This is an archive of past discussions with User:AmandaNP. Do not edit the contents of this page. If you wish to start a new discussion or revive an old one, please do so on the current talk page.
Findblogging and IsrArmen
When you have time could you please also have a look at the peculiar situation of these two redlink users? I could write a mail but I prefer to be open. If they see this and have a word, they may say it to me in my TP. Thanks in advance and best wishes. --E4024 (talk) 23:42, 31 October 2012 (UTC)
I have taken a quick look, and that one edit does look suspicious, and they have crossover, but if your asking for me to look at these as socks, I need you to make your argument, I can't make it for you. And preferably any report would be done at SPI. Thanks, -- DQ on the road (ʞlɐʇ) 15:33, 1 November 2012 (UTC)
Hi. At Wikipedia:Sockpuppet investigations/Padmalakshmisx you said "I have not done an indepth sleeper check (I only pulled the socks off the top), plus I did not go and see if a rangeblock could be done. Please rerequest a CU if you wish these to be done.". Sorry about this -- it was my first SPI. Is it too late to make that request now, or should I wait till the next one (if any :)? This person has a history of operating sleeper accounts and a range block was tried once before. --Stfg (talk) 12:06, 4 November 2012 (UTC)
Sorry for the confusion, you could have made that request at any time, I was just saying I was getting too tired at that point to run those checks myself, and therefore might have missed something. And no worries, feel free to ask me any questions at any time, and i'll do my best to answer them. -- DQ (ʞlɐʇ) 18:12, 4 November 2012 (UTC)
No, not a single CU said anything even after I bumped it a few weeks ago. In the interest of time, i'm just going to post my results here. Though in that time, there have been further edits from the shared IP I needed details on, so this might be a resolved itself case and I might not need the assistance I thought I needed. Out of ArkRe, Sentient Cat, and RPGMakerMan they most of the time use the same useragent to edit. But they all use different IPs to edit, and never cross, but it's on the same ISP (with a few edits outside of that on a shared IP). That makes a Possible result in my eyes for all of them, and I concur with Amalthea's findings. As for ArkRe, he edited logged out on very few occasions, most of which I see nothing to indicate they were done in a way to deceive the community. The only problem is, that he did edit another article a few times while logged out when he clearly knew he was blocked. Though that is the only sign of that type of issue. I think that covers all the base of everything you needed comment on. I of course have not made any behavoiral assessments in this. Please let me know if I can help in any further way with the CU side of things. -- DQ (ʞlɐʇ) 19:01, 4 November 2012 (UTC)
Sockpuppet
Since you were the person who responded to the "SPI", I'm assuming you also deleted the user page generated solely by the sockpuppet template. I would just like to thank you for doing so. InformedContent (talk) 07:22, 5 November 2012 (UTC)
SPI case
Hello. I had recently opened an SPI case [1] but admin Dennis Brown had closed it stating some of the accounts were stale. However, a good amount were not. And on behavior alone I feel is good evidence. I was under the impression Dennis Brown also had a busy schedule, hence the postings on his talk page about that. He said I was welcome to get a second opinion on the case. So I came to you since I see that you had experience with the older case here [2] and that case alone was a sock of Plouton2 as well [3]. I have recently spoken to another experienced user who was involved in the Plouton2 sock case, [4] and they had told me that they were also confident my case was the same user and described it as a WP:DUCK. Please look at this too, another block this year from the same user for the same reasons [5]. And a recent block here [6]. I feel it is an obvious sock, and judging from other users experiences with this 'sock' user, I think it can be confirmed. This is a serious concern because if these are new socks, this would be an evasion of block, and repeated behavior with the socks include - placing fictitious material in articles with sources that are fiction and not factual, personal attacks, disruptive behavior, etc. Please look into this since this user is continuing with new IPs every day, and so I feel something more preventative should be done. Thank you. ProfessionalScholar (talk) 19:35, 5 November 2012 (UTC)
Okay, thank you. I appreciate your efforts. Please remove 60.226.32.200 from the sock list, that was an honest mistake on my part when I was looking through the edit history pages. That IP just made an obvious vandal edit but does not portray similar behavior to the suspected socks. I apologize for not realizing that I had included that IP with the case. ProfessionalScholar (talk) 19:01, 7 November 2012 (UTC)
