Wikipedia:Sockpuppet investigations/Bargolus/Archive

2 April 2015

 * Suspected sockpuppets

Before starting, keep this self agreed topic ban in mind, exemptions include SPIs, maybe because they believe that my accusations might be correct.

First we have to know the background. Some history of sock puppetry by Zhanzhao is preserved at Sockpuppet_investigations/Zhanzhao/Archive, 2 sock waves have been reported. 1st one is from 5 March, 2nd one is from 22-23 March. This is the 3rd one, from 28-29 March and it is still going on. Despite this There have been a number of sessions of apparent sock puppetry on this article, since last month. It means that the sock abuse, described below.

A few hours later, when Zhanzhao took wikibreak, sock-wave took place on this article, Rape in India. Despite Zhanzhao had claimed to have taken wikibreak, he continued to participate on the talk page and seeking protection of his preferred version, or else other editor would online and remove the specific content like he had done recently.

After the protection was made against that version from IPs, an account,, that had , turned this account into autoconfirmed user and resumed the edit war with this account.

Bargolus claimed that he was, he edited the comment of 49.244... as well, and soon he edited own comment with . 49.244 is a highly abused extension by multiple sockmasters, as per the complaints that have been made at User talk:Ponyo


 * I understand that had said last time that he wants to see edits and not just edit summary. We will start with the edits.

Zhanzhao, always rigid about giving undue weight to "unreported rapes", himself said stuff like, "" These edits clearly fulfills that criteria. They largely [ Zhanzhao had also said ""


 * In his comments, he directly states his opposition towards these particular phrases and major sentences that are found on this article.
 * Both accounts specifically objected the sentence, "" in their own words.
 * Zhanzhao had said "", with this contribution Bargolus wrote: "and India has been characterized one of the countries with the lowest per capita rates for rape", "Criminologists have warned that comparing reported rape rates across countries can be highly misleading due to the significance of underreporting, and the fact that the rate of underreporting can be vastly different between countries."
 * Now that's clear attempt to fulfill the said criteria and marginalization of a international fact. 72.196.235.154 had attempted to remove that part before.
 * 
 * Zhanzhao pushes an "article from WSJ" replaced 05:40, 3 April 2015 (UTC)
 * Bargolus pushes "link to a WSJ article"
 * Bargolus says "the article is about Rape in India".
 * TCKTKtool says "This article is about Rape in India".(last suspect)
 * Zhanzhao says "it is about rape in india".
 * 72.196.235.154 says "This article is about Rape in India",
 * Zhanzhao acts same on other articles, check "This article is about irreligion/non-religion".
 * This one might be little hard, though still workable re: view point that Marital rape is widespread and not prohibited.
 * An IP came out from nowhere, and made these 2 edits Soon, this statement was straightened by Zhanzhao(no summary though he usually provides, similar referencing style)
 * This statement happened to have been removed by somebody during some edit. After page was protected, Bargolus would claim the "lack of criminalization of marital rape", and " Finally, marital rape is not a crime in India and so marital rapes are not even registered in the crime statistics of India". Thus the above edit of Zhanzhao, that read "Marital rape, which accounts for 94% of all rape committed in India is also not considered a criminal act there."
 * Uselessly provokes the "tourism" matter.
 * "whole rape debate on the image of India and its tourist industry"
 * "the drop in tourism, at least it can then be balanced off by the writeup about what The Indian government is doing to protect and warn tourists"

Some of the uncommon similarities counts:


 * "fleshed out",
 * "eye to eye" "eye-to-eye",
 * Attempt to create wikilink(' ') of URLs.(' http://www.example.com/example ') like Zhanzhao.
 * Starting messages with "Hi there,"
 * "the implications of"
 * Ordering viewpoints in the following order;[
 * 1)
 * 2)
 * 3)


 * Usage of template
 * "i.e."
 * "for the sake of"
 * "I am comfortable with"
 * Treats 'talk' as a proper noun.(twice)
 * Needlessly types particular word in upper case.(ALWAYS) (PLEASE) (ALL)
 * "revert to old"
 * "lead paragraph"
 * "big problem"
 * "Wow"
 * Resume a point with "In addition"
 * edit summaries involve "clarification"
 * "silencing"

I agree that Bargolous has made really long messages, but this same kind of WP:TLDR is also found in the messages of Zhanzhao.
 * Check he had bold the text "Or, we can just write that LKY is..(continued)", same way he bold "Argument for grammatical change" at

Both have made those edits that required rev-del due to the exposure of personal information. They may have differed, but still personal. Bargolus edited my, that had been criticized by Zhanzhao.


