SpareSeiko

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

26 January 2021

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Suspected sockpuppets

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I noticed at Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Lesmahagow High School the nominator Pilean had few edits and an AFD such as that seemed unusual. Looking for other similar accounts I found three (Akronowner, Sliekid and another, probably Setreis) but did not open a case here at the time. As well as similar nominations Akronowner and Pilean created their talk pages with the same templates, probably copied from a user who had been in a dispute in which Sliekid was also involved (that user is unlikely to be a sockpuppet). More recently there was a dispute at W. Mark Lanier where Sliekid reverted to a version by Akronowner; there was also a discussion at Wikipedia:Administrators' noticeboard/Incidents in which Akronowner and Sliekid participated. Looking for the accounts again, I found Setreis, Pumpsdups and Mayoticks all with similar contributions. At https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Wikipedia:Administrators%27_noticeboard/Incidents&oldid=1002977058#Additional_note_regarding_recent_edits_to_Wikipedia_page_for_W._Mark_Lanier is correct it's a possible reason for them creating multiple accounts for use at AFD. Peter James (talk) 22:41, 26 January 2021 (UTC)[reply]

Comments by other users

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I was about to open a case on Akronowner but will add it here since this SPI is not closed yet and involves some of the same accounts. My impression is these are sophisticated accounts, possibly running an extortion racket, and will not be traceable by IP but by behavior. The evidence:

Ok so all of this is pretty confusing and devious. The question is what is going on. The answer is a simple extortion scheme, and when it got thwarted they took revenge on Lanier himself by creating the fake account User:Laniermark to try and make him look stupid, and also attempted to get me blocked in revenge for thwarting their activity. -- GreenC 03:09, 27 January 2021 (UTC)[reply]

Hi, GreenC! Sorry for reverting your edits. I was just busy in other work that's why I was not able to answer your concerns. Yes, You are a well-known entity, It is just I got confused by the points made by LanierMark account and at the same time, you were trying to fix the page and were removing the COI tags. It is what made me suspicious and I reported that to admins. My intentions were never to blame or accuse you. I am deeply sorry if any of this caused any issues. You are doing great work for this community. Your experience and dedication to Wikipedia work are marvellous. Editors like you should be always appreciated. As I am still learning Wikipedia daily. I hope you can guide me whenever I need help. I look forward to becoming one of your disciples to be a great editor like you and other respected editors. Sliekid (talk) 07:12, 27 January 2021 (UTC)[reply]

Clerk, CheckUser, and/or patrolling admin comments

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04 February 2021

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Suspected sockpuppets

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All voting the same way on Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Jay Feldman, originally created by Otisoagt. All three accounts show signs of being UPEs or sleepers. Setreis and Akronowner have obvious big-picture behavior similarities. I'm not going into detail on-wiki for opsec reasons except that Akronowner created the spam page Chi City (artist). Special:History/Draft:Jerry McLaughlin (artist) is also strange. MER-C 19:55, 4 February 2021 (UTC)[reply]

Comments by other users

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Interesting - note that this editor has been accused of Orangemoody behaviour, see Wikipedia:Administrators' noticeboard/Incidents#"Being held ransom to delete the page unless we pay" comment at AfD. I'd support a CU check. Pahunkat (talk) 13:45, 7 February 2021 (UTC)[reply]

