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Evidence re edit conflict on Zviad Gamsakhurdia

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1. Zviad Gamsakhurdia was a former president of Georgia who died around 31 December 1992 in disputed circumstances. Contemporary reports gave four different scenarios, which MyRedDice has done an admirable job of summarising (based on my original description of the four scenarios) at Zviad_Gamsakhurdia#Gamsakhurdia's_death.

2. Levzur believes that only one of the four scenarios is valid and does not want even to mention the other three: "you and others from Wikipedia must publish a REAL FACTS! ... It is fact and this fact can't disputed!" (Levzur, Talk:Zviad_Gamsakhurdia).

3. Since December 2003, Levzur has repeatedly deleted the section of the article on Gamsakhurdia's death and replaced it with his favourite scenario. Other editors and sysops have explained the requirements of the NPOV policy. Maveric149 has put it better than I could: "The facts here are disputed, so we must therefore explain that fact. Declaring one set of disputed facts as "true" and not presenting other versions is not in conformance with our policy." (Talk:Zviad_Gamsakhurdia).

4. Levzur has ignored this and deleted the section literally dozens of times, often in quick succession (history). He does not debate it other than to assert that he is right and everyone else is wrong (or a "misinformator", as he puts it). His conduct was questioned as early as January 2004, when several other editors complained about him on the former "Problem Users" page. The resulting discussion is now archived at Wikipedia:Requests_for_comment/User_conduct_disputes_archive/Levzur.

5. On March 28, Levzur was subjected to a 24-hour ban agreed through a quickpoll (Wikipedia:Quickpolls/Archive#Levzur) for violating the reversion policy. A few editors objected, querying whether he had been informed of the policy. He was subsequently explicitly informed of it, to eliminate any doubt about the matter, but has continued to violate the policy. In the most recent outbreak of deletions, he reverted the article six times in one hour. He has continued to revert even while this dispute has been under mediation.

6. In response, the article has had to be protected at least six times by sysops (and it is protected now at the time of writing). Many of Levzur's deletions have been dishonestly marked as "minor edits", although in fairness he appears to have ceased to do this after being warned.

7. All efforts by myself and other editors to find a compromise have failed. The matter has gone through all the stages of dispute resolution prior to arbitration. Discussion on the article's talk page failed to reach a compromise. A request for comment was posted on 14 March which reached a consensus (of all except Levzur) that the disputed section was valid and met NPOV requirements. Levzur rejected this consensus. I requested mediation on 21 April but Levzur rejected both mediation and the applicability of Wikipedia policies in a communication on User_talk:Angela, which I reproduce below:

Dear Angela,
Thank you very much for your message.
Unfortunately, "Wikipedia" is not a true Encyclopedia and dear administrators of this "Encyclopedia" are not encyclopedists! The so-called "principles" of "Wikipedia" are idiotic. I am scientist, historian and main principles for me are the principle of historism and impartial description of historical facts and events!
With kind regards,
Levzur (Dr. Levan Z. Urushadze)
Tbilisi, April 23, 2004

Sannse considers this a rejection of mediation: "Levzur has continued to edit without responding to my two requests for clarification of his message. This is, in my opinion, a clear rejection of mediation. I'm sorry we couldn't be of more help with this." (User_talk:ChrisO#Mediation_2).

8. It is worth mentioning that according to a now-deleted section of Levzur's user page, he was "1991-1992 - Special Correspondent of the Press Office of the first President of the Republic of Georgia, Dr. Zviad Gamsakhurdia".

9. (para modified 29 Apr 04) I would also like the committee to consider the conflict developing on Nino Burjanadze which also involves Levzur. He apparently does not want alternative (Russian-influenced) transliterations of the subject's name to be mentioned and has repeatedly deleted them. He has shown strong signs of Russophobia on Zviad Gamsakhurdia so I would guess that that lies behind his actions here. He has not commented on or explained his motives and given his conduct on Zviad Gamsakhurdia there is every reason to expect that this will also become a perpetual and even more pointless edit conflict.

10. (para modified 29 Apr 04) Levzur has made useful contributions to other Wikipedia pages but appears unwilling to abide by Wikipedia policies (and has explicitly stated as much). I note that he has rejected all of the advice that he has received from other editors, ignored the results of a quickpoll, wilfully violated NPOV and reversion policies and shown himself to be an inveterate edit warrior. I believe that he should be banned from editing the disputed articles, particularly given his personal affiliations in the case of Zviad Gamsakhurdia. The committee may wish to consider how to respond to the wider issue of his public rejection and violation of Wikipedia policies.

11. Given Levzur's rejection of Wikipedia policies and governance, I am not confident that he will abide by the verdict of the committee. I therefore suggest that it should make its verdict as clear to all parties as possible and also spell out explicitly what sanctions may be applied for wilful disregard of the outcome of this arbitration.