Don't worry about the IP on the archive, IPs aren't really used as much in trying to form behavioral evidence. Anyway, after talking with another clerk off-wiki and a good time worth of reflection, I have left my conclusions on the SPI. -- DQ (ʞlɐʇ) 20:29, 7 November 2012 (UTC)
I couldn't find any conclusion on the SPI. Or did you mean the SPI that Omnipaedista had opened? I did find your conclusion there. However, what about the other accounts in my SPI. There was some strong evidence with PirroAxis and the other IPs relating to Koyrda66. If you notice, PirroAxis had placed fictitious material in the Belly dance article using a fiction source, and then Koyrda66 along with the IPs reinserted that same exact content. Also, Fleris has defended Koyrda66's edits and from Omnipaedista's experience, apparently also was defending HailEpov's (a user that was recently blocked as a Plouton2 sock) edits. A new IP address located in Greece also reverted back to Fleris's edit recently. The problem is, if you see Plouton2's case, where you, yourself had blocked a large amount of socks, you can see this is a problem not going away since he is evading his block many many times now and using many different accounts and IP addresses to reinsert the blocked Plouton2 account's edits. Every time new accounts appear, some of them will get tagged and blocked by administrators but it's not solving the problem since he continues right away with a whole new lot. Plouton2 case alone had over 55 socks recorded in the case initially. It's very disruptive to the community & all the articles since he is dominating them with his edits each time. At this point, wouldn't a ban or hard range block be more efficient? Is this something you suggest should be brought to ArbCom or is it something that can be resolved here? I don't think just simple blocking each time is resolving the issue since as we speak, there are new IPs reinserting the edits of these blocked accounts. I appreciate your time & assistance. ProfessionalScholar (talk) 22:04, 7 November 2012 (UTC)
It's always helpful when users are reported within a month of previously editing so that a Checkuser can be ran, if it's appropriate. As were going as far back as 10 months ago, it's a little hard, and we have to do it completely on behavioral evidence. As for the accounts, as I said on the more recent SPI, Fleris' behavior is not conclusive enough for a block (I ran over this one for a good while, so i'm not going to reconsider him till you can link his new edits with previous accounts). Irigoni14 and KDaxs need more behavioral evidence before I block (if you can find it, great, let me know). I have further blocked Tzinipa and PirroAxis as part of the group per behavioral evidence. The best way to connect the socks is find a previous diff of a previous sock, and then find similarities with a current sock. One should already have been blocked, so we can follow the evidence chain. The single account to single IP connections make it really hard to follow as we don't know if the IPs are related at all, or if they have changed ownership. Also I can't block an IP for the first time for anything really more than three days. If the edits are over three days old, we can't really block anything. Another thing that may work is page protection. Though for that, there has to be a fair amount of socking on an article. ArbCom can't really do much more than I am already, but like I said, the faster they are reported, the easier they are to look at and deal with. I hope this answers all of your questions, let me know if I can help anymore. -- DQ (ʞlɐʇ) 23:47, 7 November 2012 (UTC)
Thank you for your well explained reply. I understand about reporting right away. It's just hard to keep track sometimes, because this user is targeting a long list of articles, sometimes it will go unnoticed until another user spots it and reports it. But like you said, it may be hard on the technical level to link. The problem I have, and I think you and I can agree on this, is that this Plouton2 user is repeatedly evading his block. He is not just evading his block by creating new accounts, but he's also repeating his behavior, ethnical personal attacks, inserting fiction sources, removing reliable sources, etc. It's quite tiring for the rest of the community, and you can see the users' comments on the Plouton2 case and the ones on all his sock cases. It's a good amount of users & admins that have continuously had to deal with his edits. I'm just wondering if there is a better way to prevent him from creating new accounts. I'm not familiar with all the tasks, but would a hard block be helpful? Also would Wikipedia be willing to make any new rules about having to be registered to edit? It seems that most disruptive edits are from unregistered IPs. As for Fleris, take a look here please, [8] & then a revert to that edit by this IP address which happens to be in the same range as the other Plouton2 IPs that were listed in the old case and in my case [9]. There's also his grammar, spelling, and speaking mannerism that is very similar to Plouton2 socks. Tomorrow I will look for additional diffs of the other accounts you requested since I don't have the time right now. Once again, I appreciate the time you put into this, as well as the assistance and your offer to help more if needed. Thank you very much. ProfessionalScholar (talk) 00:54, 8 November 2012 (UTC)
