Nickaang

Nickaang (talk+ · tag · contribs · deleted contribs · logs · filter log · block user · spi block · block log · CA · CheckUser(log) · investigate · cuwiki)
05 May 2013
Suspected sockpuppets

Appears to be a newly created account used to "Stack" AfD !Votes. reddogsix (talk) 19:29, 5 May 2013 (UTC)[reply]

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I've never ever used multiple accounts to vote in AfD since votes are not the factor for reaching a consensus but the logic and references presented on the votes. :( Anyways, since the investigation has been opened so the Admin will soon revealed that the account don't belongs to me. --MadMoron 20:10, 5 May 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Before you protest too loudly, I would suggest looking here [1]. PeterWesco (talk) 00:34, 6 May 2013 (UTC)[reply]
The only edit made by User:Vighu10081 is on the deletion discussion and the account was created on the same day the deletion discussion started. Another suspected sockpuppet User:Johnharri was created today and his first and only vote is in the deletion discussion. I request to run a checkuser against Johnharri as well. Amartyabag TALK2ME 17:31, 6 May 2013 (UTC)[reply]
Admins please reference the already completed check user that found madmoron to be part of a very large list of sockpuppets associated with already banned spammer: voidz. That Sockpuppet Investigation is here: [2] PeterWesco (talk) 19:58, 6 May 2013 (UTC)[reply]
Clerk, CheckUser, and/or patrolling admin comments
Madmoron (talk · contribs)
Mrwikidor (talk · contribs)
Rerip (talk · contribs)
Ceecily (talk · contribs)
Nightbraker (talk · contribs)
Voidz (talk · contribs) (already blocked for spamming)
Tanweer Khan (talk · contribs)
Shamim157 (talk · contribs)
Earthypedian (talk · contribs)
Annonymous Defender (talk · contribs)
Nickaang (talk · contribs)
Dejakh (talk · contribs)
And there is overlap between most, but not all, of these.[4] As such, it looks like a serial sockpuppeting case, including with one spammer. Reviewing for disposition, and possible moving if one is older than current master. Dennis Brown - 2¢ © Join WER 23:01, 6 May 2013 (UTC)[reply]
AnotherGenericUser (talk · contribs)
SlowFatKid (talk · contribs)
Additionally, the deleted contribs of Sergey5040 (talk · contribs) links him to the master as well. All three indef blocked, and tagged. Socks keep falling out of the drawer. Dennis Brown - 2¢ © Join WER 23:29, 6 May 2013 (UTC)[reply]
13 May 2013
Suspected sockpuppets


Tkgaatyum's only edits have been promotional edits to a spam page created by User:Ceecily, a checkuser-confirmed sockpuppet. Checkuser would be welcome. JamesBWatson (talk) 12:16, 13 May 2013 (UTC)[reply]

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Clerk, CheckUser, and/or patrolling admin comments
OK. Behavioural evidence is suggestive, but not conclusive, so I am willing to close this investigation. JamesBWatson (talk) 14:16, 13 May 2013 (UTC)[reply]
21 May 2013
Suspected sockpuppets

His contributions within 30 minutes of creating the account include:

Also nominating the two IP SPA socks which voted to keep at WP:Articles for deletion/Raj Luhar with similarly odd rationale. Checkuser might be needed. Captain Conundrum (talk) 15:42, 21 May 2013 (UTC) Captain Conundrum (talk) 15:42, 21 May 2013 (UTC)[reply]

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25 May 2013
Suspected sockpuppets


First edits are requesting undeletion for articles: [6] [7] that were hit by Nickaang socks in the past: [8] [9] If this isn't enough I have more evidence through OTRS. --Rschen7754 02:11, 25 May 2013 (UTC)[reply]

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Marcus.lui (talk · contribs) is currently blocked for creating attack pages and claimed via IRC that Albert.philander (talk · contribs), who is also interested in the band Wedlock, is his brother editing from the same PC. Might be worth another look. See also User talk:Marcus.lui for his unblock request. Huon (talk) 10:58, 25 May 2013 (UTC)[reply]

