Wikipedia:Requests for arbitration/Ehud Lesar

Case Opened on 02:18, 30 January 2008 (UTC)

Case Closed on 22:46, 12 March 2008 (UTC)

Watchlist all case pages: 1, 2, 3, 4

Please do not edit this page directly unless you are either 1) an Arbitrator, 2) an Arbitration Clerk, or 3) adding yourself to this case. Statements on this page are original comments provided at arbitration request and serve as opening statements. As such, they should not be altered. Any evidence you wish to provide to the Arbitrators should go on the /Evidence subpage.

Arbitrators, the parties, and other editors may suggest proposed principles, findings, and remedies at /Workshop. That page may also be used for general comments on the evidence. Arbitrators will then vote on a final decision in the case at /Proposed decision.

Once the case is closed, editors may add to the #Log of blocks and bans as needed, but this page should not be edited otherwise. Please raise any questions at Wikipedia:Requests for arbitration#Requests for clarification, and report violations of remedies at Wikipedia:Administrators' noticeboard/Arbitration enforcement.

Involved parties

• Grandmaster (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · logs · filter log · block user · block log) (initiating party)
• Ehud Lesar (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · logs · filter log · block user · block log) (alleged sockpuppet)
• AdilBaguirov (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · logs · filter log · block user · block log) (alleged sockpuppeteer in this case)

Admins who blocked or unblocked

• Khoikhoi (talk · contribs · blocks · protections · deletions · page moves · rights · RfA) (first block)
• LaraLove (talk · contribs · blocks · protections · deletions · page moves · rights · RfA) (unblock)
• Nishkid64 (talk · contribs · blocks · protections · deletions · page moves · rights · RfA) (second block)

Participants in discussions/statements of expertise

• Atabek (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · logs · filter log · block user · block log)
• Eupator (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · logs · filter log · block user · block log)
• Fedayee (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · logs · filter log · block user · block log)
• VartanM (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · logs · filter log · block user · block log)
• MarshallBagramyan (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · logs · filter log · block user · block log)

Statement by Grandmaster

I realize that arbitrators are really tired of endless disputes at Armenia – Azerbaijan related area, and that recently a request for another Armenia – Azerbaijan case has been rejected. I was the one who opposed the new case, and I believe that it was a right decision. However this case should not be treated as another Armenia – Azerbaijan case, involving every user who contributes to that topic. This is a case about the block of a particular user and circumstances surrounding it. So it should be considered outside of general A-A framework and cover only the users involved in this particular situation.

This issue has started when User:Fedayee, User:Eupator and some others started a campaign of harassment of User:Ehud Lesar, accusing him of being a sock of User:AdilBaguirov, who was banned for 1 year by AA1. They were making accusations without any reliable evidence confirming that the 2 users were somehow related. Checkuser showed no relation between Ehud and Adil: [1] [2] However this did not stop the aforementioned users from making accusations and baiting Ehud. Just some examples:

[3] [4] [5] [6] [7]

Finally the sock allegations were discussed at WP:AE and rejected [8] with the statement: No confirmation of sockpuppetry. At the same time Ehud was placed on 6 months rv parole like most of other users on the topic. Fedayee and his supporters were told to present their evidence for formal investigation to Wikipedia:Suspected sockpuppets. However, this never happened. I can assume that instead they sought other ways. On 9 January 2008 the admin User:Khoikhoi, who was absent from Wikipedia for a few months (since October 2007, to be precise), suddenly turned up and banned Ehud. I can only presume that this admin was approached off wiki and given certain information about Ehud. Otherwise it is hard to explain why a user who was absent from wikipedia for months would turn up with the single purpose of banning one user. I might be wrong, but this looks very strange. Ehud asked to be unblocked, and his request for unblock was granted by User:LaraLove. However Ehud was soon reblocked after the discussion at Lara’s page by User:Nishkid64, despite User:LaraLove refusing to support this block. [9] Ehud contacted me soon after he was blocked and asked for help with this case, and I took the issue to WP:ANI. [10] A lengthy discussion at WP:ANI gave no results. Ehud was willing to prove that he was a real person in real life and not a sock by various methods, including phone call, webcam chat, etc, but Nishkid64 and the group of users who supported him did not agree to any of his proposals. Nishkid64 asked for a scan of Ehud’s ID with all the info other than picture and name blacked out, but Ehud was reluctant to share any sensitive private info with admins who blocked him. He was willing to prove his identity by any means that would not violate his privacy, or share it with one of the top bureaucrats of wikipedia, who would guarantee his privacy. But even this sort of identification was not considered a sufficient prove by his accusers, who insisted that this user should remain blocked despite the lack of any prove that he was a sock. So we have a very strange situation when a user was blocked after allegations about him were rejected at WP:AE by an admin, who was away from wiki for many months, then unblocked and reblocked again. Clearly there was no consensus in the wiki community that this user was a sock, and there was no evidence to support the allegations of sockpuppetry, as cu returned negative results. While it’s never been proven that Ehud was a sock, Nishkid64 demands that Ehud needs to prove that he is not sock. I don’t understand what happened to presumption of innocence and “innocent until proven guilty” principle. The only basis for Ehud’s block was this collection of frivolous evidence complied by Fedayee, and which I addressed here. It was also addressed in much detail at WP:ANI thread, but did not result in any change of the attitude of the blocking admins. It is very strange that no attempt at any investigation has ever been made and there were no attempts at seeking consensus at WP:ANI or any other board before making such a block. So I would like to ask the arbitration committee to review all the circumstances surrounding this block, and take measures for verification of identity of Ehud, who is willing to cooperate. Also, it might be in the interest of the entire wiki community to establish some sort of a procedure for users who were blocked as result of sockpuppetry allegations to contest their block and prove their real life identity without violation of their privacy. I made inquires with many people, but it seems that no one is aware of any established procedure for such situations. Thank you very much.