I think that KDaxis's comment here is evidence that he is the same user as Fleris. They both made similar comments about me, calling me a "nationalist" and using the word "irredentist", and "vandal". I had civily explained to Fleris that it was proved that I was neither of those things by ArbCom, yet he continues to speak this way, see Fleris's comment on the SPI case & match it with this comment by KDaxis, which by the way, how did KDaxis know to come here? That is suspicious too. So is the fact that he hasn't edited since May, but now just made some random edits today, the same day he commented here. There's also the fact that neither users are defending themselves as in a sock case is what you are supposed to do, instead they are repeating the same things about me. Again, like Fleris, KDaxis is showing diffs of articles that are defending Koyrda66's (user you just blocked as Plouton2 sock) edits. There's also KDaxis's diffs here [10] which is the exact same edit previously made by one of the IPs I had listed as a Plouton sock, see here [11] & [12]. Also, my reason for naming this IP as a sock was because it's the same IP that also reinserted the fiction source edit in the Belly dance article as the users you had just blocked (PirroAxis & Koyrda66) [13]. As you can see, that shows a connection between all mentioned users. There's also the fact he's bringing up the Oud article, another defense of a Koyrda66 edit, which in turn was the initial edit of both blocked Plouton2 socks from the past (Peoplok & BouzoukiGr) [14] & [15]. There's also the fact that he is bringing up Shakira article. And once again, one of the suspected sock IPs I listed had removed my edit (which showed he was following me to articles I edit), and now KDaxis is bringing it up, another connection. See here [16]. Regarding the Arabic music article, I had removed content that is considered 'unreliable source' ('review made by someone', a 'website', and a 'PDF' made by someone), because of that he is saying I remove things how I want. In the end, I left the 'review' source but restored what was removed from the initial edit of that source. See here please, as you can see, he has a tendency to say "rv to the right version", something I noticed which is similar to many Plouton2 sock edit summaries [17]. If you notice, he removes the middle content in the paragraph that comes from that source & apparently was initially in the article too before it was removed. Frankly, this is getting tiring to search for past diffs of all these accounts. Hopefully, the information I provided is enough proof. Let me know please. ProfessionalScholar (talk) 19:07, 9 November 2012 (UTC)
Just another sidenote of something I have just seen. Please look here at Kordax's comments - [18], same broken English as these users, same accusations of "irredentist behavior" (see their last comment in that section). Then if you click on Kordax username, it shows he turned out to be a Plouton2 sock as well - [19] & [20]. Also, I noticed that the same administrator who blocked that account participated in a "false" SPI that a Plouton2 sock opened against Omnipaedista, where he, himself had made a new account to setup Omnipaedista as a sock - [21]. As you can see this user's tactics now are not just continuation of sock accounts, ethnical personal attacks, evading block, disrupting articles, placing fraud in articles, they award themselves "civil" barnstars to fool others, and they set other users up for socking and then report it. I don't understand why this user is allowed to continue on Wikipedia. ProfessionalScholar (talk) 23:26, 9 November 2012 (UTC)
It is funny. I use again and again the word "irredentist", because that is what you are... (Is it prohibited?) We see your Vantalist irredentist editsAgain and Again. You asked how I came here, cause of Shakira article. (And what do you mean "broken english", are you liguist(s) haha, I see your... kiddy "english", come on!) I made only one edit, this is in Chalga because it is more Bulgarian/Serbian representative and we know it, your imagination is above the limit. Our quiestion is the unique