 * Editors who work on this article have figured that these accounts(Zhanzhao, Bargolus) are.
 * Heavy use of edit summaries whenever he is editing the main article, though no use of summaries when he is editing the ATP.

On the same day, same sort of surprising sock wave and tag-team edit warring was also seen on Women in India, account, IP, another IP.
 * Zhanzhao has edit warred on this article before with Darkness Shines.

I could not post about this all, anywhere else except this SPI per the restrictions. Problem is ongoing for nearly a month now. I am requesting, , , to share their views on this SPI, not only because we've worked on previous SPIs before, but also because we know that how much these areas are affected by socks.

Also consider declining the CU, because this sort of edit warring and IP switching on these articles and given mostly negative CU results from last time, CU is not going to be any help.  Occult Zone  (Talk • Contributions • Log) 19:16, 2 April 2015 (UTC)


 * Reply

 :: DoRD, that's why I asked for CU decline because this IP hopping for edit warring in matter of minutes is not in the scope of CU. The only question is that why 72.196.235.154 only works on edit warring for Zhanzhao and these other accounts content whenever there is a sock wave? And the rest of the time, he never edits. Or why he tells the unnecessary "This article is about Rape in India"(pointed above)? Other similarities:


 * represents removal of content violating WP:NLIST and WP:NNEWS as "whitewash"
 * "lead-in"(2 times in both diffs), "lead in"
 * Claim that rapes are "", like the previous "" Both of these statement are equivalent to each other. 90% unreported = 1/10 reported.
 * "fluffery", "fluff", Fluffed
 * Tag teaming with Zhanzhao in an edit war.
 * Tag teaming with Bargolus, 49. and 124. in an edit war, just for 2 words.
 * Such rigid edit wars only replicates the previous scenario of technically confirmed connection of other 2 accounts.(DanS76, Zhanzhao [) As well as another one from 22-23 March No one else ever edit warred on these articles ever before.

Currently many of the editors are having discussion at this policy page, that how easy it is for others to defeat CU results. I had still found fair amount of technical connection in this case, if you check that Resaltador was blocked for evading with 96.231.161.128. This IP has same geolocation as 72.196.235.154. That all needs to be analyzed as well but first these, that are already placed on the table.  Occult Zone  (Talk • Contributions • Log) 01:28, 3 April 2015 (UTC)


 * Edit warring

We have seen the sock-wave, edit warring with multiple accounts that match with the content and POV discussed above. Here's some diffs of individual edit warring. Usual pattern: (a) Add objectionable content without discussion. (b) After seeing it revert, start edit war.


 * Zhanzhao. ...
 * 72.196.235.154. ...
 * Bargolus. ...  Occult Zone  (Talk • Contributions • Log) 14:22, 3 April 2015 (UTC)


 * Timings

The. Yes we realize that sleeping disorder or severe tensions may change the timings and adopt the routines that are not intended. Thus we will have to take a look at latest and accurate example:
 * Bargolus made his last edit of 31 March at, and started 1 April at 1:43.
 * Zhanzhao made his last edit of 2 April at and started 3 April at 1:49.
 * Both have also edited during the hour of 16:00 sometimes and later.  Occult Zone  (Talk • Contributions • Log) 02:02, 3 April 2015 (UTC)


 * Zhanzhao claims below that he hasn't touched my UTP since this message from 24 March? No, he did. ( I saw Zhanzhao attempt to WP:GAME 07:34, 3 April 2015 (UTC) )
 * Zhanzhao says Bargolus had replicated the article title in his talk section, though both "Argument for grammatical change"(in section) "Argument for editing outlined more clearly"(section title) are very different.  Occult Zone  (Talk • Contributions • Log) 04:05, 3 April 2015 (UTC)
 * More misrepresentation comes from below where Zhanzhao provides only 1 sided diff, he cannot express whole thing.(person was invactive from 25-28) Providing a diff where I discussed a technical fault or block has to do nothing with you either.


