Wikipedia:Sockpuppet investigations/Bideliran/Archive

Bideliran

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

09 November 2019

Suspected sockpuppets

• Hoseinkhosravii (talk⁺ · tag · contribs · deleted contribs · logs · filter log · block user · spi block · block log · CA · CheckUser(log) · investigate · cuwiki)
• Tools: Editor interaction utility • Interaction Timeline • User compare report Auto-generated every hour.

The junior account pops up slightly more than three months after the last edit by the senior account (thus evading Checkuser) for the purpose of editing Draft:Danial Hajibarat. The senior account has the name of the executive producer of two films that the subject directed. This is not verifiable by Checkuser due to expiration of data, but the duck is quacking and swimming. Robert McClenon (talk) 20:35, 9 November 2019 (UTC)

Comments by other users

Accused parties may also comment/discuss in this section below. See Defending yourself against claims.

Clerk, CheckUser, and/or patrolling admin comments

• There's similar uploading activity on commons as well, but Bidelirania is stale there too. I'm assuming the 90-day rule is MWF-wide, not just for en? The most interesting tidbit I've found so far is that although Hosein didn't edit until Nov 9th, their account was created on June 7, just one day after Bidelirania's. Not sure that's enough to hang a sock on, though. Bidelirania's account on fa-wiki was created on 22 Feb 2018, so I guess June 2019 is just the first time they logged into en-wiki. -- RoySmith (talk) 23:02, 9 November 2019 (UTC)

  90 days is the checkuser data retention period in the global checkuser policy, yes. Projects can set local policies that are more restrictive but not less, but I don't think that applies to the retention period anyway as it's coded into the mediawiki software.

  If the user abandoned one account and then started editing with another, then there is no violation of the multiple accounts policy. I'll leave this open in case I misread something though. Ivanvector (^Talk/_Edits) 19:29, 12 November 2019 (UTC)

• I'd dropped Template:Uw-agf-sock on both talk pages. Closing this for now. -- RoySmith (talk) 20:41, 13 November 2019 (UTC)

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16 April 2020

Suspected sockpuppets

• Bidelirania (talk⁺ · tag · contribs · deleted contribs · logs · filter log · block user · spi block · block log · CA · CheckUser(log) · investigate · cuwiki)
• Hoseinkhosravii (talk⁺ · tag · contribs · deleted contribs · logs · filter log · block user · spi block · block log · CA · CheckUser(log) · investigate · cuwiki)
• علیرضا رضوی (talk⁺ · tag · contribs · deleted contribs · logs · filter log · block user · spi block · block log · CA · CheckUser(log) · investigate · cuwiki)

• Tools: Editor interaction utility • Interaction Timeline • User compare report Auto-generated every hour.

The account User:Bidelirania, which appears from this edit summary to be an artists' organisation, made several unsuccessful page creation submissions for the film maker Danial Hajibarat, as demonstrated at their talk page. The potential sockpuppet, User:Hoseinkhosravii, then submitted the same page twice and it was rejected (see their talk page) and then created the page anyway. Both these users have been asked on their talk pages whether there is any connection between them. Both editors have also worked on pages about the subject's creative works, and are now heavily involved in AfD discussions about the subject, without either of them submitting any relevant evidence to support their arguments. Their pattern of editing and their defensiveness regarding the AfD discussions makes me wonder whether they are connected and whether they have a Conflict of Interest. Please could you investigate? Many thanks, ~dom Kaos~ (talk) 08:13, 16 April 2020 (UTC)

Edit A Google search shows that the subject of the AfD discussion, Danial Hajibarat, identifies himself on his LinkedIn page as a Director of Bidel Irania. ~dom Kaos~ (talk) 08:30, 16 April 2020 (UTC)

Comments by other users

Accused parties may also comment/discuss in this section below. See Defending yourself against claims.

No action was taken in the previous SPI because it was believed that this editor simply abandoned his first account and started editing using Hoseinkhosravii. However, this now appears to be a sleeper account as the two are now working in tandem in AfDs of articles created by Hoseinkhosravii (Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/The Road of Love and Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Danial Hajibarat) GPL93 (talk) 11:59, 16 April 2020 (UTC)

Also adding User:علیرضا رضوی who has similar editing patterns and is the third and only other keep vote in both of the AfDs mentioned above. GPL93 (talk) 12:44, 16 April 2020 (UTC)

Created within 24 hours of each other, editing exactly the same articles (see also deleted contributions), supporting each other in deletion discussions with the same quality of English... Sock- or meatpuppetry. ~ ToBeFree (talk) 01:09, 17 April 2020 (UTC)

Well, if someone does enough socking, multiple experienced editors will encounter and report the abuse, and that seems to be what has happened here. Robert McClenon (talk) 02:41, 17 April 2020 (UTC)