And the next blocked user was in IRC: Y2kdsp007 (talk · contribs) said that Bhavana.parihar (talk · contribs) is his wife (and he had disclosed the relation between those accounts on his user page), but had no explanation for the connection between their two accounts and the others. For what it's worth, both Y2kdsp007 and Marcus.lui used static IP addresses in IRC that geolocated to vastly different parts of India. Huon (talk) 13:27, 25 May 2013 (UTC)[reply]
That's easy enough to do with open proxies. Heck, even without open proxies, it's easy enough to do. I wouldn't put too much stock in that - they obviously aren't going to join IRC with the same IP address. All of these are spammy/editor for hire type accounts, so I'm not shedding too many tears if there are some false positives in there. --B (talk) 13:49, 25 May 2013 (UTC)[reply]
And Marcus.lui is back: Luiisback (talk · contribs) Huon (talk) 13:48, 25 May 2013 (UTC)[reply]
Blocked. --B (talk) 13:54, 25 May 2013 (UTC)[reply]
Clerk, CheckUser, and/or patrolling admin comments
-- DQ (ʞlɐʇ) 22:15, 25 May 2013 (UTC)[reply]
  • 1) There is no technical relation between the users. (aka Red X Unrelated)
  • 2) All but one user is  Stale.
  • 3) As I confirmed above, the first three users are related. Writeindia edits from the other side of the world compared to that group.
  • If you feel there is evidence enough to contradict the CU to issue a block, go ahead. CU is never perfect and can be evaded. -- DQ (ʞlɐʇ) 13:53, 1 June 2013 (UTC)[reply]
10 June 2013
Suspected sockpuppets

First edits were to create a user page and talk page with templates. Third edit was to create mildly promo Natural Sapphire Company, speedied G5 after creation by a sock of Nickaang. Captain Conundrum (talk) 16:55, 10 June 2013 (UTC)[reply]

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06 July 2013
Suspected sockpuppets

Spammy article on the Natural Sapphire Company has been deleted several times after recreation by a Wikipedia:Sockpuppet investigations/Nickaang/Archive.

Wikipedia talk:Articles for creation/Natural Sapphire Company showed up, created by Bittu8999, a user with no other edits. RadioFan (talk) 15:39, 6 July 2013 (UTC)[reply]

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Clerk, CheckUser, and/or patrolling admin comments
26 August 2013
Suspected sockpuppets


Only interested in Preity Uupala, a Nickaang sock creation. Jmcaafferty appears to have been created to stack votes at Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Preity Uupala. Both commented both at Wikipedia talk:Articles for deletion/Preity Uupala ([12] and [13]) and the afd. Even if not both Nickaang it is likely Jmafferty is Mshorr. duffbeerforme (talk) 04:21, 26 August 2013 (UTC)[reply]

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03 March 2015
Suspected sockpuppets

Nickaang runs a paid editing site at https://www.fiverr.com/nickaang/create-a-wikipedia-page ... he creates articles about mostly non-notable people and has had a huge number of accounts over the years.

Thanks, --B (talk) 12:55, 3 March 2015 (UTC) B (talk) 12:55, 3 March 2015 (UTC)[reply]

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Clerk, CheckUser, and/or patrolling admin comments

 Clerk note: @B: This is very confusing, particularly as I'm not familiar with this master. First, let's go over each of the listed accounts:

Thus, the only account that is not stale for CU purposes is Bosedekio. The only way to run a CU against that account is, as you say, to use Binvox. You explain the relationship, although that begs the question as to whether Wikipedia:Sockpuppet investigations/MehulWB should be merged with this case (MehulWB was created later than Nickaang). More important, you don't provide off-site links for the relationship, and it seems like it's a lot to hang our hats on anyway.

