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This is an old revision of this page, as edited by DoRD (talk | contribs) at 20:19, 21 August 2012 (Archiving case from Wikipedia:Sockpuppet investigations/Velebit). The present address (URL) is a permanent link to this revision, which may differ significantly from the current revision.


Velebit

Prior SSP or RFCU cases may exist for this user:

Report date October 3 2009, 19:09 (UTC)
Suspected sockpuppets


Evidence submitted by S-J-S-F-M-W

The I.P address listed above made a talk page edit to Jimbo Wales talk page with two links and one of them being a user name of an suspected sock puppet to Velebit. I am requesting a quick look at the two listed puppets and a comparision to any relation to the main. S-J-S-F-M-W (talk) 19:09, 3 October 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Comments by accused parties    See Defending yourself against claims.
Comments by other users


CheckUser requests
Checkuser request – code letter: F (Other reason )
Current status – Declined, the reason can be found below.    Requested by S-J-S-F-M-W (talk) 19:09, 3 October 2009 (UTC) [reply]



Clerk, patrolling admin and checkuser comments
Conclusions

information Administrator note IP blocked 55 hours as an IP sock. User:Historian35 is already blocked. MuZemike 03:38, 4 October 2009 (UTC)[reply]

This case has been marked as closed. It has been archived automatically.
02 November 2010
Suspected sockpuppets



Evidence submitted by Kennechten

Per WP:DUCK both users edit the same articles. Same anti-Croatian POV Kennechten (talk) 07:56, 2 November 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Especially visible in articles like Ante Starčević and Ante Pavelić--Kennechten (talk) 08:08, 2 November 2010 (UTC) The same attitude inserting the same section names referring th same sources. Per WP:DUCK it is quite clear.[reply]

also here are the others:

also the other IP user with same arogant rhetorics:

article Ante Starčević has been indefinitely semi-protected by User:Future_Perfect_at_Sunrise on March 6 2009.[1]

Prior to that it has been protected the several times [2] for more-less same reasons : POV pushing by vandal User:Velebit.

Considering the fact that both user are doing the same thing on the same articles it is clear that they are his sockpuppets.--Kennechten (talk) 11:51, 6 November 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Some other IPs.

--Kennechten (talk) 07:41, 27 November 2010 (UTC)[reply]


Reinserting identical article subsections "racism and antisemtitism" in the Ante Starčević

Comments by accused parties   

See Defending yourself against claims.

My first note: I'd like to ask Kennechten what crime I have committed?

As to the Magnum Crimen article

  • I added biographical note about the book author;
  • prof O. Neuman was a Swede, not an American (which I corrected);
  • I removed word 'alleged' in a sentence talking about the racist attitude and behavior of the catholic clergy in Kingdom of Yugoslavia and later in Independent State of Croatia.

All the text changes I did, are purely academic and supported by references and quotes. I never ever said anything about Croats or Croatia, here or elsewhere.

As to the Magnum Crimen user, I noticed that this user added information about Vatican's ban of the Magnum Crimen book.

May I learn which way my article text improvements broke any of Wikipedia Five Pillars? Based on the contributions of two of us, which way my contributions are of the puppeteering type?

--Remind me never (talk) 03:22, 6 November 2010 (UTC)[reply]

My second note: User Kennechten throws accusation after accusation proving nothing. This user avoids facing the facts (see my previous note) and keep ignoring mandatory assumption, the assumption of good faith. All my work here is transparent, purely academic, and altruistic.

I can only assume that behind this personal attack on me is former user Rjecina, permanently blocked for his activity of calling other users puppets, reverting previously their changes, and attacking them the same way as Kennechten attacked me now. This suspicion is based on reading and investigating the Magnum Crimen article talk page and long, long history of former user Rjecina attacks on other Wikipedia users.

The other suspect might be Farsight001 who kept reversing any of my changes of the Catholic sex abuse cases article and deleting all my discussions on the same article talk page. When I abandoned fight there and started improving the De Administrando Imperio article, the same user attacked me again which prompted administrator Adam Bishop to intervene and protect my work on that article. See Farsight.