In response to Thatcher. The problem is that all users representing either Azerbaijani or Armenian side are interested in the same topic and have the same POV, depending on what side of the story they represent. If users are to be banned for sharing the same views, then not many would remain. There should be some procedure for verification if the user is genuine or not. Otherwise innocent people will keep on getting banned just because they happen to share the same views or making edits that may remotely resemble those made by other users.

Fedayee

I agree with Atabek. The evidence presented by Fedayee, which resulted in Ehud’s block, is very frivolous. Atabek mentioned some points, but here’s more. Fedayee says in his evidence:

If we search on talkpages, we find that only Adil has ever called Sevan, Geycha.

But if one takes a look at Talk:Lake Sevan, he can see that the name of Geycha was used there since 2005, long before Adil joined Wikipedia. Moreover, if we check the history of the article about the lake, we’ll see that the one reverting to Adil’s version and sharing the same views with him about the historical names of the lake was none other than Khoikhoi, the blocking admin: [11] Please see the edit summary in the diff. So it was not just Ehud sharing the same views with Adil on certain subjects. If people are blocked on the basis of such evidence, then we have serious problems here. I posted more counterevidence here: User:Grandmaster/Ehud, where I addressed all major points in Fedayee's evidence.

The claim that only Adil and Ehud spelled the old name of the lake as Geycha is false and can be easily disproved. Adil joined Wikipedia on 13 May 2006. However back on 18 February 2006 the admin User:Beland stated on the talk of Sevan:

I added the rendering "Geycha" because someone used it in the article Siunik. -- Beland 15:08, 18 February 2006 (UTC) [12]

And the name of Geycha (spelled exactly like this) was added to the article about Siunik back in October 2004. [13]

Ok, how come then that this spelling is exclusively Adil’s, if it was spelled that way long before he joined wiki, and that’s the way the name is spelled in Azerbaijani language? I find it strange that Nishkid64 blindly trusts whatever claims Fedayee makes without taking the time to check them.

Response to Nishkid64

Nishkid64, you said that "it appears that Grandmaster and Atabek have now hinted that Ehud Lesar's real name is not "Ehud Lesar", as he had claimed many times before on-wiki and through e-mail". Please tell us where exactly did Ehud say that he contributed under his real name? That's what you have just been claiming in you previous post.

As for Geycha, I have already demonstrated that unlike what you say in your response to 5a, Adil was not "the first person on Wikipedia to make that point". See Talk:Lake Sevan. I understand that you only had good intentions, but I think the admins should not blindly trust any evidence presented to them, but do some investigation of their own.

Nishkid64, you said that "I asked Ehud Lesar to confirm that his real name was "Ehud Lesar". He never made any indication that Ehud Lesar was not in fact his real name". But he never told you that Ehud was his real name either, right? Then why did you say that Ehud claimed that he contributed under his real name "many times before on-wiki and through e-mail". Now it turns out that not only he did not claim so "many times", in fact, he did not claim so even once. I don't know if Ehud is his real name or not, but it might as well be a made up name. I'm not Grandmaster in real life too. People have a right to chose any names for themselves, as long as they don't violate wiki policies. But how does his wiki name prove that he is a sock, and what difference does it make?

It appears that you and Atabek were defending the name, "Ehud Lesar", but then later did a 180 and suggested that it wasn't his name.

That's not right. I was never defending the name, I was defending the user and was trying to bring to your attention that he was a real person in real life, regardless of whether he contributed under his real or made up name.

Adil

With regard to Texas, that state is the same for Azerbaijanis as California is for Armenians. Texas has the biggest Azerbaijani community, because most of US oil companies are based in there and many Azerbaijanis work for them. So Adil surely is not the only Azerbaijani in the state with 20 million of population, plus Adil only occasionally visits that state, while Ehud is based there permanently. And Adil's appearance in Wikisource is not a coincidence either, I emailed him a couple of days ago and informed him about the Ehud's unfair block. He has a right to be aware of charges brought against him. If he chose to contribute in the meantime to another Wikimedia project, he has a right to do so. Of course, none of the above facts is a proof that Ehud is Adil's sock.

VartanM

I don’t understand how my words that Ehud should be given a chance to prove his existence in real life could be interpreted as a statement that Ehud is that user’s real life name. Ehud exists in real life, but his name is not necessarily the same as his wiki name. It might be or not be the same, but I never said that it was the same. What’s the point in such distortion of my words? Same with most of other evidence presented by VarrtanM and Fedayee. I addressed all important points in my counter evidence. VartanM says further:

The bulk of counter-evidence (which doesn’t even try to address some very important pieces) is based on the false belief that dismantling each piece without considering their interconnection and more importantly the bigger picture would be enough.

First, all the important pieces were addressed and in my opinion it was clearly demonstrated that the sockpuppetry allegations were baseless. And second, if individual pieces of Fedayee's evidence are frivolous, how the collection of them can be accurate?