Previous CU came up empty but of course anyone can easily use a distributed VPN so it doesn't mean anything. -- GreenC 13:52, 7 February 2021 (UTC)[reply]
There are other similar accounts at AFD recently - Cuoxo, Lidsdonne, SpareSeiko and Woinfosd. Some of the articles they nominated for deletion (particularly by Cuoxo) are from accounts with similar contributions to their own. I also noticed Special:Contributions/Venusecxces, an account created in 2019 and inactive here until last month. I'm not sure of a link there because of too few contributions and no overlap so far, but they created an article in the French Wikipedia in 2019 and checking the title here, an article was deleted after the editor who created it (Nickthestigg) was blocked as a sockpuppet of a banned user. Peter James (talk) 20:22, 7 February 2021 (UTC)[reply]
Perhaps Lidsdonne and Venusecxces should be added to the list of suspected sockpuppets. BlackcurrantTea (talk) 03:51, 9 February 2021 (UTC)[reply]
Agreed, and I have enough evidence to block both of them for spamming. fr:Paddy Adenuga (Paddy Adenuga) is a Wikipedia:Sockpuppet investigations/Seokochin article. Pilean is also suspicious. MER-C 12:49, 9 February 2021 (UTC)[reply]
Should this SPI be put on hold? Pahunkat (talk) 13:25, 9 February 2021 (UTC)[reply]
What is your thinking? -- GreenC 13:47, 9 February 2021 (UTC)[reply]
If arbcom's looking into the issue, this could take a while. There's not much reason for this to be left about in the mainstream CU requests in the meantime, the same happened with the Orangemoody SPI. Editors are free to add to the SPI even when on hold. Pahunkat (talk) 15:40, 9 February 2021 (UTC)[reply]
Just seeing this at random, but @RoySmith: as someone reasonably active in AfD, I'd definitely expect the majority of AfDs to be made via Twinkle. Obviously irrelevant in this case, but perhaps worth considering in the future. Vaticidalprophet (talk) 11:19, 10 February 2021 (UTC)[reply]

In round 2 of the AfD we had three SPAs voting the other way before attempting to change some of the votes, all have been blocked for disruptive editing (One admitted that another was their account at WP:AN. Pahunkat (talk) 20:11, 10 February 2021 (UTC)[reply]

Recent comments about another account are similar to what has been said about Akronowner [1][2] - contributions are Special:Contributions/Tbyros. I also noticed Special:Contributions/LucyLucy - a few edits in 2017, including creation of a spam article, then it looks like no more contributions until today, when they participated in several AFDs. Peter James (talk) 14:08, 15 February 2021 (UTC)[reply]

LucyLucy I blocked as part of Wikipedia:Sockpuppet investigations/Niceguylucky. MER-C 20:03, 19 February 2021 (UTC)[reply]

Cuoxo recently made a request for deletion review of the Feldman article [3]. Peter James (talk) 19:39, 4 March 2021 (UTC)[reply]

Adding to that, Cuoxo seems to have no knowledge about notability. Like if you see the recent AFDs done by him seems clearly notable. I would suggest undoing the AFDs done by him and warn him of his actions. Dinktods (talk) 14:42, 6 March 2021 (UTC)[reply]

Dinktods, this is inappropriate. For whatever reason Cuoxo, has been unblocked, which seems doubtful has much of anything to do with your singular dispute over that one biography whose AfD you've contested. And, which at this time, you seem to represent an WP:SPA for. El_C 16:07, 6 March 2021 (UTC)[reply]

Clerk, CheckUser, and/or patrolling admin comments

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20 March 2021

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Suspected sockpuppets

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This is a filing of some new and some previously filed SpareSeiko accounts with a more comprehensive behavioural examination. While some of them were found to be technically unrelated in the first filing, the use of proxies here makes it possible that we're looking at false negatives in some cases, and the general MO of this group indicates that there may also be meatpuppetry at play, at least partially – either way, it's illegitimate use of multiple accounts. I worked on this together with MarioGom, who did a large chunk of the work (many thanks!).

General behaviour

Full interaction report.

