Wikipedia:Suspected sock puppets/Giovanni Giove 2nd

User:Giovanni Giove

Suspected sockpuppeteer

Giovanni Giove (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · page moves · block user · block log)

Suspected sockpuppets

an IP probably associated with the above
144.138.1.184 (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · page moves · block user · block log)

likely socks but to few edits to prove (yet):
Michaelsweatt (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · page moves · block user · block log)
Rasputin65 (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · page moves · block user · block log)
Topmalohouse (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · page moves · block user · block log)
Historyneverrepeats (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · page moves · block user · block log)

Report submission by

--noclador (talk) 08:43, 25 June 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Evidence

strong nationalist POV pushing of always the same (false) claim that "7th Bersaglieri Regiment took 6500 POWs at Mersa Matruth" 1st by Generalmesse, 2 by Steyr2007, 3 by Flylikeadodo
strong nationalist POV pushing in topics dealing with WWII battles with Italian participation or as he says: I have done much to rectify their image as "poor fighters"
this being the only topic that seems to be of interest to the users
all above are discussion resistant - if they head to a discussion page: insults, threats and lots of anger at "official allied historians" "that were embarrassed to admit defeat when Italians were involved" an example by Solarinoridge
none of the above signs comments
this: Generalmesse creates User Radio Berlin
all are experts at using google book search - i.e like Captainantoniocorelli whose third and last edit uses a google book by Tim Ripley as source Captainantoniocorelli and exactly the same book is used by RadioBerlin
insults - i.e. this one - also this is the 1. edit in six months and it exactly supports the opinion of the above and insults User:Kirrages and me - or this one insulting User:Nick Dowling and another insult
all have a very aggressive and threatening ton in their comments
his primary sources are: "Radio Berlin" (during WWII - go figure! what a neutral source!) "Radio Rome" or even worse: "The three Italian divisions have held their own through the rigours of winter, which was particularly bitter for them," Hitler told the German Reichstag" (in April 1942) - he uses that (!) as a source to prove that Italians fought bravely during WWII
if he is not pushing nationalist POV he is trying to justify the Dirty War in Argentina by quoting official (!) 1980 documents published by the perpetrating junta to describe the "danger" of the Argentine left... = same pattern of sourcing as he does with Radio Berlin and Radio Rome
If one begins a "discussion" another of the above socks continues it: Generalmesse & RadioBerlin (this edit also connects RadioBerlin to Drunkgeneral who both indulge in some obscure platoon positions ("R.3, R.4, R.5, R.6 and R.7") in the Battle of Tobruk Drunkgeneral and this would not be complete with Generalmese immediately chiping in with the same info as well here
always it is Australians, British and New Zealanders that lie about the "heroic Italians" this one comes from 144.138.1.184
a common love to add prisoner of war numbers (like trophies taken) - as well as inflating prisoner numbers by 500 on a whim 1 2

3 4 5

Comments

In short: be it edit style, reference formatting (or rather lack thereof), edit summaries, insults and topics point to a single person, who abuses aforementioned accounts to manipulate sensitive topics with biased edits. I first filed a report at Wikipedia:Administrators' noticeboard/Incidents#sock master User:Generalmesse and after being informed about many similarities with indef banned user:Giovanni Giove I decided to request a check on the user here.

I made an error: this is not the 2nd but actually the 5th (!) case of Suspected sock puppets of Giovanni Giove!

I added User:Romaioi: just 100 edits but these are only in Italian WWII military topics (and at that: the usual ones: Tobruk, El Alamein,...) also he copies text that Generalmesse wrote directly into other articles

I'm just noting here that I've read the evidence but have not checked diffs. I'll sort through contrib logs to evaluate plausibility of this being one person. It seems possible so far; further results will come later. Yechiel (Shalom) Editor review 05:07, 26 June 2008 (UTC)[reply]

added User:Regione. Reasons: Manipulating the same articles as the above; with the same fascist propaganda [1] bemoans the same "anti-Italian bias" (example) and so on... --noclador (talk) 11:48, 27 June 2008 (UTC)[reply]

added User:Ronpillao a dormant user who comes back to life today and continues the same nationalist propaganda crusade where the today blocked User:Generalmesse left off. Generalmesse edit Ronpillao edit(talk) 19:45, 27 June 2008 (UTC)[reply]

I have blocked User:Ronpillao 24 hours for violating 3RR at First Battle of El Alamein. EdJohnston (talk) 04:28, 28 June 2008 (UTC)[reply]

User:Saintsarecomingthrough clearly another sock to go on were User:Ronpillao left off tonight. --noclador (talk) 08:46, 28 June 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Added user:Topmalohouse canvassing for support for this editors campaign on User talk:DagosNavy (DagosNavy has been canvassed before and doesn't co-operate). Diff here: [2]

Added user:Historyneverrepeats edited canvassing for support for this editors campaign on User talk:DagosNavy (DagosNavy has been canvassed before and doesn't co-operate). Contribution history [3] fits the pattern of the banned editors activities on the Dirty War. Justin talk 10:18, 28 June 2008 (UTC) Addendum. See [4] editor refers to message canvassing by other suspect sockpuppet. Justin talk 10:21, 28 June 2008 (UTC)[reply]

In an edit summary, User:Saintsarecomingthrough announced his intention to recruit meatpuppets from the comandosupremo forum. I looked at the forums at http://comandosupremo.com but did find any recruiting post. Also, that web site appears fairly serious, so he might not have had any success.
As to whether User:Historyneverrepeats could be a sock, he appears to a be a bona-fide long-time contributor and I didn't see him making any abusive edits. It also seems that User:Topmalohouse is a regular editor who works on military history. In this comment he identifies himself as David Aldea. An author by that name has published a book about the Falklands War. How we managed to get an edit war involving both El Alamein and the Falklands is still a mystery.
It's possible that there is a regular content dispute at First Battle of El Alamein besides the abusive sockpuppetry, and we should avoid tarring people unnecessarily. EdJohnston (talk) 14:19, 28 June 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Conclusions