Statement by Nishkid64

I first saw Fedayee's evidence at WP:AE. He was convinced that Ehud Lesar was AdilBaguirov, an editor banned by ArbCom until August 2008. I evaluated the evidence, and sought the opinions of others. I also contacted Jayvdb (talk · contribs) on IRC and asked him for his thoughts. I don't remember what he said exactly, but I'm sure that he didn't give a clearcut opinion of the evidence. Based on the evidence, I was convinced that this user was a sockpuppet of Adil. I was a bit hesitant of the block, and I wanted to contact Khoikhoi (talk · contribs), an administrator who's quite knowledgeable of the Armenia-Azerbaijan debate, and seek his opinion about the evidence. I didn't get to contact Khoikhoi, but I saw that he echoed my thoughts and he blocked the user indefinitely. Per Dmcdevit's comments here, he had evaluated the evidence and decided to take administrative action. LaraLove (talk · contribs) unblocked the user on the basis that there was no evidence for sockpuppetry. I did not want to be accused of wheel warring, so I contacted her and asked her if she was okay with me reblocking the user. She didn't think there was any evidence for the block, and I should do what I believe is best. As a result, I reblocked Ehud. Subsequently, Grandmaster initiated an AN/I discussion. An agreement (I don't see how one could be reached in this situation; one side wants a block, the other wants an unblock) could not be reached.

A few points of clarification:

• Francis Tyers (talk · contribs) first suggested that Ehud was a sockpuppet of AdilBaguirov. Khoikhoi, Alex Bakharev (talk · contribs), Daniel Case (talk · contribs) (who reviewed the unblock) and I have all found the evidence of sockpuppetry quite damning and indefblock-worthy.
• The issue over identity confirmation was first brought up by Ehud Lesar in an e-mail he sent to me shortly after I re-blocked his account. Since I contested that he was indeed Adil Baguirov, a real-life Azeri energy lobbyist, I figured that an identity confirmation would prove his innocence.
• Grandmaster and Ehud Lesar proposed some methods of confirming Ehud's identity. These methods could easily be faked, so I asked for other ideas. I was then asked what I thought would provide definitive confirmation. I suggested scanning his passport with the sensitive details blanked. It was only a suggestion, and I said Ehud was free to refuse to participate in such an action. On Google Talk, Ehud stated that he would not provide such identity, but after some convincing, I informed him (LaraLove had previously mentioned this) that he could contact Cary Bass or someone else through WP:OFFICE.
• No admin "rejected" the allegations at WP:AE. Most of the discussion on hand took place before Fedayee created his user subpage filled with Ehud-AdilBaguirov evidence. Picaroon made a comment, stating he was a bit confused about the deal over Geycha (see the evidence for clarification). Jayvdb did not comment on the merits of the case, but it appears he did read it, as he asked for some point of clarification and said he would look into the matter on User talk:Fedayee/LesarBaguirov Evidence. Thatcher closed the AE discussion as "no confirmation of sockpuppetry", but he did place Ehud on revert parole. Judging from the timestamps of Thatcher's edits, I do not think he read the evidence, but I have no messaged Thatcher and asked him whether or not he actually got a chance to look over the material.
• In the latter half of the discussion, it appears that Grandmaster and Atabek have now hinted that Ehud Lesar's real name is not "Ehud Lesar", as he had claimed many times before on-wiki and through e-mail.

Reply to Atabek from Nishkid64

1) Again, CheckUser does not confirm everything. There have been hundreds of cases on Wikipedia where sockpuppeteers easily mask their IP, thus producing unfounded CheckUser results.

2) WP:PRIVACY is a proposed policy. It just advises users that they shouldn't post such material on Wikipedia. I told Ehud Lesar that he could reject my suggestion.

3) I asked him if he could prove that he was indeed "Ehud Lesar". He never indicated that he wasn't this user. Even when I told him about the passport bit, he never said that he wasn't actually "Ehud Lesar".

4) I don't see how WP:PRIVACY is involved here.

5a) Adil was the first person on Wikipedia to make that point. Ehud Lesar made that exact same point, and given how it's not some universal view, it looks quite suspicious.

5b) Settle that matter elsewhere. This case is solely about the block of Ehud Lesar.

6) I did not really pay much attention to the Jewish username bit. The location bit came after the block, and was never used in my initial argument.

Reply to Grandmaster from Nishkid64

See what I wrote in my reply to Atabek. I asked Ehud Lesar to confirm that his real name was "Ehud Lesar". He never made any indication that Ehud Lesar was not in fact his real name. Also, judging from the AN/I discussion, it was pretty much implied that Ehud Lesar was the user's real name. Also, judging from Atabek's comments, it appeared that he was hinting that "Ehud Lesar" was not the actually identity of user:Ehud Lesar.

Please, this is not about my choice of words. Regardless of what I said, it appears many people who read the AN/I post were under the impression that Ehud Lesar was the user's real name. You and Atabek spent some time arguing Fedayee's first point about the Jewish username. You said that there are a number of Azerbaijani Jews. Atabek's later comments indicate that Ehud Lesar is not the actual name. It appears that you and Atabek were defending the name, "Ehud Lesar", but then later did a 180 and suggested that it wasn't his name. What changed?

Statement by Eupator

I'll keep this brief as I don't think an arbitration case is necessary regarding this matter. If the current compiled evidence was produced earlier, even a checkuser case would have been rejected based on the obviousness that Ehud Laser is not a legitimate user. I'm more worried about Grandmaster's conduct in regards to all of this and gross assumptions of bad faith in regards to virtually everyone. Same with User:Atabek and his persistence of insisting with Grandmaster that Ehud Laser is a legitimate user and accompanied with countless assumptions of bad faith and provocative instances of turning this matter into essentially a battleground. To go as far as to imply that two administrators with a long history of neutrality and absolutely no axe to grind were somehow not genuinely involved is mind boggling. I also don't understand why Grandmaster did not add Atabek as a party to this case as Atabek has been involved in it just as much as Grandmaster has. Everything I wanted to say about Ehud Laser I have here:Wikipedia:Administrators' noticeboard/Incidents/Ehud Lesar I find this to be a waste of time for everyone involved.