As I've already stated before: 1) This is an SPI on Plouton2 case, not on me. If you want to defend or deny your edits as being socks, then do so. The mere fact that you constantly bring me up is only making you more and more a suspect of those other users. 2)My own case was already resolved with ArbCom, who decided to unblock me because they said I was not a vandal & that I only went the wrong way of correcting errors on Wikipedia. I was a newbie and was not aware of not being able to use different accounts. And as was seen through evidence, I never pretended to be different people by talking to myself as if I was different people, a tactic of Plouton2 socks shown in evidence. 3)Yes 'broken English' as what has been described of all Plouton2 socks by many users and administrators. This is English Wikipedia so it is required that edits are made with proper English and grammar. Two things that are seen as improper with Plouton2's sock edits and comments. The proof of evidence showing the connection of all these accounts can be seen by anyone. That is not something that is made up. Therefore, the administrator DQ can read these comments and look at the diffs to make his decision. It is quite obvious you did not come here because of the Shakira article, that does not even make sense, I did not even edit that article in months. It's quite apparent to me that you only made an edit there today for a reason to come here. As I said before, let DQ read this and come to his conclusion. Constant replies to me saying the same thing over and over again about my edits is just spamming his TalkPage. This is an SPI on your edits. Please read the policy for SPIs. ProfessionalScholar (talk) 04:39, 10 November 2012 (UTC)
Oh and also, take a look at KDaxs's first statement in his comment above, "It is funny. I use again and again the word "irredentist", because that is what you are". He said he used that word again and again. So that is like he is admitting that he is Fleris and Kordax. Those are the other two users besides himself that I had said used that word to describe me and Omnipaedista. I'm sorry this has got lengthy, but I think by now there is enough evidence. ProfessionalScholar (talk) 04:55, 10 November 2012 (UTC)
It is ludicrous and pointless to answer or talk with you anymore. You can say your "poet" cause we made everyone our conclusions. I am a newbie too as you say for you but if we were you we won't make unredeemed edits, you never pretended to be a different, but you were (not me|us) with 3 accounts and we still didn't take an answer, if you were pure why you used these regardless no matter and such irrelevant "names" AncientCivilizations 1, Persianbeauty 2, ChiefWikiEditing 2 -all socks- p.s. DeltaQuad for comprehension. --KDaxs (talk) 01:52, 11 November 2012 (UTC)
Ok guys, don't make this thread a mile long for when I do get a chance to read things from after the 8th. I would read things now, but i'm really tired from a day of travel and not enough sleep, so give me a chance I'll read things tomorrow and try and help you guys solve things out. In the mean time, i'm sure you can find something a little more productive to do than argue out socking when i'm still going to come to whatever conclusion i'm going to come to either way. Plus, if I have more questions for after, you can add your comments then. But I don't just look at what is given to me, I comb the contribs and behavior too. I'm not trying to tell you guys to be quiet or anything, i'm just saying the attacking each other back and forth over this isn't really going to help anything especially when I can't be around to help be a 3rd opinion. Have a good night guys (and girls if that's the case). -- DQ (ʞlɐʇ) 05:22, 10 November 2012 (UTC)
You presented your case very well for KDaxs being previously connected, good job. I also found the behavioral patterns of attacking you very similar with Fleris and have now blocked him also. Regarding hardblocks, that's only usually good when the user is staying on one IP or a range, and there are no other users. Softblocking will help, but only once I can get a sense of what his ranges are currently (since we've been in and out of a million of them). Reagrding "Also would Wikipedia be willing to make any new rules about having to be registered to edit?" - I don't dictate this stuff, but I highly doubt you will get anywhere. WMF (the staff behind the site) took an office action to shut down WP:ACTRIAL, so I doubt that would get anywhere. Now I think I've answered all your questions and concerns about sockpuppets, but I could be wrong and feel free to point out anything that I have missed and i'll try and answer it. And thanks again for your patience while these socks ravish on and you have to deal with them. Regarding your statement about multiple admins and editors having to deal with it, your right, it's hard to do, I've done this with many socks. Sadly our tools aren't perfect (admin and CU functions) and can't stop every possible way for a user to edit. Sadly, we just keep have to whacking them. Page protection is your best option with IP edits (unless it's a single recurring IP), SPI/CU/blocks is your best for the accounts you find. -- DQ (ʞlɐʇ) 07:35, 11 November 2012 (UTC)