My disappointment with Wikipedia really runs high. At this point I am resting my case, not contributing anything further to Wikipedia (money, knowledge), and waiting the outcome of this baseless assault on me here.--Remind me never (talk) 15:05, 6 November 2010 (UTC)[reply]

___

  • If two people did the some changes on the same article, are they one person?!? Also, the 'identical' changes mentioned are obviously quite different in their size and content. As to the 'racism and anti-semitism', what else shall be the name of this section?? Controversies?? Where the information about 'confirmed' sockpuppets came from?? I see only one where the admin who blocked Historian 35 says that he believes the blocked user is a sockpuppet. This man Kennechten is apparently infamous Rjecina.--166.32.193.81 (talk) 17:44, 3 December 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Comments by other users

I did not notice earlier that I have to DEFEND myself. Against what? I do not see what shall be my guilt. If there is any, let it be visible and proven.--96.231.71.176 (talk) 23:03, 29 November 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Clerk, patrolling admin and checkuser comments

Everyone is  Stale except Remind_me_never (talk · contribs). You'll need to use behavior to draw any conclusions. TNXMan 20:46, 4 November 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Blocked Remind_me_never (talk · contribs) based on identical editing at [10]. Nakon 20:23, 3 December 2010 (UTC)[reply]
15 January 2011
Suspected sockpuppets

Per WP:DUCK


Please list evidence below this line. Remember to sign at the end of your section with 4 tilde characters "~~~~"

User:MagnumCrimen is probably sock of User:Velebit- Serbian anti-Croatian SPA warrior

His fixation is Ante Starčević, Ante Pavelić and some other Croatian people from history.--Kennechten (talk) 14:55, 8 January 2011 (UTC)[reply]

from time to time he registers new[11] and does the same thing. Some examples to be done


Reinserting identical article subsections "racism and antisemtitism" in the Ante Starčević


also others with similar pattern 


Kennechten (talk) 20:38, 15 January 2011 (UTC)[reply]


Article Giorgio_da_Sebenico-removing sentences that refer him as Croat:

Article Ante Pavelić-removing section about his wife:

to be continued .... (this will be very long!!) note that Magnum Crimen soon after registration started to edit precisely the same articles that were matter of dispute with the same methods as previusly banned sockpuppets. not some randoma articles.--Kennechten (talk) 20:16, 16 January 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Comments by other users

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

This case against me is already rejected. See here. It is obvious that User:Don Luca Brazzi is not confirmed puppet of User:Velebit. See the reasons for blocking him here and here which are the blocking administrator's explanations. Neither of the "confirmed" sockpuppets is confirmed. See here. This User:Rjecina = User:Kennechten slipped into primitive and transparent lies.


This is a desperate attempt of User:Rjecina = User:Kennechten to counter my case against him here.


--MagnumCrimen (talk) 00:37, 16 January 2011 (UTC)[reply]

User:Don Luca Brazzi is banned for vandalism... doing the same things as you.--Kennechten (talk) 10:31, 16 January 2011 (UTC)[reply]

He is blocked, not banned. Just a FYI.. --Bsadowski1 10:39, 16 January 2011 (UTC)[reply]


The previous SPI about Magnum Crimen was stale!


And we can just wait a little to see how he starts the show.--Kennechten (talk) 07:31, 18 January 2011 (UTC)[reply]


Purger, your criteria is not wiki criteria. Therefore -you removal is vandalism (like many others)--Kennechten (talk) 07:45, 19 January 2011 (UTC) I think think are all Sockpuppets of Velebit —Preceding unsigned comment added by 24.233.99.93 (talk) 22:55, 24 January 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Clerk, CheckUser, and/or patrolling admin comments
25 January 2012
Suspected sockpuppets

I've observed a pattern of edits from these users and IP addresses, basically the bulk of their contributions match the same topic areas - fascism, Nazism, Italian irredentism, etc. They push their POV and have a lack of understanding of the verifiability policies, too. They engage in revert wars and also seem to have a propensity of censoring talk pages. As far as I can tell, they've abused pretty much all other editors they came in contact with - I now skimmed their contributions in the user talk namespace and they're all fraught with incivility.

There are now too many of them for me to just discard the IP address changes as a result of a standard ISP IP randomization policy. They keep making the same kinds of edits (reverts) and these IP address changes split the edit history so their now long-term disruption becomes less obvious.

Obviously I could be wrong about all this, but by now it's wasted enough of my time for me to request this kind of an investigation.