Statement by Ehud Lesar

Clerk note: Because Ehud Lesar is currently blocked, I would be copying any statement made by him/her on the user talk page to this page, per my clerk note below.

In an email sent to me, Lesar said to link if the statement was too long. A cursory look shows that the formatting and length probably require the statement to be linked, hence that's what I've done.

Ehud Lesar's statement can be viewed here. Daniel (talk) 21:54, 18 January 2008 (UTC)

Statement by Fedayee

The whole description of the situation by Grandmaster is full of half-truths. It is also time to decide whether or not AdilBaguirov should ever return to contribute and if it is not best to finally have an indefinite block on his account.

What information is missing here is that many users have already suspected Ehud Lesar months ago and this was also brought during the last arbitration case as arbitrators involved to the last case may remember. When Hetoum started making those accusations to Ehud Lesar, this was part of his reply: You're free to be either obsessed with or pretty much obviously impressed by him, but please stop dragging me into "being" someone I am not just NOT. [14]

Francis Tyers was one of the members (and Admin when AdilBaguirov was not yet banned) who suspected Ehud and as soon as the beginning of July of last year. [15] Then, no evidence was ever compiled which related both users yet practically everyone knew it was Adil. Everything points to him, starting from the day of his registration to his name. The pile of evidence provided against Ehud is not limited to my evidence page, others were provided elsewhere, including the evidence relating the name Lesar with Adil Baguirov. See here. [16]

The problem lies with Grandmaster’s and Atabek’s attempts to defend AdilBaguirov’s sock and having him unbanned. Grandmaster during the last arbitration case has removed the tag of the sock of Adil from here claiming there was no evidence when there was and the evidence is compelling. See this section. Fourth paragraph about DrAlban, 19 June, DrAlban was a confirmed sock of Adil, after he is banned another sock appeared (the same exact day) Zhirtibay, which Grandmaster has claimed again that checkuser did not show the account to be Adil [17]. The choice of names, the fact that they all appeared out of nowhere to support Atabek etc., just as Adil’s sock did.

It is very difficult to assume good faith with so much evidence of the contrary. Grandmaster is distorting my evidence and continues to do it here even after I have shown he is doing this. My quote on Geycha is selectively quoted to change its meaning and claims this is not accurate, while I have already answered to him that he distorted the meaning of my answer here by leaving out a very important piece in that quote. [18] Grandmaster didn’t address that but has referred to how it is spelled in Azeri, (he now continues without correcting himself). [19] I have obviously not replied to this because this is not entirely true, the ‘ç’ has no standardized pronunciation, while it could be spelled kch, tch, or simply ch, and the fact that in the modern Azeri Russianized version, there is a ‘y’ added even then, Grandmaster is not saying the truth. It is not spelled with an ‘e’ but with an ‘o.’ Khoikhoi agreeing with Adil’s version as reported by Grandmaster isn’t even true, as I have explained in the unaddressed reply here. The diff provided on Khoikhoi was a re-introduction of an edit made by Adil a day earlier. [20] Both with an ‘o’, see how there he puts the ‘o’. Adil had it right, but then changed his version; Ehud will be maintaining that version to use it for the same reason used by Adil.

Atabek’s answer is also weird; he claims that it is not based on checkuser, when a checkuser wasn’t evidence according to him to prove Tengri was his sock. [21]. Point 3 by Atabek is also ridiculous, Ehud Lesar was faking an identity, he added himself in the Jewish Wiki project, edited some Jewish related articles, and claimed to be of Jewish ancestor in his userpage. See Grandmaster’s remark here about him being Azerbaijani. Atabek claims that Jews are integrated in Azerbaijani society? And? It still does not address the issue that Ehud considers what happened in Algeria genocide when Turkish lobbyists are the ones who push the qualification the most as a counter-measure to the Armenian genocide. When searching for that term on Google, the second hit is from a journal [22] to which Adil is a contributor. Also, it does not address the fact that Ehud considers what happened in Khojaly a genocide and denies the Armenian Genocide just like Adil. Grandmaster provides evidence which would tend to show that that position is not a fringe position. Check Vartan’s reply at 21:51 [23] on that.

Point 5a) was addressed [24], [25], which was not answered by Atabek, he preferred changing the subject. [26]

Point 5b), Atabek is harassing me with that, I have made that remark once, Atabek brought it back again and again. I have replied to him that I can not post this here. He knows what happens when such information is posted here. But for this information, I have submitted it to one admin who may feel free to provide it to whomever he thinks it is appropriate.

Point 6) does not make sense; the overall argument was never that… there are many other arguments which I didn’t even start to address adequately, like the fact that both Adil and Ehud support myths about the Armenian Diaspora which were put forward by Adil off-wiki for example during the lecture he gave on Wikipedia. Also, Atabek says nothing about the particularity of the name Lesar and why it is related with Adil. Atabek is also making a false analogy which was addressed on various occasions (Azeris living in Texas, Armenians living in California). Vartan already addressed this. There are half a million Armenians in California, at least half of the entire Armenian community in the US. In fact, there are more Armenians only in California than there are Azeris in the US. If an Armenian edits from the US, there is over ½ chance that that person is from California. This cannot be compared with the fact that Adil lives in Texas (with Washington) and that Ehud lives in Texas too.

