Wikipedia:Sockpuppet investigations/Aliweb/Archive

Report date August 20 2009, 16:22 (UTC)

 * Suspected sockpuppets




 * Evidence submitted by Athaenara

See also:
 * article and Talk:Aliweb/Archive 1
 * Conflict of interest/Noticeboard/Archive 1
 * User talk:Athaenara/Archive 4

User Aliweb, apparently the proprietor and/or lead programmer of a website called aliweb.com, began edit warring on the Aliweb article more than three years ago. The pattern this year has been to change the introduction and delete a referenced paragraph (using other anonIPs as well, e.g. 74.140.183.179 in April and 74.131.155.13 in May). The first sock on the list above (registered today) performed a single such edit to the article before being blocked.

Aside from this user's edits, the article has been stable for quite some time. I'm requesting this investigation because the slow edit warring has gone on for so long, has become so tedious, and the recent escalation with the registration of an intentionally offensive username suggests that the account reported here is the sockmaster and may qualify for blocking. — Athaenara ✉  16:22, 20 August 2009 (UTC)


 * Comments by accused parties    See Defending yourself against claims.

Due to the clearly abusive account name, I support the use of checkuser to investigate further. Blocking the IP for at least a month shold be considered. The abusive account name is already indeffed as a uw-uhblock. The Aliweb article had serious COI problems two years ago but has been sorted out and is reasonable at the moment. Athaenara's use of semiprotection on Aliweb seems justified, since it is hard to consider the IP to be editing in good faith. A bunch of 12.* and 74.* IPs were identified in the Aliweb entry in Conflict of interest/Noticeboard/Archive 1. Some editors, named as being COI-affected in the COIN report, were trying to make www.aliweb.com into a kind of legitimate successor to the original Aliweb 'search engine', which retains a sort of antique notability as being the first somethingorother from the early 1990s. Other editors felt that aliweb.com was just recycling the name for commercial purposes and no connection at all to the original Aliweb innovations. The COI-affected editors seemed to be pushing the greatness of Aliweb and the continuing significance of aliweb.com. The abusive account and the IP named in this report are presumably of that ilk. The warring editors are unlikely to have any connection to Martijn Koster, the original Aliweb developer. If Athaenara has any concerns at all about taking action while involved, she could post at WP:AN for review, though the semiprotection was only for a week. I think six months of semi would be justified, due to the extreme persistence. EdJohnston (talk) 17:04, 20 August 2009 (UTC)
 * Comments by other users


 * I forgot that the SPI complaint named User:Aliweb as the sockmaster. I would support an indef block of this account. Due to his return to aggressively-promotional editing after 2.5 years, it seems that the previous COI warnings had no effect. Per previous COI discussions he is presumably the webmaster of aliweb.com. Take a look at www.aliweb.com (an apparent linkfarm) if you are tempted to think that he has any good-faith arguments on this side of the debate or that he could be the legit successor of the original Aliweb. If you think that content arguments should not be used in an SPI, then just weigh the issue on the documented misbehavior. EdJohnston (talk) 17:36, 20 August 2009 (UTC)

Requested by — Athaenara ✉  16:22, 20 August 2009 (UTC)
 * CheckUser requests


 * Clerk, patrolling admin and checkuser comments


 * Whoops, should have noted this on my initial edit (might have spared EdJohnston the effort). . Nathan  T 18:00, 20 August 2009 (UTC)


 * FYI - the sockmaster still needs to be blocked. Nathan  T 18:28, 20 August 2009 (UTC)


 * (PeterSymonds blocked the main account). — Athaenara ✉  19:18, 20 August 2009 (UTC)

✅ The two users share the listed IP and other technical information. There are no other users on that IP at current. Improper name pages deleted and name hidden from userlist. -- Avi (talk) 18:00, 20 August 2009 (UTC)
 * Conclusions
 * ✅. Nishkid64 (Make articles, not wikidrama) 17:57, 20 August 2009 (UTC)