As to behavioral blocks for the stale accounts, all of those accounts seem to have been abandoned, so is it really necessary to make a finding that they are socks and block them? In addition, we have the problem, as already noted, with Bemanna, who if we blocked as a sock, would become the new master.--Bbb23 (talk) 23:42, 8 March 2015 (UTC)[reply]

If you go to [14] and scroll down, you see lots of people thanking NickAang for the work he did creating their Wikipedia page. If you click "Show More", you get some more of them. Most of them are names that I have no earthly idea what article they are thanking Nick for creating; picking out a random example, I couldn't begin to guess what article Nick created for "Norman247". (Now, he thanked Nick a month ago, so if I were to happen upon a spammy article for a non-notable company whose CEO is Norman, and whose creator fits the pattern of the Nick Aang accounts, we could guess that we've found it.)
For some of them, on the other hand, it's blatantly obvious what article they are thanking him for. For example, "Candymanvending" thanked Nick four months ago. Well, Draft:Andre Bramwell (created by Theandreb (talk · contribs)) and Candyman Vending (created by Amakaullu (talk · contribs)) both are suspicious and seem at least somewhat likely to be NickAang sockpuppets. Amakaullu, in fact, I see has already been blocked as a MehulWB sockpuppet.
Second example: Jasondoshi thanked Nick five months ago. Loanscribe's founder is Jason Doshi and that article was created almost exactly five months ago. So I'd bet Mutallyediting (talk+ · tag · contribs · deleted contribs · logs · filter log · block user · spi block · block log · CA · CheckUser(log) · investigate · cuwiki) is another Nick Aang account. (This account is not blocked, but it does not have any edits recent enough for checkuser.)
Unfortunately, there's no way to directly link to the particular entry of Nick being thanked - you have to scroll down to it. I hope this explanation helps. --B (talk) 15:00, 15 March 2015 (UTC)[reply]
Thanks, B. You have to click "Show More" multiple times, btw. I'm going to comment on each one in case I'm missing something. The user Candymenvending thanked Nick four months ago, which would be mid-November 2014. The article that relates to that is the now-deleted Candyman Vending Service. That article was created less than a month ago by the user who was blocked by a CU as a puppet of another master, MehulWB. The draft article on Andre Bramwell (related to the company Candyman) was created by a different user, Theandreb, about 3 months ago (not 4). The timings don't make sense to me. Why would Candyman thank Nick before the articles were created? Also, there's still the problem with MehulWB because, by your logic, MehulWB, instead of being a master, would be a sock of Nick as MehulWB was created years later than Nick. There've been a fair number of CUs run against accounts at Wikipedia:Sockpuppet investigations/MehulWB, including one opened and closed today. Perhaps Callanecc has an opinion on these issues?
The timing on the Jason Doshi-related Loanscribe fits nicely. It was indeed created five months ago.
How about if we tackle this from a different angle? Can you come up with diffs comparing the alleged Nick puppets with the master showing similar behavioral characteristics? Given the CU issues, that would certainly help.--Bbb23 (talk) 19:13, 15 March 2015 (UTC)[reply]