-- ChrisO 10:13, 26 Apr 2004 (UTC)

Comments from Wile E. Heresiarch

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Comment. Concerning item 10 above -- it is by no means clear that Levzur has made a positive net contribution to Wikipedia. Several of the articles he has written promote fringe theories, and Levzur staunchly resists editing to bring these articles into line with mainstream scholarship. In particular, he has inserted and protected references to theories which hold that some ancient peoples of uncertain origin, namely the Etruscans, the Pelasgians, the Lusitanians, as well as the Basques, all originated in the Caucasus. See the edit histories of Etruscan civilization, Pelasgians, Lusitania, and Ibero-Caucasian peoples. He has also promoted a certain theory about grouping of languages of the Caucasus (see Iberian-Caucasian languages) and resisted attempts to revise the article. See Talk:Ibero-Caucasian peoples for some statements from Levzur; also, the external link [1] which he has put into at least three articles, says something about his motivation. Such promotions make it impossible to trust his other work, since every article he writes can have an "Easter egg" of a similar kind. I recommend to the arbitration committee that Levzur be banned entirely from Wikipedia, or, failing that, that he be banned from editing Zviad Gamsakhurdia. Regards, Wile E. Heresiarch 15:24, 29 Apr 2004 (UTC)
I was being generous in item 10. ;-) Someone - I think Adam Carr - described Levzur as a "Georgian nationalist crank" and while I wouldn't disagree, that isn't the main focus of the concerns that I've raised here. There are, after all, plenty of nationalists editing Wikipedia. The key problem here is with Levzur's conduct, not his contributions: his edit wars, his deletion of valid content, his rejection of advice, community consensus and Wikipedia policies, and so on. -- ChrisO 20:20, 29 Apr 2004 (UTC)
Agreed, conduct is the focus here. Wile E. Heresiarch 02:51, 30 Apr 2004 (UTC)

The above-cited pages Ibero-Caucasian peoples and Talk:Ibero-Caucasian peoples have now been deleted, but before they were, they were moved by User:Zestauferov to User:Zestauferov/Iberian Problem and Talk:Ibero-Caucasian peoples respectively. Their history appears to be preserved at those new locations. --Camembert

Comments from Jorge Stolfi

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I have conflicted with User:Levzur on a dozen or so pages related to languages of the Caucasus. He insists that all the non-IndoEuropean, non-Altaic languages spoken in that region form a single linguistic family which is to be called "Ibero-Caucasian", after an ancient kingdom of Caucasian Iberia which was centered in Georgia. The problem is that, according to all sources I have seens, no bona-fide linguists - even the so-called "lumpers", who claim to have found connections between European and Native American langauges - have been able to find any visible connection between the main Caucasian families, especially between Georgian and the languages spoken to the north.
I have tried my best to give a balanced account of this situation, dutifully mentioning the "Iberian-Caucasian" hypothesis as one of the proposed but still not widely accepted groupings; but Levzur insists on reverting those pages to present the Iberian-Caucasian family as an unquestioned fact (and throwing away all my extensive copydesk work in the processes).
The Ibero-Caucasian peoples page has similar problems, only worse because it deals with ethnicities rather than languages. It is hard not to see that page as pushing some territorial/nationalistic/racial agenda.
I have just exchanged mail with him on these matters, and I am awaiting his reply. I still hope he can understand and respect the spirit of Wikipedia, and contribute positively to it in his area of expertise.
Jorge Stolfi 03:12, 30 Apr 2004 (UTC)

Again, I see this as an example of a dispute over content being exacerbated by poor conduct (i.e. insisting on one POV as the only valid one and deleting all others, with a refusal to abide by the NPOV policy). I think a consistent pattern is emerging here... -- ChrisO 11:47, 30 Apr 2004 (UTC)

Anonymous reversion wars

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Regrettably, Levzur has decided to resign his user account as of 1 May and begin a series of reversion wars from proxy servers at Rustavi 2 Online (his ISP), occurring on a daily basis around 0100 UTC. Article affected are:

None of the articles have been protected, as such protection would be pointless anyway - as soon as it is lifted, Levzur attacks the articles again. He is now effectively uncontactable and has a long history of ignoring contact or discussion in any case. His reversions, deletions and wholesale changes are made with no explanation or discussion, are violations of the three reversions policy and he has already publicly rejected both this and the NPOV policy.

In the light of this continued and, indeed, increasingly abusive conduct, I request that the Arbitration Committee address it as a matter of urgency. Those of us who edit on Georgian/Caucasian subjects are finding that the affected articles are becoming increasingly difficult to edit, as any edits by anyone are being deleted nightly by Levzur. He appears to be attempting to take ownership of the articles in question. This is clearly a fundamental breach of Wikipedia's principles which is causing a considerable amount of disruption for a number of users. -- ChrisO 11:47, 10 May 2004 (UTC)[reply]

He has just violated the 3-revert rule on Nino Burjanadze - I am going to leave it for the moment since so would I if I revert again. Morwen 21:43, May 10, 2004 (UTC)
He has just hit every one of the articles listed above. -- ChrisO 22:19, 10 May 2004 (UTC)[reply]


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