Specific instances
  • New Antique Records
    • Delete: Lesliechin1 08:50, 15 March 2021
    • Delete: Citterz 09:25, 15 March 2021
  • Neeraj Kumar Singal
    • Delete: Miaminsurance 01:25, 11 March 2021
    • Delete: Grailcombs 14:39, 11 March 2021
  • Brett Leboff
    • Delete: Miaminsurance 00:32, 17 March 2021
    • Delete: Setreis 17:29, 17 March 2021
  • Cat Hope
    • Keep: Lesliechin1 05:04, 26 January 2021
    • Keep: Luciapop 10:31, 26 January 2021
  • Ashley Buchanan
    • Nom: Setreis 15:18, 17 March 2021
    • Delete: Grailcombs 20:03, 18 March 2021
    • Keep: Miaminsurance 01:36, 19 March 2021
  • Steph Korey
    • Delete: Grailcombs 20:06, 18 March 2021
    • Delete: Miaminsurance 01:33, 19 March 2021
  • Resmi R Nair
    • Delete: Sliekid 16:47, 9 March 2021
    • Delete: Grailcombs 17:04, 13 March 2021
  • Jeffrey Goh
    • Redirect: Grailcombs 14:52, 11 March 2021
    • Redirect: Lesliechin1 09:16, 15 March 2021
  • Robbert Rietbroek
    • Keep: Ambrosiawater 05:28, 24 October 2020
    • Keep: Sliekid 05:37, 6 November 2020
  • P. K. Firos
    • Delete: Ambrosiawater 19:19, 8 March 2021
    • Delete: Setreis 16:56, 17 March 2021
  • Jan Herberts
    • Merge: Sliekid 16:32, 9 March 2021 (copied previous vote)
    • Keep: Setreis 17:26, 17 March 2021
  • Mr. Roboto Project (2nd nomination)
    • Keep: Lesliechin1 05:34, 10 March 2021
    • Keep: Grailcombs 16:56, 13 March 2021
  • Michael Gruen
    • Delete: Miaminsurance 19:56, 11 March 2021
    • Delete: Lesliechin1 09:17, 15 March 2021
  • Mark Whitney
    • Nom: Akronowner 18:23, 15 January 2021
    • Redirect: Setreis 08:27, 19 January 2021 (same as previous !vote)
  • IAMEVE
    • Delete: Lesliechin1 08:48, 15 March 2021
    • Delete: Pilean 17:00, 15 March 2021
  • Jennifer Yu Cheng (?)
    • Nomi: Gritmem 17:53, 9 March 2021 (blocked AFD sock)
    • Comment: Miaminsurance 01:18, 11 March 2021
    • Keep: Lesliechin1 09:14, 15 March 2021

--Blablubbs|talk 18:38, 20 March 2021 (UTC)[reply]

Comments by other users

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

Sorry, I don't have time to investigate much of anything at this time (especially seemingly in the blind). Also, regardless, unlike Oshwah, I do not have the CU permission. El_C 18:21, 12 April 2021 (UTC)[reply]
Thanks El_C for your precious response. Also, tagging other listed users who are completely unaware of this as they are not notified by the SPI nominator. As per the rules you shoud first notify the users for whom you are launching the investigation. Tagging Mayoticks, Pilean, Sliekid, Setreis, Grailcombs, Sugarikon, Miaminsurance. Some of these users are inactive for months. So, may likely not respond but let's wait for these users response on this. Citterz (talk) 19:00, 12 April 2021 (UTC)[reply]
User:Citterz Thanks for the ping. I think this should end here now because the User:1BlueBerry who launched SPI against me was a sock himself. So, it doesn't make any point to list me here. It's quite hard to revert vandalism when you get asked questions for your good works. It really discourages and toughens the process to fight spam. Also, I see my account listed to be fully clear here, I don't have any sort of connection with the above accounts listed nor I do any edits for any compensation. All my work is volunteer side. Also, It's quite common to have 2-3 common overlap in AFDs Blablubbs when your most edits are related to fighting Vandals and advert spam articles. Setreis (talk) 19:29, 12 April 2021 (UTC)[reply]

Hi there, I have been more active on Wikipedia lately and have found the articles for deletion process to be kind of interesting, so I have weighed in. I only have one account and am not affiliated with any of the others mentioned above. As I mentioned on my own talk page, I also found the conflict of interest debates to be interesting and sought out a few pages that had the COI template but didn't seem to have any discussion of it. I have since learned that this behavior is frowned upon and I have backed away from it. I'm going to "stay in my lane" in the future. 2600:1700:6F10:E90:C9E4:D614:CA16:4278 (talk) 20:11, 12 April 2021 (UTC)[reply]

