At this date I would not ask Vigilant to wash his own ass, because he would probably do a terrible job.
The twats know DAMN WELL there were problems in any Armenian or Azeri content areas, much less the WPs for those languages. They have known for many years.
Arguments between ethnic Azeris and ethnic Armenians on Wikipedia were probably a foregone conclusion, considering the centuries-old disputes between the two countries. As soon as the Soviet Union collapsed and the KGB was no longer interested in maintaining order in the Caucasus, these two ethnicities went right back to their endless hillbilly war. And of course, it was carried forth onto Wikipedia, which proved to be an excellent place to fight over trivia. Note that the history of this Wikipedia dispute is so complex and chaotic, a full account is probably impossible to write. It is rumored that similar battles are occurring on the Armenian and Azeri language Wikipedias, neither of which were very active projects, until 2013 (see "Government editing" below).
Also relating to this battle are the ongoing attempts by Turkish editors to kill off the Armenian Genocide article. First created in 2002, brutally fought over and repeatedly deleted/restored since then, as of 2016 it is 228k bytes long--making it one of Wikipedia's longest articles. In typical Wikipedia fashion, editwarring simply makes an article longer, not necessarily better. Related articles were started and received similar treatment. [1][2][3][4][5][6]
Combatants
Too many to list exhaustively, too many sockpuppets to catch. This list begins with the disputants in the arbitrations, there are undoubtedly hundreds more accounts involved. Some Iranian and Turkish subject editors showed up to support their fellow Muslims in neighboring Azerbaijan, or to attempt a neutral path, and found themselves in a morass they could not escape. The disputed Nagorno-Karabakh region is also a center of related violence in the real world, and simulated violence on Wikipedia.
Pro-Armenian:
*Aivazovsky
*Eupator
*Fadix, alleged to be a major sockpuppeteer
*Fedayee
*MarshallBagramyan, wrote much Armenian content
*ROOB323
*TigranTheGreat
*VartanM
*Yerevantsi, author of the absurd Chess in Armenia: "rabid Armenian superpatriot ... who is "gifting" English Wikipedia with hundreds of articles that appear to be directly translated from ar-WP and serve no good purpose except to glorify every trivial thing possible about Armenia. He also generates "priceless" articles about utterly obscure Armenians like Mkrtich_Khrimian." [/list]
Pro-Azeri:
*AdilBaguirov
*Aynabend
*Artaxiad, alleged to be a massive sockpuppteer [7]
*Atabek
*Azerbaijani, changed his name to Hajji Piruz, also a pro-Iranian editor, opened arbitration 2
*Dacy69, supposedly a sock of AdilBaguirov
*Grandmaster, an actual writer of good content for Azeri-related articles, harassed relentlessly
*Alborz Fallah, Iranian
*Pam55, connection is difficult to determine
*Houshyar, connection is difficult to determine
*Hetoum I/II/etc. etc., major sockpuppeteer
*Zondi
*Brandmeister, major pest
Neutral, can't tell, etc:
*Elsanaturk, a relatively neutral Azeri dragged into the mess involuntarily
*AlexanderPar, Greek editor dragged into the mess involuntarily
*Batabat, Hungarian
*Ehud Lesar, Israeli
*Pejman47, can't determine his loyalties
*Behmod, Iranian, accused of evil socking
*Parishan, did content work on Azeri articles
*Ariana310, now called Cabolitae, Afghan, relationship to dispute is difficult to determine
*Meowy, a gigantic crank with unclear loyalties, permabanned
*Makalp, Turkish, tried to negotiate truces, failed
*Hakob, now called TA-ME, loyalties impossible to determine
*Babakexorramdin, Iranian, reason for involvement difficult to determine
*Khoikhoi (T-C-F-R-B), left Wikipedia in 2012
*TheDarkLordSeth (T-C-F-R-B), also fond of getting into Greek-Turkish squabbles, banned by Tim Song in 2010. Still editing Wikipedia occasionally as of 2016.
Administrators Tariqabjotu, Dominic McDevitt-Parks, Andrew Leonard, Carlos Suarez and others were also dragged in, and accused by both sides of partisanship.
Arbitrations
It should be noted that there were many mediations and arbitration requests that were rejected, these are only the most obvious cases.
Case 1, February-April 2007, assembled by Dominic McDevitt-Parks, and bearing an impressive list of parties. Many were blocked temporarily, many alleged sockpuppets were blocked permanently, yet the war continued. Arbitrations such as this are major reasons why Arbcom has proven to be overworked, scattered, and ultimately ineffective.
Case 2, the principal arbitration in this area, June-August 2007 and repeatedly amended, bearing an even more impressive list of parties. Hundreds of blocks and restrictions were handed out, yet the battle continues.
Ehud Lesar, January-March 2008. A bizarre mess involving permanent blocks, somehow.
There are some arbitration enforcement pages involving editwarring of the Nagorno-Karabakh subject area. Many of them involved Brandmeister. [8][9][10][11]
Government editing
Interestingly, in September 2013 it was revealed that the Azeri government was running a Wikipedia editing organization, similar to WikiBilim (see Kazakh Wikipedia). They were greatly expanding the Azeri-language Wikipedia, and apparently had editors working to sanctify members of the Aliyev regime in the English Wikipedia.
Similarly, in December 2013 news reports of an Armenian editing organization began to appear. [12] They claim to be an "independent" nonprofit organization with no direct ties to the government, although they appear to be generating "patriotic" material about Armenia. And: it "is being led by Colonel General Seyran Ohanyan, Minister of Defence of Armenia". A major result: a 2014 "patriotic" PR campaign called "One Armenian, One Article", in which every Armenian is encouraged to add material to Armenian Wikipedia.[13][14][15][16][17]
Further notes
A 2016 Wikipedia Sucks forum thread brought up another notorious Turkish/Armenian editwarrior:
"Our editors, who are entirely committed to the proposition that the Armenian Genocide of 1915-16 was a genocide as defined in international law, were trolled by the established editors at the article and actually blocked from it by Arbcom. The principal editor at the article is one EtienneDolet (T-C-F-R-B) (there is a street commemorating ED running off the Holocaust memorial in Armenia) who appears to be a semi-literate individual of Armenian extraction still at high school when he began editing at the article. We valorize his taste in painting here on our website."
"EtienneDolet originally edited as Proudbolsahye i.e. "Proud bolsahye (Armenian) = "proud person from Armenia living in Turkey". He edits, however, from IPs that locate to California, USA, and his knowledge of Armenian (and English) is rudimentary. Started the article Organization of Istanbul Armenians, a not for profit organization based in California."
Mentioned on Wikipediocracy in 2013: "Plus, the editor who inserted this nonsense about the six tanks, Proudbolsahye (T-C-F-R-B), appears to be an Armenian super-patriot who spends a lot of effort on articles about various Armenian people. Then he pushes to get them onto DYK. You have to wonder what other "facts" he's put into other content. I suspect he's been involved with the Armenia/Azeri editwars, given what he's written about Arshavir Shirakian. (Yes, he's been dragged to AE, or dragged others, a few times. He never gets punished.) I suspect you could scrape through Proudbolsahye's contributions, and find more falsifications. He's already been reported at CCI and has an SPI. He's been doing this since 2006......"
Randy Lee Everette was involved in this chaos, for reasons that remain unexplained.