Thank you, DQ. You've been very helpful. And I too, should be thanking you for your patience with all this sock mess :-) Now that you are reacquainted with this Plouton2 user's behavior, would you suggest that I come straight to you if I see new suspected accounts evading the block again? And yes, you've been very informative with answering my questions, so thanks. So I guess a softblock would be an option if you can figure out the IP range? He is still believed to be at it editing with IPs. Just saw a new one. This user doesn't quit. And what can be done about the edits he made with the blocked sock accounts? Thanks again! ProfessionalScholar (talk) 05:14, 12 November 2012 (UTC)
Sorry for the delay in reply. You can come to me for identification and blocking with these users socks, yes. I can worry about the paperwork. Just come with clearly presented evidence and try your best to show the trail that connects it back to something that was previously blocked, preferably an account. Softblock will only happen when we get more socks and I can pin down his editing location. And ya, sadly some socks don't quit, that's why they haven't fired me from SPI yet ;), if they didn't I would be out of business. -- DQ (ʞlɐʇ) 11:35, 19 November 2012 (UTC)
Hello. A week ago I opened a case against that editor (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Sockpuppet_investigations/-Ilhador-). I believe him to be the same user as -Ilhador- (as you can see in his talk-page, -Ilhador- is also notorious for borderline-disruptive editing of pages related to German history, and for making controversial page moves without ever seeking consensus). Could you examine this case or could you indicate me another checkuser that could perform a CU on Jack Bufalo Head? Thank you. --Omnipaedista (talk) 07:09, 6 November 2012 (UTC)
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I'm really not sure whether to take your comment as sarcastic or serious...and it's confusing. Plus your further edit to the SPI indicates that this is sarcastic. Is there a reason that you actually filed an SPI or is this all just a joke...or are you serious and can present me with some legitimate evidence? -- DQ (ʞlɐʇ) 09:50, 18 November 2012 (UTC)
It's just an honest self-criticism, no sarcasm intended. I made a mistake, and as Self-deprecation says, the humour in my message was a "tension release" in response to my mistake. The facts are simple: I reacted to a WP:AN/I discussion without properly looking into it, started a misguided SPI which presented no evidence at all. I then admitted I made a mistake in a gentle way. To summarise: I made a stupid mistake, then poked fun at myself for making that stupid mistake.--Shirt58 (talk) 10:28, 18 November 2012 (UTC)
Ahh ok. My apologies, it's been an uptight week for me and i've been taking everything seriously. No worries, you didn't really waste my time, as that's a generic response given to people who don't present enough evidence. If you ever need assistance with filing an SPI, my talkpage is open. -- DQ (ʞlɐʇ) 11:23, 19 November 2012 (UTC)
Outings etc.
Thanks for plunging in. Apologies for my contribution to the impenetrability, sadly it's too late to hope for personality change. I've already taken up the question of "outing" with someone else, but thanks for the offer of explanation. On we go. Opbeith (talk) 09:51, 18 November 2012 (UTC)
I don't see how you impeded anything at all, so no worries. If you ever need an explanation on it, my talkpage is here. -- DQ (ʞlɐʇ) 11:25, 19 November 2012 (UTC)
Bormalagurski SPI
Did you run UrbanVillager against User:Bormalagurski? Bormalagurski may be inactive, but because he was topic banned, the staleness should not prevent a checkuser. Gigs (talk) 02:30, 19 November 2012 (UTC)
Bormalagurski last edited in 2006. The Wikimedia Foundation only keeps CheckUser data (as in the data from a users edits) in the system for a limited period of time per the privacy policy. I would have ran the check if I could have, but suffice to say that 6 years is Stale, so literally there are no results I can give you, as there is no data. -- DQ (ʞlɐʇ) 11:31, 19 November 2012 (UTC)
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I have a feeling the real puppetmaster behind Findblogging is User:Seric2. We (or I) may have been killing mosquitos instead of drying the swamp. Please have a look at this case. Thank you very much and all the best. --E4024 (talk) 23:47, 20 November 2012 (UTC)
You have applied a checkuser block to this user. I have, of course, no reason to question this, but could I ask you to make a link to the sockpuppet list involved? As you will appreciate it make it easier if (s)he applies for unblock from an alternative account. --Anthony Bradbury"talk"17:02, 25 November 2012 (UTC)
The link to the case page is on the userpage with the sockmaster tag under "Sockpuppet investigations casepage". A direct link is Wikipedia:Sockpuppet investigations/Pumpkinona. All of the accounts are checkuserblocked though and it's best they apply from that master account. :/ If you are to the point with the user that you think they sincerely understand that socking is inappropriate and they agree to a one account restriction, then I could consider an unblock. But I would like to see evidence of that before I issue an unblock because the normal is the standard offer at this point. -- DQ (ʞlɐʇ) 02:21, 26 November 2012 (UTC)