Comment Definitely not a sockpuppet. I was just eager to help out with reviewing articles requested for deletion. You can see that I am actually contributing meaningfully to discussions on AFDs here: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Articles_for_deletion/Matthew_Schellhorn — can an Admin explain why I am being targeted? This feels like a way to discourage people from helping. Bebopjohnson (talk) 02:06, 13 April 2021 (UTC)[reply]

CaptainEek I can assure you that I am not part of any sockpuppet farm. Each year, I spend my spring and summer in a rural area of New England in a neighborhood where we are all working off of a single Ubiquiti AirFiber connection that connects to my neighbor's router with DSL as a backup. We have four houses on this private dirt road, all using basically one internet connection, with at least 11 adults and 7 kids. I am positive some of my neighbors use Wikipedia too, but that doesn't make us sockpuppets of each other! In any case, even if I was using multiple accounts (which isn't against policy), I've not being doing anything illegitimate or untowards on Wikipedia. Bebopjohnson (talk) 02:38, 13 April 2021 (UTC)[reply]
Bebopjohnson, Your clarification is appreciated and helpful :) CaptainEek Edits Ho Cap'n! 02:39, 13 April 2021 (UTC)[reply]
CaptainEek I'm glad! I saw your note on my talk page and will followup as soon as possible tomorrow (it is late here!). This will teach me not to poke into the parts of Wikipedia I don't understand well ever again! Sorry if I caused you any trouble! :D Bebopjohnson (talk) 03:06, 13 April 2021 (UTC)[reply]

Clerk, CheckUser, and/or patrolling admin comments

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16 March 2021

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Suspected sockpuppets

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This user is behaving same as the Akronowner, I think this is also a sockpuppet because, Setreis sock is just nominating other articles for deletion like the user Akronowner past contribution and also check the past contribution history of the user Akronowner BlueBerry Talk 16:20, 16 March 2021 (UTC)[reply]

Comments by other users

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

Filer, based on the global account log, was compromised by Arshifa and is not a sock. JavaHurricane 16:05, 9 April 2021 (UTC)[reply]
(Didn't receive ping as I turned them off due to abuse). Yeah, I know, saw your post that the filer was locked as a sock, just wanted to clarify that. (Otherwise there might be some who'd call the otherwise good faith filer a sock without looking at the log, as I almost did myself.) JavaHurricane 16:13, 9 April 2021 (UTC)[reply]
Blablubbs Can you explain your reason behind the block judgment? Despite checking these user contributions they are all under Wikipedia guidelines and rules. They just nominated this user article creation for which he got mad and launched a sockpuppet investigation which later resulted in a compromised account of his own. So, I don't see a reason to suggest a block for this user. Citterz (talk) 18:11, 12 April 2021 (UTC)[reply]

Clerk, CheckUser, and/or patrolling admin comments

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30 March 2021

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Suspected sockpuppets

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Makes an account and then immediately starts voting delete in AfDs. Similar behavior but might not be a sock of one of these, but a CU would be useful because Lesscynical basically has to be a sock of someone. Noah 💬 17:35, 30 March 2021 (UTC)[reply]

Comments by other users

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

It looks like there are two unrelated groups of accounts - SpareSeiko and similar accounts in one, and a few accounts such as Miaminsurance in the other. Most of those in the first group looked unrelated according to checkuser evidence; I don't know if it's the same with the second group. The contributions of Lesscynical look more like Miaminsurance. Peter James (talk) 10:31, 31 March 2021 (UTC)[reply]

Clerk, CheckUser, and/or patrolling admin comments

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19 April 2021

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Suspected sockpuppets

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Badgering delete voters at Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Mauricio Ramos (businessman) (2nd nomination), a renomination of Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Mauricio Ramos (businessman). The latter was overrun by SpareSeiko socks. I don't expect to find any additional accounts, but determining whether proxies and UA spoofers are used would be useful. MER-C 12:42, 19 April 2021 (UTC)[reply]

Comments by other users

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

Clerk, CheckUser, and/or patrolling admin comments

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