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Vukhudo

Vukhudo ( talk + · tag · contribs · deleted contribs · logs · filter log · block user · spi block · block log · CA · CheckUser( log) · investigate · cuwiki)

15 November 2016

Suspected sockpuppets

Two SPA accounts joining Wikipedia within a few days of each other, collaborating closely on DeepTouchSA (and its draft at Draft:Deep Touch (DJ)) within minutes of each other, the non-creator removing the speedy deletion tag from the article. Both have similar user pages; Vukhudo actually created Artwellradu's user page, listing Artwell's birthplace and birth date. When both accounts were given an agf-sock warning, Artwell improbably suggested that Vukhudo had "accidentally" filled in these private birth details and denied any connection between the two accounts. McGeddon ( talk) 10:03, 15 November 2016 (UTC) reply

Comments by other users

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Clerk, CheckUser, and/or patrolling admin comments

 Technically indistinguishable, blocked, tagged, closing.-- Bbb23 ( talk) 14:18, 15 November 2016 (UTC) reply

25 October 2017

Suspected sockpuppets

The master and XFhumu cross over frequently within minutes of each other. Guruno hasn't edited much but all three edited Nikhil_Ramteke (  | talk | history | protect | delete | links | watch | logs | views) which Gurano created. Their edit patterns are both strongly indicative of undisclosed paid editing and I can provide them privately on request. SmartSE ( talk) 21:35, 25 October 2017 (UTC) reply

Through Special:Undelete/Henrik_von_Scheel there is a link to the mess that is Anatha Gulati but based on off-wiki evidence it's very likely to be meat. The same link and this also links to ProfHvS who Huon blocked in September for "Working in conjunction with (paid?) socks to self-promote". SmartSE ( talk) 22:30, 25 October 2017 (UTC) reply
It should be filed under Wikipedia:Sockpuppet investigations/Vukhudo/Archive though: see their involvement at Special:Undelete/DeepTouchSA and this username change by XFhumu from DeepTouchSA. SmartSE ( talk) 22:37, 25 October 2017 (UTC) reply

Comments by other users

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XFhumu's Cavit Collection may be a re-creation of a userspace draft for Cavit by a Yaplipa sock: User:Sonuep/sandboc ☆ Bri ( talk) 23:19, 27 October 2017 (UTC) reply

Link to sockpuppet investigation- it'd be useful if the reviewing CU could check against this. jcc ( tea and biscuits) 23:25, 27 October 2017 (UTC) reply

Clerk, CheckUser, and/or patrolling admin comments

14 December 2017

Suspected sockpuppets

Cajohnson917 I blocked and tagged today behaviorally when responding to a G5 request: see the deleted history of Blue Fox Entertainment where it was a large single creation quickly accepted at AfC by MassiveYR, fitting the behavioral pattern of UPE actors from this group. No need for a CU because it is stale, but going ahead and listing for the record.

Emilywlk and Saleh Gadau match the pattern of this farm: submits an AfC draft that is accepted within 5 hours by MassiveYR [1]. MassiveYR admits that they have been presuading friends to do this on their talk page in an unblock request, and this seems likely to be one of them.

Saleh Gadu in particular is unlikely to be a new account because of their move of their own sandbox to AfC draft from userspace [2]. It also follows the pattern of a quick accept by MassiveYR, who eventually accepted it themselves after declining: [3].

Requesting a checkuser to confirm and also to look for sleepers. UTRS appeal #19913 might also have some technical data that could be of use. TonyBallioni ( talk) 20:06, 14 December 2017 (UTC) reply

Comments by other users

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All editors working on various incarnations of the following interrelated drafts about a company and its founder:

Merged duplicate opened at same time as Tony ☆ Bri ( talk) 20:06, 14 December 2017 (UTC) reply

Also note Luxy (App) was AfC submitted by KaytroniX May 17 & quickly approved by sock MassiveYR May 18, same pattern enjoyed by Emilywlk when submitting Casanova (rapper) and getting same-day approval from MassiveYR ☆ Bri ( talk) 20:32, 14 December 2017 (UTC) reply

Clerk, CheckUser, and/or patrolling admin comments

20 December 2017

Suspected sockpuppets

Recreation of Albert Yaying Xu, though slightly different has similar somewhat broken English. (ie. n 1959, Xu was graduated in architecture from) CHRISSYMAD ❯❯❯ ¯\_(ツ)_/¯ 17:27, 20 December 2017 (UTC) reply