I think the link may not have been there when I first looked. But in any case I was not in any sense advocating an unblock, and having been an admin for over five years I am aware of the conditions surrounding a checkuser block. I have in fact not contacted or been contacted by the user; I was merely concerned, as I said, lest they apply under a different account which I would wish to recognise as part of their sockfarm, if such were to exist.--Anthony Bradbury"talk"10:09, 26 November 2012 (UTC)
Ahh I misunderstood then, and yes it's possible it was not there before hand. And I also knew you weren't attacking the validity of the block or the CU aspect, but didn't understand that you weren't considering unblock. Anyway, seems sorted. Happy editing, -- DQ (ʞlɐʇ) 10:15, 26 November 2012 (UTC)
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Done. I think crash prep is an understatement. Not only did I not run the bot last year, but I had no idea that this was wanted or was coming, and it would have been nice to know *alot* earlier, but for the record I got it running in 1 hour 35 minutes. But please do pass the word on to next years admins about requesting this days, if not a few weeks in advance, finalizing the details at the end of course. -- DQ (ʞlɐʇ) 00:25, 27 November 2012 (UTC)
Sorry about this. We can take the blame for this one. We were too busy trying to get the system set up since the 22nd to ping you about this. We'll be more aware next year. MBisanztalk00:27, 27 November 2012 (UTC)
Hi. Sorry I have not been online for 2 weeks. I just read your reply which is now archived under November 2012 on your Talk page. It was regarding the SPI on Plouton2 socks that we discussed. Thanks for the reply. I am sure I will be coming to you again when he starts up again. But I'd like to know if something can be done about his edits that he made from his previous blocked accounts. Can you or another administrator take care of it? Thanks for all your help! ProfessionalScholar (talk) 20:51, 27 November 2012 (UTC)
If he created pages that haven't significantly been altered to an appropriate WP version, then we can delete them under CSD G5, just tell me which ones. As for reverting things, that can be removed by any user. Though I personally can not do it. I simply don't have the time to go back through and find his edits, verify them, and revert as needed. If I had that kind of time, SPI would not be backlogged, and my bots would be working seamlessly. -- DQ (ʞlɐʇ) 20:02, 28 November 2012 (UTC)
On November 24, a general assembly of Wikimedia Germany (WMDE) voted on the fate of the Wikimedia Toolserver, a central external piece of technical infrastructure supporting the editing communities with volunteer-developed scripts and webpages of various kinds that are assisting in performing mostly menial tasks.
An open-access preprint presents the results from a study attempting to predict early box office revenues from Wikipedia traffic and activity data. The authors – a team of computational social scientists from Budapest University of Technology and Economics, Aalto University and the Central European University – submit that behavioral patterns on Wikipedia can be used for accurate forecasting, matching and in some cases outperforming the use of social media data for predictive modeling. The results, based on a corpus of 312 English Wikipedia articles on movies released in 2010, indicate that the joint editing activity and traffic measures on Wikipedia are strong predictors of box office revenue for highly successful movies.
Wikidata, the new "Wikimedia Commons for data" and the first new Wikimedia project since 2006, reached 100,000 entries this week. The project aims to be a single, human- and machine-readable database for common data, spanning across all Wikipedia projects, which will "lead to a higher consistency and quality within Wikipedia articles, as well as increased availability of information in the smaller language editions" while lowering the burden on Wikipedia's volunteer editors—whose numbers have stalled overall, and continue to dwindle on the English Wikipedia.
This week, we uncovered WikiProject Deletion Sorting, Wikipedia's most active project by number of edits to all the project's pages. This special project seeks to increase participation in Articles for Deletion nominations by categorizing the AfD discussions by various topic areas that may draw the attention of editors. The project was started in August 2005 with manual processes that are continued today by a bevy of bots, categories, and transclusions. The project took inspiration from WikiProject Stub Sorting and some historical discussions on deletion reform. As the sheer number of AfDs continues to grow, the project is seeking better tools to manage the deletion sorting process and attract editors to comment on these deletion discussions.