Both Atabek and Grandmaster address the evidence individually, sure, when taken alone, each piece of evidence is not enough to show the link. But when taken as a whole then everything changes. - Fedayee (talk) 00:34, 19 January 2008 (UTC)

Update

I was going to remain silent and not add anything new. But I could not keep silent when reading this after Vartan brought Adil’s contribution on Wikisource. This recent contribution of Adil on Wikisource after Ehud’s ban is one thing as evidence but this was needless given the obviousness that Ehud is Adil. But what strikes me as plainly provocative is this recent message by Adil which seems like personal vendetta. We, for his information, are not members of any interest group... if he wants to keep that lie about the Armenians users, he should substantiate his claim or remove that. And given his position in the Azeri community, he should be the last to write such stuff. Several members here have plenty of evidence of the contrary (involvement of interest groups). And who should we contact for the recent additions (on wikisource) by Adil Baguirov which comes from his website, when Adil Baguirov has a history of using totally fabricated sources and quotes? - Fedayee (talk) 06:19, 20 January 2008 (UTC)

Statement by VartanM

I will only address this for now before answering Grandmaster. Is Grandmaster really being honest here? Only in the administrators notice board he strongly suggested and repeated at least on three different occasions that: None of the above is a proof that Ehud is a sock and does not exist in real life. [27]. Grandmaster is not saying that he is not Adil or that there is no proof that he is not Adil, but that Ehud exists in real life, he could not have ignored that everyone was actually speaking of the identity Ehud Lesar. He is replying to the evidences on the Lesar identity and will be repeating this again [28] and again, he will say the same thing: This particular issue can be resolved very simply by verifying the existence of Ehud in real life. So far we have not received any clear instructions on how to do that. From what I see, no matter what Ehud does to prove his existence, it will be rejected by certain people, who are unwilling to accept that they made a mistake accusing this user. [29] Those statements were made when evidences were presented on the name Lesar and that faked identity. It wasn’t until recently, and weird, as both Grandmaster and Atabek started to suggest (about the same time) that the Ehud identity itself was a screen name and comparing it to our usernames. And again also to a new position held by Ehud. How can a family name that is hardly notable other than one individual who was shown to have real life relation with Adil be compared with say Vartan, popular name among Armenians, or other famous Armenians used by Armenian users?

Reply to Grandmater

If you really want this case be accepted, don’t turn it into a circular discussion. You are repeating the same stuff addressed by Fedayee as if he is denying that. The point was that even Azeri users did not spell it that way. Atabek himself called it Gokcha, and then after this whole affair started calling it Goycha, but even then he didn’t spell it with an 'e', when it is with an 'o'. The evidence provided by Fedayee is in two parts. Geycha AND Used it to refer to a republic. On both accounts Ehud spelled the same way Adil did, and used it to refer to the republic. Of course this alone would not prove it is Adil. Those evidences x, y, z, etc. should obviously be treated as x AND y AND z... The Church of Kish article for instance, was created by a single purpose account and then defended by Adil’s confirmed socks, and then Ehud Lesar engaging in there. No matter what people say, this is an obscure article, the position hold by Ehud and the SPA who created the article was defended in a journal which Adil contributes to, a website build by Adil. Is this proof alone? No! And then, the Algerian Genocide thing, is it a proof alone? No! Is the claim of Khojali genocide? Alone proof? No! Is the claim that he hold the identical position held by the scholar (whose article were edited by confirmed socks of Adil) who mostly provided the Armenian genocide revisionist position in the West. Alone proof? No, only an evidence.

What about his position about the Diaspora, which was Adil’s fighting horse in off-wiki gatherings and lectures, alone proof that Ehud is Adil? No! Is the fact that he registered hours after everyone knew Adil will be banned, alone proof? What about the name Lesar? Is the fact that most if not all Lesar's in Texas are related to the David J. Lesar's family, who runs a company which associates itself with Adil, is an evidence that Ehud is Adil? Is the fact that he editwarred and reverted for other Azeri users when they run out of revert confirmation it is Adil? No! All of those alone are not confirmation when taken alone as Fedayee said. Neither the fact that Adil is known to forge identities with foreign names. Is the fact that Adil(splitting his time in Huston and Washington DC) and Ehud both live in Texas proof alone? No, it isn’t. What about the fact that Adil's sockpuppets stopped in more than one occasion when Ehud Lesar started contributing, and didn't reappear as long as Ehud Lesar was contributing. Is the fact that Ehud claimed that it is a positive thing to be impressed by Adil a confirmation it is Adil? No! Of course, each evidence taken alone can be rejected as not being sufficient proof. Is turning a banal article into an article about destructions by Armenians like this confirmation alone?. Or here. But then, even his interest on Jewish matters is so Adil of him. See here for example.

More could be added, everything points to him, the way he edited, his interests, when he registered, his personal theories, his sarcasm and even the username. The bulk of counter-evidence (which doesn’t even try to address some very important pieces) is based on the false belief that dismantling each piece without considering their interconnection and more importantly the bigger picture would be enough. It is not enough, or else, no proof of sockpuppetry can ever be provided, even if IP address was shared, only on the assumption that there is some possibility that two people could have posted with the same IP without being the same person.VartanM (talk) 19:07, 19 January 2008 (UTC)

More about Adil

Adil knows his Ehud account wont be unblocked tomorrow (never). He registered on 19 April 2007 on Wikisource and didn't start editing until 16 January 2008, [30] few days after Ehud was blocked. Knowing Adil, I'll bet that the IP won't match with Ehud. VartanM (talk) 20:30, 19 January 2008 (UTC)

Statement by Marshal Bagramyan

In an attempt to prevent another drama from unfolding, I have came up with a long reply.

