Wikipedia:Sockpuppet investigations/Afkun/Archive

27 January 2014

 * Suspected sockpuppets




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I don't know how to track down IP addresses, but as you'll see, the other evidence is extremely compelling and it is therefore my hypothesis that Mzilikazi1939 and Afkun are one and the same. In May/June 2012, Mzilikazi1939's 1.5-year-long edit war surrounding the article Aesop's Fables came to an end after I noticed what had been going on, reverted the changes that he had been enforcing by bullying and argued with him on several different pages. He finally conceded defeat here, after his canvassing, lying, suggestions of article ownership and misleading complaints to administrators all failed. Note his description given for the edit logs is a misspelling of the Buddhist greeting "sukhi hotu".

After the Aesop's Fables edit war, I pretty much stopped editing Wikipedia. I had been the main opponent to Mzilikazi1939's illegal changes and, in February 2013, he must have seen his chance to go back on his word and try his luck all over again. This time, however, he used his original account by the name of Afkun, which had become inactive in 2009 but then resumed editing articles related to a particular cartoon at the end of 2012, seemingly in preparation for use in his second edit war. On 2 February 2013, Afkun, a very inactive user who up until then had only edited articles related to 30 Rock, Urusei Yatsura and a cat disease, made the same illegal changes to Aesop's Fables that Mzilikazi1939 had been trying to enforce via bullying in the first edit war. This was immediately reverted here but Mzilikazi, an extremely active user, returned to Aesop's Fables at once to enforce his will here, just like he had done for 1.5 years in the first edit war 123456...11.

I had made the occasional edit to Wikipedia since that edit war but it was only a few days ago that I noticed that Mzilikazi1939 had gone back on his word and was trying to hijack Aesop's Fables all over again. I set it right here and when Mzilikazi1939/Afkun tried again here, that's when I put 2 and 2 together so to speak and realised what he had done in February.

The User:Afkun account was created in 2006, made one edit related to 30 Rock (season 3) in 2009 and then never used Wipipedia again until a few months after the first Aesop's Fables edit war. In this second burst of activity, he edited articles related to the Japanese cartoon Urusei Yatsura, made one innocuous change to Feline leukemia virus and finally (and most controversially) made the illegal edit to Aesop's Fables in a move that was completely out of character for this cartoon-loving veterinarian. The User:Mzilikazi1939 account was created in 2010 and, ever since the beginning, has been extremely active, almost exclusively editing articles about children's stories and medical researchers such as Edward Lowbury and Heinrich Steinhowel. It is therefore not difficult at all to conclude that Mzilikazi1939, the medical professional with an obsession with childhood stories, is in fact the same person as Afkun, the cartoon-loving veterinarian. On consecutive days, they came to the Aesop's Fables article to begin a second edit war. WP Editor 2011 (talk) 00:34, 27 January 2014 (UTC)