The general usage timestamps seem to match:

  • the named account was active from March 2011 to May 2011, when they "resigned"
  • 71.178.115.169 was active in April 2011
  • 71.163.229.6 was active in May 2011 (except for one vandal edit in April whose revert pattern links them to 71.178.115.169)
  • 71.191.19.40 was active from October 2011 to late December 2011
  • 71.163.236.199 became active in late December 2011

There are some obvious clues such as this edit:

Or this indicative response:

Either way, whatever their IP address, from the content I've seen, there is little doubt in my mind that this is indeed the same person. Joy [shallot] (talk) 14:30, 25 January 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Comments by other users

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

There is no evidence of sock puppetry, try dispute resolution. A request for comment may be the most suitable option as the main problem identified is civility and not avoidance of scrutiny. Peter E. James (talk) 02:26, 26 January 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Clerk, CheckUser, and/or patrolling admin comments

I'm not sure what action you would like us to take here. The account appears to have been abandoned. The first two IPs have not been used in some time. The other IPs don't appear to overlap in editing dates. So, while this may in fact be the same person, they simply appear to be editing while logged out, which is permitted. TNXMan 15:48, 25 January 2012 (UTC)[reply]

I believe they fail the following points of the policy:
  • Editors who use unlinked alternative accounts, or who edit as an IP separate from their account, should carefully avoid any crossover on articles or topics
  • Contributing to the same page or discussion with multiple accounts: Editors may not use more than one account to contribute to the same page or discussion in a way to suggest that they are multiple people.
  • Avoiding scrutiny: Using alternative accounts that are not fully and openly disclosed to split your editing history means that other editors cannot detect patterns in your contributions.
  • Editing logged out in order to mislead: Editing under multiple IP addresses may be treated the same as editing under multiple accounts where it is done deceptively or otherwise violates the above principles.
Note the above edit where one of the IPs explicitly replied negatively to my request to identify themselves as LdM, yet it's pretty clear they're the same. If that's not improper concealment, I don't know what is... --Joy [shallot] (talk) 20:08, 25 January 2012 (UTC)[reply]
  • Although I suspect all IPs and the user are run by the same person, the IPs are all in the same range and are probably just dynamic IPs. Editing has not occurred simultaneously on any of them in the last six months, and the account has clearly been abandoned. Although there were probably warnable policy violations going on, at this point in time there is very little to be done on the matter. NativeForeigner Talk 03:23, 26 January 2012 (UTC)[reply]
29 January 2012
Suspected sockpuppets


Well, just as my previous complaint was archived as obsolete and fruitless (not complaining, just saying :), in the period between 2012-01-25 and 2012-01-28, this user has conveniently changed their IP address again to help prove my point:

This means that the former address, 71.163.236.199, was used between 2011-12-23 and 2012-01-27, which is 35 days. The address before that one was used between 2011-10-12 and 2011-12-18, which is 67 days. Sure, this can all be the result of an accidental change by their ISP, or their modem can just so happen to lose power every time they feel like further fragmenting their contribution history. -- Joy [shallot] (talk) 12:02, 29 January 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Comments by other users

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

  • query: >"this user has conveniently changed their IP address again to help prove my point"
Perhaps, but isn't this arguing a lack of evidence is evidence? Like the editor who argued a complete change of style indicated a sock was gaming the system? You may be right, but just sayin'… --Unicorn Tapestry {say} 05:18, 31 January 2012 (UTC)[reply]
Clerk, CheckUser, and/or patrolling admin comments
05 February 2012
Suspected sockpuppets


I filed Wikipedia:Arbitration/Requests/Enforcement#Luciano di Martino, where I noted:

Now that the username Eleven Nine responded to my accusation, they didn't really deny the sockpuppetry, it was more of a generic rant against Wikipedia, and one that also talked about someone called John Harnad. This gave me the second clue:

  • history of John Harnad and Talk:John Harnad has a bunch of edit-warring and ranting in the same style from 71.163.236.199, another one of the IP sock puppets I already reported here.

It seems to me we have enough circumstantial evidence here for me to legitimately request that someone check the logs if there these are in fact the same person. IOW has this "Eleven Nine" edited from the same IPs as "Luciano di Martino" &co.? I'm pasting the complete list from the archive again:

  • 71.178.115.169
  • 71.163.229.6
  • 71.191.19.40
  • 71.163.236.199
  • 71.178.106.120

I also mentioned User:Davide41 as suspicious in my AE request, but there the correlation in contributions isn't immediately clear (at least I haven't researched it enough to be more sure). If you have some extra time and believe my hunch, maybe that should be checked, too; but I'll certainly understand if this is deemed too invasive a search at this point. --Joy [shallot] (talk) 22:48, 5 February 2012 (UTC) Joy [shallot] (talk) 22:48, 5 February 2012 (UTC)[reply]