With all due respect John, your answer seems a bit out of the ordinary, following this, where you propose an evasion of 1RR for an occurrence where a user forgot to login. Also this: as if it was fact and canvassing for someone to block Ehud. What does that connote since several users have identified it was Adil ages ago and openly wanted him blocked; there is no undisclosed information there, Adil is banned. So I don't see why it must be a someone. Moreover John, with the ease that you pull the sockpuppet term, (even just now: JamesDS looks like a sock), your reservations seems selective to me, and is it not weird that you only thought about meatpuppeting on the current case? And I don’t understand what you mean when you note down: I am quite sure that we will find that the user is a separate person, with few touch points except for a few topics of shared interest, and Ehud being drawn into questions about Adil, which are being used as evidence of similarity. How can you be convinced? And your disagreement does not make sense to me; although Ehud was editing the church of Kish, this is what he had to say:I don't know and want to know who Adil is and is not. [31] The guy lives in Texas and does not know one of the most well-known Azerbaijani figures in the United States, who has built the first English language Azerbaijan resource site with several other sites and who partly lives in Texas, who hosts a web site about the Church of Kish, one of his main subjects of interest will inevitably appear on Google when searching his positions on top of everything else (note that he wrote that he can provide Azerbaijani scholars from Azerbaijan during the same period). And this: rather positive that you're so impressed by Adil Bagirov [32], how does the word positive fit in his justifications here?

Ehud wasn't banned months before because Francis Tyers was not an admin anymore and wasn't implicated much in those topics anymore. Golbez was pushed off by Azeri users long ago, and would have been atypical of him to block. Khoikhoi, who knew Adil’s editing pattern is inactive. All the admins who were concerned with Adil's disturbance aren’t involved any longer, besides Alex, who also thinks it is Adil. And John, if you notice nothing in Ehud’s demeanor which is symptomatic and deceptive, subsequently I don't think you can effectively impose policies for AA2 as an administrator. I was the first one to observe it was Adil, and Alex from his blocks of Adil, it's unambiguous he knows how Adil operates. Before even inspecting the rest of the evidence, one glance at the record of Ehud's contributions suggests that it's Adil. The entire regiment of Adil's socks have a particular signature. Verify this. He alternates leisurely inward bound in the 'juice', here it was from the most contentious and controversial articles at the time he had edited them and Jewish associated articles by their subject. He starts with Jewish related, then switches to the republic, the History of Azerbaijan, then returns to the Jews of Azerbaijan, followed by Israel-Azerbaijan relations, he then tried a tiny more heated topic with the Ethnic minorities in Azerbaijan, after that he backed off, and returned to Jewish related articles and added himself to the Israel WikiProject. Then more heat loaded the United Nations Security Council materials on the Armenia and Azerbaijan conflict. He returns on Israel related topics to ultimately leap to the warmth of the Church of Kish (which at the moment was the article which attracted the most controversy, I presume if this case is accepted the diffs to confirm that he is always dead on to find the controversial articles with the right timing will be well documented). He is then accused to be Adil, he returns to edit Jewish related articles and then jumps again on the other hot spot article of the time, the 'Azeri Waffen SS Volunteer Formations.' He finds his way on to another obscure article, which was also at the time on the middle of a controversy to do with this and also continue on another to do this with this as justification, the same list of Azerbaijani Khanates which Adil was pushing over (see history of the History of Azerbaijan talkpage). John are you still not convinced of the deception? Right during the controversy on the enforcement board, Ehud makes this edit knowing full well he will be accused even more. This obviously was the result, and following further accusations of harassment. Coincidently coinciding what few hours prior Atabek brought here to further exasperate the already tense atmosphere.

John, if you feel arbitrators should deal with the harassment, then you ought to add yourself to the case as a party, you are the admin who blocked Fedayee for that. Moreover, what does Tigran's comment have anything to do with this? It wasn't the first time you've been accused to take sides, which you perceptibly did when you blocked Fedayee and then admitted that you didn't read the evidence that you yourself requested (perhaps it was unintentional, but that was the result), and merely (from you answer here) resumed reading it after Khoikhoi's block and not even fully.

The approach both Grandmaster and Atabek take to deal with issues like these, is a little bit troubling. If they both are unaware of it being Adil, they deal with this with an incredibly curious way. Atabek, among many things, claims every person in Azerbaijan considers the Khojaly event genocide (and again, what is the purpose of yet another comparison with the Armenian genocide? Is it necessary for him to carry this on forever?) Isn't it inaccurate (when he writes all, he makes it compatible with what he wants to suggest on the position of Azerbaijani Jews)? And by the way, the way Atabek deals with the material provided is noticeably wrong; it’s manifest that the provided evidence on that particular subject (Khojaly) by Fedayee considers that Ehud was impersonating a Jew. Fedayee's point was, that it was very unlikely that any Jew will call the event genocide when not a single notable and reputable work names it as such (because there is no reason to do so), will not call what went on in Algeria a genocide and at the same time deny the Armenian genocide (not only are those nationalistic positions, but Algeria as a reference involves Turkish nationalism in this particular case not only Azerbaijani, not unfamiliar to Adil). Now they altered their version and Ehud becomes an Azerbaijani with some Jewish ancestry (in an attempt to merge Grandmaster and Ehud's contradictory position on that matter), then obviously that piece of evidence by Fedayee becomes worthless except for the Algerian Genocide bit. The issue here is more about how Ehud deceivably used a Jewish screen name and a fake Jewish identity. Unlike what Ehud started suggesting recently (that he may not be a full Jew, he seems to intentionally leave the door open for interpretations), it seems that in the past he wanted others to believe that he was solely a Jew: I do not have any kind of 'fake' identity. I am a Jew and am proud of it. Whatever I contribute to Jewish WikiProject or Azeri WikiProject or any other WikiProject is completely none of your business. [33], his reply to Vartan initiated Shalom: Shalom Vartan, shalom. Ma nishma? [34] he made such comments on other occasions: Mr. Azizbekov, I do follow Wikipedia rules. Again, you can jump back and forth trying hard to present me as a 'fake Jew', this does not and will not change my ethnicity. And came with this following remark talking in the name of Jews: Jews consider every civilian death a loss, when death in masses deliberately planned by another party: genocide. [35] So it seems there were attempts to deceive, as while most of his edits relate to controversial subjects about Azerbaijan on obscure articles which are politically heated. Ehud claimed his identity being solely Jewish and added himself solely to the Israel Wikiproject as an icing on top of a cake. Note that Grandmaster called him an Azerbaijani user. This seems to be a misrepresentation from Ehud’s part to give his arguments more weight (only a supposition, as I will be following Vartan's logic, and call each pieces as evidence instead of the proof). I am not trying to deal with whatever or not Ehud is Adil, I don't think that is even an issue of dispute, it’s a false controversy still maintained by two users.