Clerk, CheckUser, and/or patrolling admin comments

• @Robert McClenon, RoySmith, Ivanvector, Dom Kaos, and GPL93: Now that's a rare case of four independent reports about exactly the same behavior. I have found a sleeper at User:Bideliran while blocking and tagging. Requesting checkuser to find other sleeping accounts. ~ ToBeFree (talk) 01:23, 17 April 2020 (UTC)
• These two accounts are  Possible to each other and to the master.  No sleepers immediately visible. Callanecc (talk • contribs • logs) 11:56, 17 April 2020 (UTC)
• Thanks – already  Blocked and tagged;  Clerk assistance requested: I guess the case should be moved to "Bideliran" per account age. ~ ToBeFree (talk) 22:00, 17 April 2020 (UTC)

ToBeFree -  Done. ~Oshwah~^{(talk) (contribs)} 04:47, 22 April 2020 (UTC)

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18 May 2020

Suspected sockpuppets

• علیرضا رضوی (talk⁺ · tag · contribs · deleted contribs · logs · filter log · block user · spi block · block log · CA · CheckUser(log) · investigate · cuwiki)
• Mina.FAMI (talk⁺ · tag · contribs · deleted contribs · logs · filter log · block user · spi block · block log · CA · CheckUser(log) · investigate · cuwiki)
• Mahshid.r (talk⁺ · tag · contribs · deleted contribs · logs · filter log · block user · spi block · block log · CA · CheckUser(log) · investigate · cuwiki)
• Tools: Editor interaction utility • Interaction Timeline • User compare report Auto-generated every hour.

User:Mina.FAMI became active less than two weeks after Bideliran was blocked and has edited in the same subject matter as Bideliran. Mina.FAMI has now tried to recreate Danial Hajibarat, including recently even though this editor would presumably now since his first attempted was deleted via WP:G4. Last SPI, علیرضا رضوی was confirmed as a possible sock and and stopped editing within a few days of the initial SPI blocks. That was until today, when the editor's first edits since April 21 were to try to remove G4 tags from Danial Hajibarat. GPL93 (talk) 20:49, 18 May 2020 (UTC)

Comments by other users

Accused parties may also comment/discuss in this section below. See Defending yourself against claims.

I wonder if there is an overlap with the socks of پارسا آملی (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · logs · filter log · block user · block log) (SPI). The focus on creating unsourced stubs of Iranian actors and films is pretty much identical, and the created drafts also look very similar. At Draft:Nima Shahrokh Shahi, created by Mina.FAMI, there are edits by Sogand Kamranii (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · logs · filter log · block user · block log), blocked as a sock of پارسا آملی yesterday. --bonadea contributions talk 17:36, 24 May 2020 (UTC)

I have added Mahshid.r to the list of suspected sockpuppets. Look at the history of Draft:Siavosh Tahmoures: علیرضا رضوی created it as an article, it was moved to draftspace, علیرضا رضوی submitted it to AfC without adding anything other than a link to another Wikipedia version, the draft was rejected, and Mahshid.r subsequently moved it to mainspace again. This overlap in editing might have been coincidental, but there is also an overlap between Mahshid.r and one or the other (or both) of the other accounts mentioned in this report in several other articles, including [1], [2], [3], and [4] (the last one created by Hoseinkhosravii (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · logs · filter log · block user · block log) who was blocked as a sock of Bideliran a month ago).

Looking at the articles created by these different accounts, it is hard not to spot similarities: Hasan Joveireh when it was created by Mina.FAMI, Jahanbakhsh Soltani when it was created by Mahshid.r, Mani Heidari when it was created by Hoseinkhosravii. --bonadea contributions talk 18:02, 24 May 2020 (UTC)

Clerk, CheckUser, and/or patrolling admin comments

• I don't know if I'm going to help a lot here.
• The following accounts are  Likely (overlap on multiple IP ranges of different ISPs, using the same old OS but just slightly different useragents):
  • Hoseinkhosravii (talk⁺ · tag · contribs · deleted contribs · logs · filter log · block user · spi block · block log · CA · CheckUser(log) · investigate · cuwiki)
  • Mahshid.r (talk⁺ · tag · contribs · deleted contribs · logs · filter log · block user · spi block · block log · CA · CheckUser(log) · investigate · cuwiki)
• All of the other accounts are  Possible at best - similar geolocation but a variety of different networks and devices.  Behavioural evidence needs evaluation. Ivanvector (^Talk/_Edits) 13:29, 22 June 2020 (UTC)
• Substantial behavioral overlap between Hoseinkhosravii and Mina.FAMI (the latter just about word-for-word recreated Danial Hajibarat after the former's version was deleted and used a number of images that the former uploaded). علیرضا رضوی isn't quite as strong a connection, but they show up at enough pages associated with known socks from this group (and swooped in to de-PROD/de-CSD a couple articles), and that's pretty suggestive to me.  Blocked and tagged, will G5 in a bit. GeneralNotability (talk) 19:28, 15 July 2020 (UTC)

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