I'm not sure of your definition of 'stale' - the account Eleven Nine was active since 11 July 2011, which overlaps with most if not all of the anonymous activity periods. --Joy [shallot] (talk) 09:01, 6 February 2012 (UTC)[reply]
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
06 February 2012
Suspected sockpuppets


This doesn't really matter these days because both accounts are already indefinitely blocked, but I wanted to mention:

The pattern of all other contributions seems to generally fit, too - fascism, Italy, Croatia, etc. If I'm right, this seems to point to a pattern of sockpuppet behavior spanning well over three years. -- Joy [shallot] (talk) 20:08, 6 February 2012 (UTC)[reply]

When I read up more about this user, I saw him implicated in User:Velebit's shenanigans, but never confirmed. I read some of the older history of the latter and their writing style doesn't seem to be overly similar, though it looks like the same ISP/region was used. Does anyone see any more concrete clues? If not, I guess this can be summarily closed. --Joy [shallot] (talk) 22:20, 6 February 2012 (UTC)[reply]
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
22 June 2012
Suspected sockpuppets


PoseidonAndMedusa seems to be a WP:SPA that reminds me a lot of Luciano - editing the same kinds of articles (Luciano Laurana, Talk:Cristopher Columbus, ...) and going out of his way to battle against anything Croatian/Slavic on what they perceive as purely Italian, reverting edits they don't like ([19]). Please check that it's not the same guy all over again. Joy [shallot] (talk) 09:52, 22 June 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Another classic example - Andrea Schiavone, where they removed all mention of the person's Croatian name, even breaking WP:R#PLA given the redirect Andrija Medulić. --Joy [shallot] (talk) 10:30, 23 June 2012 (UTC)[reply]
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
08 July 2012
Suspected sockpuppets

Same IP block as before, same topic area (Italian-Croatian friendship :) same pattern of "contribution" - mass removal of anything Croatian just because they don't like it. --Joy [shallot] (talk) 19:55, 8 July 2012 (UTC)[reply]

I linked to the diff of the damage this account caused, that's behavioral evidence. If you look at the history of this abuser, their standard modus operandi is to hop across different anonymous accounts and occasionally add a named account - in the most recent case, it seems like User:PoseidonAndMedusa is it, but my request to analyze that one was declined as well. This kind of lenience towards this incessant POV pusher isn't helpful, it's letting them go on undisturbed and forcing everyone else to do more work in reverting. --Joy [shallot] (talk) 08:25, 9 July 2012 (UTC)[reply]
More time passed, and more behavioral evidence appeared:
How predictable. :( --Joy [shallot] (talk) 09:11, 10 July 2012 (UTC)[reply]
In addition, they posted this at Talk:Giulio Clovio, a talk page of an article that is completely unrelated to PoseidonAndMedusa's edits, but was last abused by Luciano's (other) sockpuppets in June last year. --Joy [shallot] (talk) 10:27, 10 July 2012 (UTC)[reply]
I enacted an initial temporary WP:ARBMAC block on PoseidonAndMedusa for a specific bit of abuse, and it resulted in this rant. This is the second time they have decided to purportedly retire in disgust, the last time was in February at WP:AE. --Joy [shallot] (talk) 09:55, 12 July 2012 (UTC)[reply]
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
15 August 2012
Suspected sockpuppets


Check out an ANI complaint by Peacemaker67 on 15 August, plus a table compiled by User:Osiris showing Velebit's activity across all Wikipedias. Velebit was blocked back in 2006, but Osiris's work suggests that he is still active through IPs. He constantly struggles to ensure that our articles on WW2 Croatian Ustashe figures are sufficiently negative. In my opinion the evidence is already good enough to block the IP, but I thought an SPI filing would help keep the records up to date. Velebit was noted for his abuse of other editors, and the IP I'm reporting here certainly carries on that tradition. Since this editor constantly cycles through IPs, I'm guessing that we will need both blocks and protections to deal with him. If semiprotection is found to be appropriate, then it will be good to have an up-to-date SPI case (this one) that can be cited as an explanation. EdJohnston (talk) 12:24, 15 August 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Comments by other users