As for Grandmaster's approach, putting this without looking like I am not assuming good faith is complicated. His answer to Vartan sums up the troubling approach he takes to deal with this subject. He starts by accusing Vartan of distorting - how, since the discussion spinning around Ehud's identity was whether or not he was Ehud Lesar, so the way Grandmaster is interpreting his own answer would have been inappropriate - he closes the reply with the following: And second, if individual pieces of Fedayee's evidence are frivolous, how the collection of them can be accurate? This is not even a reinterpretation but a fabrication (Assuming good faith, I presume unintentional). Vartan's point on the differences between evidence and proof has not been only deformed but entirely altered. In actual fact, not explicitly, neither implicitly did Vartan say anything such as that. What he held was that the pieces of evidence were not proof per say and should not be dealt individually as the individual and ultimate proofs. And Grandmaster's accusation seems highly hypocritical as he accused many newcomers of sockpuppetry, not even providing a tenth of the evidence provided for this case. Here Grandmaster labels someone an obvious sock of Fadix. And [36] accuses under the claim that the IP comes from Canada. While here he claims that Texas is huge, he accuses Fadix, who lives in Montreal because of an IP trace to Vancouver. It was found later that the IP didn't even trace there but to California, and I still don't see how the comparison between "Armenians in California" and the "Azeri in Texas" is accurate.

On another topic, Atabek removed himself from the case, when a large part of his statement is to accuse Fedayee of harassment against himself. If this accusation is relevant to the case, then obviously Atabek is an involved party, if it is irrelevant, since Atabek thinks he is not involved, then he should remove his accusations. Atabek has been involved in this much more than the initiator of the case. I don't think it is unrelated (the link accusation) having personally seen the evidence, and it makes sense, but this is to the arbitration to decide. It's also pertinent because if Fedayee's claim is right (on the connection between both users), deciding Ehud being a sockpuppet and with the history of Adil's sockpuppetry in reverting to Atabek's version, far more than to any other Azeri users version, the arbitration I consider should then deal with such a possible link. I will not get involved there since I try to step away from what Atabek edits and will not be answering to his "evidences" nor produce against him. I won't hide that I am intentionally ignoring him because of an event, which led (dyed-in-the-wool) for me to believe that his intentions are not genuine. After that the first sock of Fadix was identified, while Flavius Belisarius, now banned, massively edited on different articles making reference to the Armenian genocide, Atabek more than a week afterwards (after Fadix's sock was banned,), goes into a rampage by imitating Flavius Belisarius by doing this which seemed to be an attempt to oblige Fadix to come back with yet another sock for something which he came back for prior. More recently Atabek provoked Armenian users by using analogies between Nazi Germany and Armenia, which resulted in stirring a conflict between both sides, which was continued in an abusive way, from both sides, in the Arbitrations enforcement.

If the arbitration thinks it can open another can of worms and restrict it, it will not work. I think the case should be rejected. It goes down to whatever, that several admins and all Armenian veteran implicated users harassed him, or Grandmaster and Atabek have tried to rehabilitate a banned user. On both accounts, it cannot be restricted to Ehud Lesar, not to say Adil’s other socks not properly labeled thanks mostly to Grandmaster who kept removing the tags. Those should be dealt with too (Grandmaster should think twice, this case could result with an indefinite ban for Adil). All those socks were at the right place and at the right time, and mostly reverting for Atabek. So it all boils to, if the arbitration wants to take this case to what it really is.

Preliminary decisions

Arbitrators' opinion on hearing this matter (6/2/0/1)

• Comment: awaiting completion of Nishkid64's statement, and a statement from Ehud Lesar, before voting. Newyorkbrad (talk) 15:35, 18 January 2008 (UTC) Accept. This is a rare situation of a sufficiently controverted and complicated sockpuppetry allegation that we should review it (compare, Wikipedia:Requests for arbitration/SevenOfDiamonds). The focus of the case should be kept narrow, it should proceed quickly, and it certainly should not be allowed to turn into a forum for venting generalized grievances concerning ongoing Armenia-Azerbaijan disputes. To Kirill's point, the new discretionary sanctions ruling does not moot this request, because the question presented is not whether Ehud Lesar should be subject to editing restrictions, but whether he may edit at all. To Sam's point, while this type of issue can generally be addressed by community discussion on ANI or another board, I don't believe any discussion is ongoing and I don't foresee that any consensus is likely. I will add that there is no evidence that any administrator acted other than in complete good faith and I do not presently foresee anyone's admin conduct as a focus of the case. Newyorkbrad (talk) 23:18, 22 January 2008 (UTC)
• Reject. Discretionary sanctions for the entire A-A area have now passed; I trust that the admins watching this area will be able to deal with this particular situation via that method, without the need for further involvement from our side. Kirill 16:50, 18 January 2008 (UTC)
• Comment for now. This is a difficult issue. It is primarily an appeal against a sockpuppetry block through challenging the evidence on which the block was founded. It seems clear that Ehud Lesar was not editing sufficiently disruptively in order to provoke a block, but that if he is closely identified with Adil Baguirov then a block is justified. The issue therefore comes down to whether the evidence of identification is high enough quality to be relied upon, with the possibility that further evidence may be conclusive. At this point I cannot be sure whether this evidence is best sifted by the Arbitration Committee or by the community. Sam Blacketer (talk) 14:41, 22 January 2008 (UTC)