Comments by other users

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Clerk, CheckUser, and/or patrolling admin comments

Red X Unrelated. Although not necessarily relevant, see Wikipedia:Sockpuppet investigations/JessikaRita. Closing with no action.-- Bbb23 ( talk) 17:59, 1 January 2018 (UTC) reply

04 March 2018

Suspected sockpuppets

Jaskirann recreated Mimi Xu. Gsalmiaski, Deathlyhallowshp and Mulibra are other new accounts that have edited that article e.g. [10] [11] [12]. Mulibra also recreated IFurniture.ae that was created by Jaskirann before at User:Mulibra/Ifurniture.ae. La mom crosses over with Mulibra at this draft. SmartSE ( talk) 22:10, 4 March 2018 (UTC) reply

Comments by other users

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Clerk, CheckUser, and/or patrolling admin comments

  • Jaskirann has been listed and checked before in this case. There was no reason to relist it. I obviously did not recheck it.
  • Mulibra and La mom are  Confirmed to each other, Red X Unrelated to the master, and  Likely to Maverickthewriter ( talk · contribs · count). I’ve blocked the two confirmed accounts without tags.
  • The remaining accounts are Red X Unrelated.-- Bbb23 ( talk) 23:28, 4 March 2018 (UTC) reply
  • Nothing more needs to be done here. Closing. Callanecc ( talk • contribs • logs) 03:25, 5 March 2018 (UTC) reply
  • @ Bbb23: Sorry about relisting Jaskirann - I had checked this case but forgot about Wikipedia:Sockpuppet investigations/JessikaRita/Archive. @ Callanecc: I've reopened this as  Behavioural evidence needs evaluation, as did JessikaRita, even though that has been archived already. It's clear that there is a link between Jaskirann and Mulibra which to me makes it very likely that Jaskirann is a sock or meat of this farm, regardless of the lack of technical evidence. To me, all of these accounts and those at JessikaRita should be treated as part of this farm, but I can't really be the decider of that by myself. SmartSE ( talk) 13:39, 5 March 2018 (UTC) reply
  • @ Smartse: I've reinstated the close. You can ask Callanecc to reconsider, but you can't reopen a case that's been closed by a CU.-- Bbb23 ( talk) 14:40, 5 March 2018 (UTC) reply
  • Thanks. After a chat with Bbb23 I've decided to go ahead and treat these all as part of this farm and block accordingly, which I will take care of later. JessikaRita is clearly also related, so I think that it should probably be merged into this one. SmartSE ( talk) 10:59, 6 March 2018 (UTC) reply
 Clerk note: JessikaRita is the older case, so I have merged Vukhudo into JessikaRita. Tags updated. Case closed. Ivanvector ( Talk/ Edits) 14:52, 9 April 2018 (UTC) reply
For the record. JessikaRita and Vukhudo are Red X Unrelated. The two countries they edit from are about 5,000 miles apart. The user agents are different. This merger should not have been done. An SPI clerk may be able to override a CU's findings based on behavior, but a non-clerk cannot. I see that Ivanvector has implemented the merger, but I don't see any finding on his part that he agrees with Smartse. For my part, if the merger remains, I will not check this case in the future because there's no way to confirm a suspected puppet to "the master".-- Bbb23 ( talk) 15:21, 9 April 2018 (UTC) reply
Argh. I don't have time to deal with this now but I'll be back.  On hold - Do not close or archive this case. Ivanvector ( Talk/ Edits) 15:26, 9 April 2018 (UTC) reply
( edit conflict)@ Bbb23: My understanding (I may be wrong) is that socks and meats should be treated as if there were socks. When there is such clear behavioural evidence linking these groups, then they should be treated as one. This by no means unique to this case - see Wikipedia:Sockpuppet_investigations/Alechkoist for example (and there are a load more users connected to them in the same manner) - so maybe we should discuss this somewhere else more generally. SmartSE ( talk) 15:39, 9 April 2018 (UTC) reply
I don't think there is any way to generalize this because each case is different. Also, I can't - and won't - address every case and what someone's interpretation of the disposition of that case means. Regardless, an editor who is not a member of the SPI team, may suggest a merger but may not mandate one. Additionally, if a CheckUser strongly opposes a merger desired by a clerk, usually the clerk will defer, even if they don't agree. Another problem is that "unrelated" may seem black-and-white but it isn't. A finding of unrelated is based on the technical data available to the CU. Factors that affect how strong the finding is are the amount of data, the consistency of the data, and what exactly makes it unrelated. If someone edits from North Dakota and someone else edits from South Dakota, the location isn't as dissimilar as one who edits from England and another who edits from New York. In this particular case there is a fair amount of technical data and the unrelated finding is very strong. I am familiar with Vukhudo since their edits weren't stale. I've seen other cases where the behavior is very similar but the masters are not the same. This one won't be the first or the last.-- Bbb23 ( talk) 16:10, 9 April 2018 (UTC) reply
Bbb23 is right here - each case is different, and usually the clerks will defer to the checkusers because they handle private information and generally know more details than the rest of us do, so if a CU says "don't merge these" we usually are left with assuming they have a good reason. I skimmed this case too quickly and went ahead with the merger, whereas if I had taken more care I would have seen that these two accounts have been checked more than once in the past and would have questioned the result (except that the result was "unrelated" and I should've caught that). So I deserve a trout as much as anyone. In this case the merger was straightforward and I can probably undo it, but I'll need some time to plan it out or else I'll really fuck it up. Ivanvector ( Talk/ Edits) 19:16, 9 April 2018 (UTC) reply
  •  Clerk note: I have undone the merger and restored the separate cases; fortunately I was sloppy and hadn't deleted the Vukhudo archive page so that part was pretty easy. I have not re-done the tags yet because I'm tired and I've been looking at deleted diffs long enough that I've gone cross-eyed, but if nobody beats me to it I'll get to it tomorrow. Leaving on hold until the tags are corrected. Ivanvector ( Talk/ Edits) 01:55, 11 April 2018 (UTC) reply
Supplemental: I restored this report to the wrong case, but I've fixed that now. Ivanvector ( Talk/ Edits) 02:03, 11 April 2018 (UTC) reply
My own opinion, not to object too strongly to SmartSE's treatment, is that this is a somewhat new form of undisclosed paid editing: where a central operation is feeding article copy to independent individual editors (perhaps through Fiverr postings or whatever) and that in these cases our policy presently doesn't support treating them as sockpuppets; they should be treated as individual undisclosed paid editors, with a request to disclose followed by blocks for noncompliance. I'm going to start a discussion about this somewhere else. Ivanvector ( Talk/ Edits) 13:08, 17 April 2018 (UTC) reply
@ Ivanvector: Thank you for this. If you don't mind, please give me a heads up on my Talk page when you initiate the discussion.-- Bbb23 ( talk) 13:34, 17 April 2018 (UTC) reply