By way of preface, there may not be anything left to do here as far as a checkuser since the one non-stale account I had identified - Bosedekio - has been blocked as a MehulWB sock. I suppose the one thing potentially useful would be an "official" ruling that Nickaang = MehulWB, which means that when we're deleting creations of MehulWB socks, we can do so going back a lot further since Nick Aang was banned before MehulWB.
My assumption is that Candyman Vending Service, Candyman Vending, and Draft:Andre Bramwell were all Nickaang creations. Obviously, the thanks refers to Candyman Vending Service, but I think it's at least a reasonable assumption that NickAang was hired to create the articles subsequent to the original effort. Candyman Vending Service and Candyman Vending are the word-for-word identical text with the only difference being a few additional references in the newer article.
I agree that NickAang is the "master" account of MehulWB. (It's a difference without distinction - NickAang=MehulWB, regardless of which SPI thread the requests are kept in.) I tend to assume, though I don't know, that this farm is multiple different human beings who all work for NickAang's company. This is purely my assumption - I have no idea and have made no effort to compare edit times to see if multiple NickAang/MehulWB accounts have ever edited at the same time.
It's difficult to prove who is who from editing characteristics along who is who because there are so blessed many people now creating COI articles on companies of borderline notability. The Nickaang ones are probably the "best" (in terms of quality) ones that I see. The characteristics I notice of the accounts are (1) they NEVER have redlinked users - they always make some edit early in their history to their user page because they know that redlinked users tend to be subjected to more heightened scrutiny in patrolling recent changes. (2) They usually have a handful of edits that have nothing whatsoever to do with the non-notable businesses that he is writing articles for, presumably because if someone looks at the edits, they will look like a normal account and be less likely to get the article deleted as spam. (3) They frequently (though not always) start the article as a redirect or a draft because that exempts it from new page patrol when they actually come back to create the article. (4) The articles always have hoards of references. The references are properly formatted and look "real" for all the world, though if you examine them, most of them will be trivial or will be citing some general fact having nothing to do with the business at hand. But when you are driving by and see 10 refs at the bottom, you're much less likely to delete it.
I actually contend, for example, that Bemanna (talk · contribs) is also a part of this group - and Bemanna has existed since 2010, which would actually predate NickAang. (Again, though, I don't know that it matters which account is designated the "master".) I can't prove it, but if you look at the articles Bemanna created - Azoteq, Blue Fountain Media, Gabriel Shaoolian, Schlesinger Associates, Vanguard Properties, Wyndham Capital Mortgage, Webydo, EduKart, Web Start Today - this is obviously somebody's paid editing account. Can I prove it's Nickaang's paid editing account? Not really, no. --B (talk) 00:06, 16 March 2015 (UTC)[reply]
@Bbb23:, I added Spdydre (talk · contribs) as another not stale one to check. This user created the deleted Andre bramwell (head of Candyman vending) a year ago and left a (meaningless) message on my talk page today, so this account is not stale. --B (talk) 14:24, 17 March 2015 (UTC)[reply]

