Wikipedia:Sockpuppet investigations/Artin Mehraban/Archive

19 October 2015

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History of Persia was recently blocked for consistent copyvios, and Persia10101 immediately popped up from dormancy to resume his edits, including recreating an article that had been recently deleted for copyright issues from HoP. I initially blocked Persia10101 as a sock of HoP, but realized on further investigation of Persia10101's history that a prior account was obviously involved, Artin Mehraban. I don't want to detail the tells here unless I must, but they relate to edit patterns and presentation. Artin Mehraban was also blocked for copyright issues as well as for hoaxing. Since HoP kept a sock in the drawer, I think there's a reasonable chance there are others. If copyright issues and hoaxing are involved, I think it's worth looking and hope you will agree. I know the master account's information is stale, but the two socks are both recently active. Moonriddengirl (talk) 12:31, 19 October 2015 (UTC)
 * Holy moly. I fully endorse this. There is plenty of deception going on and running CU is justified. Drmies (talk) 14:53, 19 October 2015 (UTC)

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 * and are ✅ to each other. Adjusted tags. I did a relatively deep probe for sleepers, which takes a while, and I found none. Closing.--Bbb23 (talk) 20:22, 19 October 2015 (UTC)

24 October 2015

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I'm not sure whether History of Persia/Persia1001 needs to be splitted off the Artin Mehraban case as Bbb23‎ didn't mention their relatedness to Artin Mehraban, but only to each other (see the previous filed SPI), but anyways.

History of Persia is as of currently 100% avoiding scrutiny through various IP ranges, reinstating the exact same edits made by History of Persia and socks of him. As its a pretty long range, a range block would be sufficient to counter his hoax/copy-vio edits, as he's avoiding scrutiny and performing a block evasion. The list of targeted articles is furthermore huge too, so semi-protecting them would be kinda futile. If some further diffs are needed, please let me know, but its all pretty recent following History of Persia's indef block so it shouldn't be needed (I think). - (talk) 16:06, 24 October 2015 (UTC) LouisAragon (talk) 16:06, 24 October 2015 (UTC)


 * Alright, thanks for your explaination Bbb23! Thats some useful archived info we can keep for further SPI's. I forgot to leave a comment as it was closed fast. Bests - LouisAragon (talk) 11:53, 27 October 2015 (UTC)

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 * If you revisit the archives, you'll see that noted that the master was . Therefore, it was impossible for me to technically relate the two accounts to the master. That has since changed when the master posted to his Talk page admitting the sock puppetry. It also enabled me to conclude now that the three accounts are ✅.
 * As for the range blocks, I looked at ranges used by this master when I checked the two accounts in the archives. I've revisited it, and the problem is that the master uses many ranges and the IP edits on those ranges are often unrelated to the master. Trying to surgically range-block narrow ranges for very short periods of time would be difficult and probably not very effective. Unfortunately, we'll just have to block them as they come up. I've therefore blocked each of the IPs you listed for 72 hours. Closing.--Bbb23 (talk) 17:48, 24 October 2015 (UTC)

27 October 2015

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I'm almost entirely sure its another sock of Artin Mehraban/History of Persia. Same target articles, exact reinstatement of previous edits made by known socks and IP's of Artin Mehraban (-), same passion for copy-pasting content without attribution or sourcing Though he has not made many edits, the re-appearance of such an account so quickly after History of Persia/Artin Mehraban were CheckUser blocked, makes me give some pretty legit suspicion.

Note furthermore that Artin Mehraban pledged to continue to create more socks and to vandalise Wikipedia just some days ago on his talk page (-). Just a few days prior to "Nadirian" being created. LouisAragon (talk) 11:49, 27 October 2015 (UTC)

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✅, blocked, tagged, closing.--Bbb23 (talk) 12:43, 27 October 2015 (UTC)

04 November 2015

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Obvious duckie, just needs a quick block. Adding this for the archives. Reinstatement of the exact same content two of his known IP's (-) had added priorly. Account created just a few days after his last sock named after the same historical figure was blocked. Bests - LouisAragon (talk) 04:15, 4 November 2015 (UTC)

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✅, blocked, tagged, and closing.--Bbb23 (talk) 09:07, 4 November 2015 (UTC)

30 December 2015

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See below. ​—DoRD (talk)​ 03:27, 30 December 2015 (UTC)

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 * All three are ✅ matches to . ​—DoRD (talk)​ 03:27, 30 December 2015 (UTC)
 * All are tagged and blocked indef, closing case. Mark Arsten (talk) 21:06, 30 December 2015 (UTC)

28 January 2016

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Pretty sure its another one. Like previously CU (and manually) blocked socks,--[] he "bases" his edits on other Wikipedia articles, e.g. using them as a source.--. Same target articles as well. Made many nonsense edits here in order to become autoconfirmed.-

Also, see here where he advocates the reinstatement of a hoax flag- (he's, by trademark, a big fan of hoaxing, amongst other things), like other CU blocked socks have done priorly.-

Pinging as we both have some "experience" with this one. - LouisAragon (talk) 01:15, 28 January 2016 (UTC)

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✅, blocked, tagged, closing.--Bbb23 (talk) 05:25, 28 January 2016 (UTC)

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Same scope/target articles as earlier CU block socks + sockmaster, e.g. -----, username is within the same "range" as previous socks, (e.g. "History of Persia", "Persia10101", etc). Edits are, like always, characterized by hoax edits/images and with some frequence nonsense edit summaries e.g. Asking for a CU as everytime numerous others socks are caught in the sweep. Bests - LouisAragon (talk) 02:39, 5 July 2016 (UTC)

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 * . It looks like there's enough here for the DUCK test, but I'm endorsing in case CU might find more sleepers. —  Rich wales (no relation to Jimbo) 03:33, 12 July 2016 (UTC)
 * Can't find anything to compare the data to, the archive is stale. In any case, found nothing useful.  Courcelles (talk) 04:43, 12 July 2016 (UTC)
 * Because I've had the benefit of having worked on this case before, I can say that Persis2001 is highly . However, just like, I found no other accounts. Blocked and tagged.--Bbb23 (talk) 14:33, 12 July 2016 (UTC)


 * Nothing else seems left to do here. Marking case as closed. Mkdw talk 15:34, 12 July 2016 (UTC)