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

Egad. Their invocation of John Harnad looks exactly like something I saw at Wikipedia:Sockpuppet investigations/Velebit/Archive#05 February 2012. --Joy [shallot] (talk) 14:18, 15 August 2012 (UTC)[reply]

I updated the link in Joy's comment above. The merge of the Luciano and Velebit cases caused the link to become red. EdJohnston (talk) 15:29, 16 August 2012 (UTC) [reply]
IOW it could all be merged here. Does anyone disagree? --Joy [shallot] (talk) 14:27, 15 August 2012 (UTC)[reply]
Very interesting. Not sure how to combine them myself (still a trainee) but that would make CU easier, and you just may be correct. Dennis Brown - 2¢ © Join WER 14:32, 15 August 2012 (UTC)[reply]
If it is not too much trouble to combine the Luciano di Martino case with this one, it would be helpful when future problems arise. I am personally much more familiar with the Luciano case. Luciano was clearly warned under WP:ARBMAC. It may not yet be generally known to admins that Luciano is the same as Velebit. The latter editor has had a couple of his IPs warned under ARBMAC, but nobody has yet mentioned Velebit's name in the log. EdJohnston (talk) 14:51, 15 August 2012 (UTC)[reply]
The connection of Luciano to Velebit is described at the bottom of that table Ed linked to above. I'm not entirely convinced they're the same person, but it's possible. It's equally possibly a case of meatpuppetry. Osiris (talk) 15:08, 15 August 2012 (UTC)[reply]
Geolocation of socks points more toward sock than meat, however. I will leave to others to make a final determination, however. Dennis Brown - 2¢ © Join WER 15:16, 15 August 2012 (UTC)[reply]
Yeah at this point they might as well be combined. They're already overlapping anyway -- both masters have some of those Verizon IPs attributed to them (which is obviously the same person), and they both share the same pattern, abusive behaviour and POV. So might as well combine them to make future reports easier. Osiris (talk) 15:36, 15 August 2012 (UTC)[reply]
Thanks for the nod, I brought it up at Wikipedia talk:Sockpuppet investigations. The archive search brings up earlier instances of merged cases, so hopefully someone who knows the exact procedure by heart will help. --Joy [shallot] (talk) 16:24, 15 August 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Thanks to DoRD, these two are now merged. However, I also found several earlier usernames, notably User:Oesterling, created on 14 November 2005, processed at Wikipedia:Requests for checkuser/Case/Purger, well predating both Purger, created on 23 December 2005, and Velebit, created on 22 August 2006. Can we move all this to "Oesterling"? --Joy [shallot] (talk) 07:23, 16 August 2012 (UTC)[reply]

I should mention that I didn't find exact documentation of the connection between "Purger" and "Velebit", but the latter was indefinitely blocked because of it, so I'm assuming it was based on behavioral evidence. --Joy [shallot] (talk) 07:28, 16 August 2012 (UTC)[reply]

A few searches later, I see that User:Dijxtra's October 2006 block is briefly described by them as inverted at User talk:Purger#Indefinite block. It was implicitly supported by User:Duja who had also noticed the same sockpuppeteering problem at User talk:Velebit in October 2006. It was subsequently explicitly supported by several other editors:

And also there's a bunch of the same from User:Rjecina, but they're banned so that doesn't mean much as such. The consensus seems clear nevertheless, with two former admins and three current ones saying the same as several other editors. --Joy [shallot] (talk) 08:07, 16 August 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Ah, there we go. Per User talk:Dominic/Archive15#Regarding_User:Velebit, while checkuser between the two accounts couldn't be done in October 2006, User:Dmcdevit told Dijxtra that "an admin might block based on similar behavior". --Joy [shallot] (talk) 08:16, 16 August 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Regarding Joy's suggestion that this case be moved to User:Oesterling, I would argue for keeping it at Velebit. Any well-known name that is sufficiently old ought to suffice, even if it is not the oldest one used by this editor. EdJohnston (talk) 15:33, 16 August 2012 (UTC)[reply]
Clerk, CheckUser, and/or patrolling admin comments
20 August 2012
Suspected sockpuppets


I just realized that we failed to note this IP as a puppet in the previous report per analysis at https://simple.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:Osiris/work/Velebit I concur with that analysis, and because the two sets of abusing IPs aren't really distinguishable, they should be tagged and blocked. Joy [shallot] (talk) 13:06, 20 August 2012 (UTC)[reply]

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
  1. ^ Nikad viđeni predmeti Ante Pavelića, Jutarnji List
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