Comments by other users
''Accused parties may also comment/discuss in this section below. See Defending yourself against claims.'' Here we have an editor, WP Editor 2011, who has been blocked twice for editwarring over WP:ERA. There was a discussion in May 2012 at Talk:Aesop dates where there were 4 !votes for BCE/CE and none against, although WP Editor 2011 made various complaints about the process, etc. There was a bit of edit-warring over dates but it was mainly still BC after that (I'd assumed it has been changed and it was off my watch list). 2 days ago Mzilikazi1939 changed it to BCE with the edit summary "Converted to Common Era dates following consensus on the Talk Page" WP Editor reverted with the edit summary "Undid changes of yesterday because, contrary to what was claimed in the edit summary, there was not even discussion on the talk page, let alone consensus" which of course is flat out wrong. User:Johnbod reverted him with the summary "rvt date return - consensus at Talk:Aesop#B.2FCE_dates is clear. This is becoming disruptive - please stop!" This SPI may be the result of this disagreement. Dougweller (talk) 13:10, 28 January 2014 (UTC)
 * Apologies, I didn't read the block log carefully enough. He was indeed blocked twice but the first block was reverted by FPaS for "abuse of the admin toolkit". Dougweller (talk) 13:48, 28 January 2014 (UTC)
 * Agree with the above. Johnbod (talk) 21:27, 28 January 2014 (UTC)
 * This page is purely for the sock puppet investigation. Regardless of whether you support the status quo or Mzilikazi's hijacked version of Aesop's Fables, it is clear that he used a sock puppet by the name of Afkun. Dougweller, you were on the side of the edit warrior Mzilikazi1939 in the first edit war, so it's hardly appropriate for you to come here and mislead the administrators in this investigation. Johnbod, you clearly don't know all the facts about Mzilikazi's first edit war and you're getting the details wrong. You should stay out of it because all you're doing is creating a bigger mess. Besides, you were canvassed by Mzilikazi, so your opinion on this matter is entirely invalid.(WP Editor 2011 (talk) 00:11, 29 January 2014 (UTC))
 * It would never be appropriate for me to mislead anyone. But !voting on the same side as any other editor doesn't disqualify them from commenting, nor does being canvassed, which has again not a reason to participate. What I'm seeing is a pattern of you telling people they shouldn't participate in a discussion about WP:ERA on the relevant talk pages because they've been canvassed, and bringing an SPI against someone else whose position you disagree with. I also seew an editor who uses edit summaries to mislead, eg at Europa Universalis IV your edit summary "improved wording" removed the C.E. era style. With a few minor exceptions, all of your edits relate to changing BCE/CE edits to BC/AD. Dougweller (talk) 08:38, 29 January 2014 (UTC)
 * Dougweller, as I said already, I brought this SPI case because I realised that Mzilikazi1939 was using a sock puppet. The other issues relating to his latest edit war, while certainly reprehensible, are not evidence for this case. My actions are even more irrelevant here. In fact, they have no relevance whatsoever; I'm merely the person who first realised that Mzilikazi was using a sock puppet. No amount of ad hominem arguments against me will ever change the fact that Mzilikazi used a sock puppet by the name of Afkun. All you're doing here is filibustering to make it difficult for anyone to understand the sock puppetry. If you want to whinge about Aesop or any other articles, you should already know where the correct place to do so is. (Hint: it's not here). (WP Editor 2011 (talk) 10:40, 29 January 2014 (UTC))
 * WP Editor 2011: as I said below, I'm not convinced on the evidence presented so could you please present at least two diffs of the suspected sockpuppet and master showing the same or a similar behaviour characteristic? Callanecc (talk • contribs • logs) 10:51, 29 January 2014 (UTC)
 * I thought I already explained their behaviour clearly but, since it's so important that this edit-warring puppeteer be exposed, I'll show you some more diffs. As I said, Mzilikazi1939 edits articles about medical researchers like Edward Lowbury and Heinrich Steinhowel. Here are diffs of edits to those articles: 1 2 3 4. Here, Afkun edited the article Feline leukemia virus. Almost all of Mzilikazi's hundreds of edits relate to children's stories eg 1, 2, 3, 4 and 5. Similarly, all but three of Afkun's 18 edits relate to a particular cartoon. His list of contributions would be a more appropriate place to look, given his small edit count. All of Afkun's edits were uncontroversial except his one and only edit to Aesop's Fables here. That was reverted by User:Davidiad later that day and, the very next day, Mzilikazi1939 instituted the same change here that Afkun had tried to make. This was the same illegal change that Mzilikazi1939 had been trying to maintain in his 1.5-year edit war, which he lost in June 2012. In that edit war, we saw him use bullying (diffs shown already in the original post), canvassing (example), ad hominem arguments (example, again), straw man arguments (example, again) and red herrings (example) and he also lied in pretty much everything he wrote in the last days of the edit war, so using a sock puppet is exactly the kind of thing he would do. Note that in Afkun's edit summary for Aesop's Fables, he sarcastically wrote "Changed the "BC"s to "BCE." Nothing exciting." so he was clearly aware of the trouble he was causing and was teasing those of us trying to protect the article from his shenanigans. As I'm sure you'll realise from looking at the list of Afkun's contributions, this edit was completely out of character for him but is just the kind of thing that Mzilikazi would do. Immediately after it happened, Mzilikazi appeared at Aesop's Fables to protect the work of Afkun. A remarkable coincidence? I think not. (WP Editor 2011 (talk) 13:44, 29 January 2014 (UTC))
 * Callanec, I don't know why you say the history is convoluted; I covered all of the major details and not much more so that you wouldn't find it confusing. As for the CheckUser investigation, it's quite likely that Mzilikazi1939/Afkun will avoid detection, since Mzilikazi1939 admits to regularly travelling all around the world, particularly to Taiwan. (WP Editor 2011 (talk) 14:25, 29 January 2014 (UTC))

Clerk, CheckUser, and/or patrolling admin comments

 * I'm not convinced based on the evidence presented so far, but I'll leave it for others who are more experienced to decide. Callanecc (talk • contribs • logs) 07:18, 27 January 2014 (UTC)
 * I'm not 100% sure that we've fulfilled the criteria for Checkuser, but given the convoluted history and debate above it might be the only way to solve the issue. Callanecc (talk • contribs • logs) 14:07, 29 January 2014 (UTC)
 * The accounts are ❌. ​—DoRD (talk)​ 14:33, 29 January 2014 (UTC)
 * Closing with no action per CU findings. Mark Arsten (talk) 16:13, 29 January 2014 (UTC)