  Accept per Newyorkbrad; there is reason to look again and I agree there is no other practical venue where it can be decided. Sam Blacketer (talk) 09:56, 23 January 2008 (UTC)

• Reject. Blnguyen (bananabucket) 01:59, 23 January 2008 (UTC)
• Accept. Admins could not be able to reach a unanimous decision. Mediation is irrelevant to this case. -- FayssalF - ^{Wiki me up®} 07:20, 24 January 2008 (UTC)
• Accept. FloNight (talk) 20:41, 24 January 2008 (UTC)
• May accept, or not see the need, depending upon Khoikhoi's perspective. FT2 ^{(Talk | email)} 21:38, 24 January 2008 (UTC)
• Accept. The Uninvited Co., Inc. 04:06, 28 January 2008 (UTC)
• Accept. James F. (talk) 20:53, 28 January 2008 (UTC)

---

Final decision

Principles

Banned users

1.1) A ban is a last step in the dispute resolution process, resulting in a formal revocation of a user's privilege on the English language Wikipedia (or in the case of an article or topic ban, of a subset of pages on the English language Wikipedia). Bans are issued to individuals, not accounts, and as such a banned user may not edit anonymously, or under any account name, unless and until the ban is lifted.

Passed 12 to 0 at 22:37, 12 March 2008 (UTC)

Sockpuppetry

2.1) The use of sockpuppet accounts, while not generally forbidden, is discouraged. Abuse of sockpuppet accounts, such as using them to evade blocks, bans, and user accountability — and especially to make personal attacks or reverts, or vandalize — is prohibited.

Passed 8 to 0 at 22:37, 12 March 2008 (UTC)

Determination of sockpuppetry

2) It is rarely possible to determine with complete certainty whether several editors with very similar behavior are sock-puppets, meat-puppets, or acquaintances who happen to edit Wikipedia. In such cases, remedies may be based on the behavior of the user rather than their identity. Editors who edit with the same agenda and make the same types of disruptive edits may be treated as a single editor.

Passed 10 to 2 at 22:37, 12 March 2008 (UTC)

Findings of fact

AdilBaguirov is a banned user

1) AdilBaguirov (talk · contribs) was banned from Wikipedia for one year in the Armenia-Azerbaijan case on 11 April 2007. He was found to have evaded the ban by using sockpuppets and the ban was reset to run for one year from 27 June 2007.

Passed 12 to 0 at 22:37, 12 March 2008 (UTC)

Ehud Lesar

2) Ehud Lesar (talk · contribs) was registered as a new account on 28 March 2007. His first article space edit was not until 22 May 2007. In July 2007 he came under suspicion of being a sockpuppet of AdilBaguirov. As a result of evidence of similar edits gathered by Fedayee (talk · contribs), Ehud Lesar was blocked as a sockpuppet by Khoikhoi (talk · contribs) on 9 January 2008. Khoikhoi noted in his block explanation "As someone who has dealt with Adil & his socks in the past, it is my best judgment that this user is a sockpuppet".

Passed 12 to 0 at 22:37, 12 March 2008 (UTC)

Sockpuppet status disputed

3.1) Although several experienced administrators and other users were convinced by the evidence that Ehud Lesar was a sockpuppet of AdilBaguirov, others expressed doubts about the conclusion. The overall discussion among administrators was inconclusive.

Passed 8 to 0 at 22:37, 12 March 2008 (UTC)

Ehud Lesar has not been demonstrated to be a sockpuppet of AdilBaguirov

4) Based on a complete review of the evidence presented, including user contributions, checkuser findings, and the comments of parties and others, the Arbitration Committee finds that the weight of the credible evidence does not support the allegation that Ehud Lesar is a sockpuppet of, or is otherwise closely connected with, AdilBagurov.

Passed 8 to 2 at 22:37, 12 March 2008 (UTC)

The sockpuppetry accusations were made in good faith

6) The Arbitration Committee appreciates the efforts that are being made by editors to ensure that banned users are not editing under sockpuppet accounts, and recognises that the accusation of sockpuppetry with respect to User:Ehud Lesar was made in good faith, with the intention of protecting Wikipedia from harm.

Passed 10 to 0 at 22:37, 12 March 2008 (UTC)

Remedies

Note: All remedies that refer to a period of time, for example to a ban of X months or a revert parole of Y months, are to run concurrently unless otherwise stated.

Ehud Lesar unbanned

1) The indefinite block imposed upon Ehud Lesar is reversed. An arbitrator will perform the unblock and make a notation in his block log noting that the Committee found insufficient evidence of sockpuppetry to sustain the block. Ehud Lesar remains subject to any editing restrictions imposed upon him pursuant to the decision of the Committee in Wikipedia:Requests for arbitration/Armenia-Azerbaijan 2.

Passed 9 to 0 (with 1 abstention) at 22:37, 12 March 2008 (UTC)