13 November 2018

Suspected sockpuppets

Recreation of Modello Domani and its founder Ayush Diwan Khurana previously created by KaytroniX ( talk + · tag · contribs · deleted contribs · logs · filter log · block user · spi block · block log · CA · CheckUser( log) · investigate · cuwiki) and Maverickthewriter ( talk + · tag · contribs · deleted contribs · logs · filter log · block user · spi block · block log · CA · CheckUser( log) · investigate · cuwiki). GSS ( talk| c| em) 14:15, 13 November 2018 (UTC) reply

  • Adding IP who removed the speedy deletion notice from Modello Domani and removed the redirect from Ayush Diwan Khurana. GSS ( talk| c| em) 15:39, 13 November 2018 (UTC) reply

Comments by other users

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Clerk, CheckUser, and/or patrolling admin comments

  • Blocked the account. IP hasn't edited since 13 November, so pointless to block it now. Case closed. Courcelles ( talk) 01:20, 3 December 2018 (UTC) reply

26 December 2018

Suspected sockpuppets

Yet another recreation of Ayush Diwan Khurana previously created by Chennaitos ( talk + · tag · contribs · deleted contribs · logs · filter log · block user · spi block · block log · CA · CheckUser( log) · investigate · cuwiki) and KaytroniX ( talk + · tag · contribs · deleted contribs · logs · filter log · block user · spi block · block log · CA · CheckUser( log) · investigate · cuwiki). GSS ( talk| c| em) 14:40, 26 December 2018 (UTC) reply

Comments by other users

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Clerk, CheckUser, and/or patrolling admin comments

  •  Blocked without tags. The draft is nearly identical to Chennaitos'. GAB gab 22:38, 27 December 2018 (UTC) reply
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