Self-endorsed by clerk for checkuser attention. @B: I must say I'm fairly confused as to what your goal is here. On the one hand, you seem to want to establish Nick as the master rather than MehulWB, but on the other hand, you don't seem to care who the master is as long as we block those accounts that are being disruptive. That said, I'm willing to endorse a limited CU that will also have limited impact on the ultimate issue (MehulWB vs. Nick). The accounts to be checked would be Bosedekio, which was CU-blocked to MehulWB; Bemanna, which is not stale but has never been blocked; and Spdydre, which has made very few edits but has made one non-stale edit (btw, sometimes one edit isn't enough for a checkuser to reach a conclusion). The CU's findings, assuming they accept the endorsement, may or may not connect any of this to Nick. In theory, they should all be connected to MehulWB. If they are, it still begs the question of whether MehulWB = Nick. However, it would add some credence to your suspicions given that you believe they are connected to Nick's activities. If, on the other hand, there is a mixed result, it tends to reduce the weight of your suspicions. Finally, if you think there's the possibility of multiple individuals (not accounts) helping Nick, the CU will be worthless as it doesn't catch meat puppets unless there's a reason why they would all be editing from the same geographic location.--Bbb23 (talk) 17:24, 17 March 2015 (UTC)[reply]

Bosedekio (talk+ · tag · contribs · deleted contribs · logs · filter log · block user · spi block · block log · CA · CheckUser(log) · investigate · cuwiki) is  Confirmed as MehulWB.
Bemanna (talk+ · tag · contribs · deleted contribs · logs · filter log · block user · spi block · block log · CA · CheckUser(log) · investigate · cuwiki) is  Stale (I think you read their last edit as Feb 2015 instead of Feb 2014...).
Spdydre (talk+ · tag · contribs · deleted contribs · logs · filter log · block user · spi block · block log · CA · CheckUser(log) · investigate · cuwiki) is Red X Unrelated to any other account.
Nothing to indicate that any of these three is related to NickAang, leastways not directly. Sorry - doesn't tell you anything you didn't already know, I'm afraid. Yunshui 雲水 14:18, 18 March 2015 (UTC)[reply]
@Yunshui:@Bbb23:, Okay, thanks for looking into it. I think my original request was somewhat obviated anyway since, subsequent to me making the original request, Bosedekio was blocked as a MehulWB sock. And since all of the CU-proven Nickaang socks were blocked so long ago, I realize that Checkuser is probably not going to be able to make the link there. Thanks again. --B (talk) 23:00, 18 March 2015 (UTC)[reply]
Actually, the CU (despite my mistake) did tell us one thing. Spdydre is unrelated to anyone. I'm not persuaded, despite B's valiant efforts, that any action is justified here. Closing.--Bbb23 (talk) 23:26, 18 March 2015 (UTC)[reply]
23 March 2015
Suspected sockpuppets

Nickaang runs a paid editing site which can verified here and uses multiple accounts this job was earlier done by User:Rerip a currently blocked sockpuppet.User:Rerip created an article David Gaz now Katiebade has recreated it as Laurence David Gaz .Please refer to this User:Doc James/SPI and has knowledge of the previous edits done and per this and it is recreated using the same sources and shows in good knowledge in going for a deletion review .On a side note it is being created violation of TOS.The user clearly fails WP:DUCK. Pharaoh of the Wizards (talk) 21:01, 23 March 2015 (UTC)[reply]

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  • @B: Are we sure? I am not very familiar with that case, but I checked Wikipedia:Sockpuppet investigations/MehulWB/Archive, and Nickaang is not even mentioned. Vanjagenije (talk) 22:51, 30 March 2015 (UTC)[reply]
    • 110%. John E. Lincoln was created by checkuser-confirmed MehulWB sock Bosedekio (talk · contribs). If you go to [15], you will see johnelincoln is a regular Nickaang customer. Binvox (talk · contribs) (another checkuser-confirmed MehulWB sock) created Ignite Visibility (John E. Lincoln's company) in July 2014. Johnelincoln thanked Nick 7 months ago, which is Augustish, or, a few weeks after the article was created. Checkuser-confirmed MehulWB sock Amakaullu (talk · contribs) created Candyman Vending on February 21. Candyman Vending is another Nickaang customer. Hairline Illusions was initially created by Checkuser-confirmed Nickaang sock Voidz (talk · contribs). It was re-created a year and a half later by Ivankabel (talk · contribs). Though the blocking admin didn't specify who Ivankabel was a sock of, if you look at the blocking admin's logs for the time that he was blocked, he was blocking MehulWB socks. Alia Janine was created in 2013 by Nickaang sock Earthypedian (talk · contribs) and then re-created in 2014 by MehulWB sock ThePinkishMan (talk · contribs). So if they're not the same people, they sure share a lot of the same customers. (I have always assumed that it's not actually just one person - it's a company.) --B (talk) 00:36, 31 March 2015 (UTC)[reply]
    • FYI, while preparing this, I noticed that MehulWB-authored Tom Gildred is a blue link again and I have added its creator to Wikipedia:Sockpuppet investigations/MehulWB. --B (talk) 00:44, 31 March 2015 (UTC)[reply]

07 September 2015

Suspected sockpuppets
 Comment: - Already blocked by Courcelles, [16]. 220 of Borg 08:10, 7 September 2015 (UTC)[reply]

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18 December 2015

Suspected sockpuppets


This user created Richmond Practice, which is associated with Nickaang. Since this is the second potential sock that's popped up in the last few months, it might not be a bad idea to perform a sweep, which is the main reason I'm posting this. I've already blocked and tagged the user. Tokyogirl79 (｡◕‿◕｡) 04:37, 18 December 2015 (UTC)[reply]

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