheAmbassador (talk · contribs), EverAndForever (talk · contribs), TheCatandDog (talk · contribs), MorkandMindy (talk · contribs), Atriades (talk · contribs), TheEmpire (talk · contribs) and CaptainJack (talk · contribs).

Passed 5-0

Community reaction

6) Wikipedia editors are aware that Argyrosargyrou (talk · contribs) sometimes adds factual information and links to important resources, but his positive contributions are far outweighed by persistent aggressive point of view advocacy, see Wikipedia:Votes for deletion/The pogroms in Istanbul. The net result is that due to Argyrosargyrou (talk · contribs)"s activities viewed as a whole, whatever positive contributions he makes are of little significance or worth as compared to the disruption and prejudice which result from his activities.

Passed 5-0

Remedies

Argyrosargyrou banned

1.1) Argyrosargyrou (talk · contribs) and any sockpuppet he may create is banned from Wikipedia for six months.

Passed 5-0

Argyrosargyrou sockpuppets banned

2) Argyrosargyrou (talk · contribs) shall edit under the username "Argyrosargyrou" and shall not create any others.

Passed 5-0

Article ban

3) Argyrosargyrou (talk · contribs) and any sockpuppet he may create is banned from all articles relating to Cyprus for six months. To start after the successful completion of any other ban.

Passed 5-0

Proposed enforcement

Outlawed

1) Any edit made during the period of his ban by Argyrosargyrou (talk · contribs) or any user or anonymous editor reasonably believed to be Argyrosargyrou may be reverted by any editor of Wikipedia without limit.

Passed 5-0

Editing during ban

2) Should Argyrosargyrou (talk · contribs) attempt to edit Wikipedia anonymously or with any new user account during his ban, the account he uses may be blocked indefinitely (if practical) by any administrator including those who have previously been in conflict with him. Each such block shall reset the ban.

Passed 5-0