 * It is obvious that this throwaway sock master Bargolus is no different than you Zhanzhao. I may have thought if it was some account with 10,000 edits. But there is no reason to at this moment. Proof is that whenever I file a related SPI, I find all suspected sock quit en.wiki, and now is not coming anymore. Though I always see Zhanzhao adminshopping, canvassing, and bludgeoning around everywhere I post. Maybe your massive running around all over also led me to adminshop? But still, if you are a sock, your continued misrepresentation of diffs and misrepresentation of your own actions is more than welcome. It would be deceiving to believe on your malformed one-sided fairytales after all, especially when you have admitted history of abusing WP:ILLEGIT on many namespaces, including this article. Your 85.7% edits are prior 2014, we cannot ignore any of them. Why you are pointing only those 6 diffs that are not from 2014 and 2015?  Occult Zone  (Talk • Contributions • Log) 08:31, 3 April 2015 (UTC)


 * Mike V


 * Sorry Mike V, but this is not even the best possible evidence, it is rather a major picture that how these accounts are related to each other.
 * Given that how each of these accounts have made no edits, once they are brought here on SPI, that has happened to Bargolus as well now. Which is not a coincidence.
 * Also you talk about the page views of this article, I would like to point that the page views of this article were higher than 40,000 at once, sometimes there were over 78,000 views and on an average they were always higher than 25,000 - 30,000. But I never saw tireless edit warring over the same undue POV, and source misrepresentation. If we are saying that because it had 37,000 views last time, still there had to be at least one edit war in previous months, not 5 edit wars over same content all time.
 * ? And launching edit wars time to time? 72. edits when his area is asleep. That's how it is a sock, you may want to look carefully at the reply that I had made to DoRD. Another quick glance should be at the overall picture that how others.
 * Saying that Bargolus mentioned that how he mentioned that he edited while logged out, that means that Zhanzhao was re-applying and he repeated the same episode here. When Zhanzhao had started to use talk pages, he also didn't used colons he rather used dashes(---), just like Bargolus.
 * Zhanzhao had also edited while logged out. Zhanzhao also made it clear like Bargolus that he did "without logging in".
 * Zhanzhao reverted other editors while logged out and made it clear on talk, "". just like Bargolus "The IP above was me as well".
 * Zhanzhao had made messages on other boards while logged out, and he would then resume by signing himself.
 * It is easier to think that Zhanzhao was doing since he had to make Bargolus look newbie as well. Even I remember my first day on en.wiki as well as first glance that I had on en.wiki. While this 'logging out logging in' was going on with Zhanzhao for first 2 years. What we know is that newbies usually vandalize, or engage in personal attacks, or they drop the stick quickly or they present good argument and improve things. They.


 * Timelines are usually judged between the accounts that are rather equivalent or even half, to each other in duration, not really with an account that has 50 edits in 4 days, and other having 3600 in last 7 years. That's why I had posted only those timings, when this account had joined. If there is a provision to compare the timings only from 29 March - now with Zhanzhao, then you and in fact there is. It cannot be coincidence to share same timing on multiple days.


 * Problem is that this is exactly pushing the same POV as Zhanzhao, I am asking again, why he quit like every other suspected sock? You can see above that they are posting/objected exactly same sentences on the article talk page, and the edit warring pattern of these different accounts is highly similar to each other,  and not over . They all have individually edit warred in 2 different instances and since they share so many similarities with each other in edit summaries, and writing style, while being a throw away account/IP, it is concerning that how they cannot be same.
 * Also given the history of Zhanzhao edit warring and source misrepresentation on the same account with DanS76 that shared technical details. It is not hard to believe that these socks are his, since these socks . Below bludgeoning along with massive misrepresentation of diffs is not even required if he is not a sock. I would like to know what you think, and keep this open for others such as, Edjohnston.  Occult Zone  (Talk • Contributions • Log) 23:50, 3 April 2015 (UTC)
 * you had said that you found technical match between those two accounts on Callanecc's page? It is indeed an attempt to improve encyclopedia to point out throw-away sock accounts that quit after a while after going for at least 2 edit wars over same pointy POV. And my reply after Mike V must have answered his doubts. If you have any doubts you can tell. Though I don't see any at all, especially when 2 users are using dashes in place of colons for replying.  Occult Zone  (Talk • Contributions • Log) 01:01, 4 April 2015 (UTC)

Comments by other users
''Accused parties may also comment/discuss in this section below. See Defending yourself against claims.'' Note I cannot comment on Bargolus's behaviour and IP switching, as that is up to he himself to defend. First off, I apologize for those who have read through this as you will see me repeating some of the very rebuttals I've made on the previous SPI filed by OccultZone. [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:Zhanzhao|
 * Defense by Zhanzhao

OccultZone was blocked twice for edit-warring with people he assumes are my socks, and has been on a misguided mission to prove that every one of those accounts he warred with and many appearing since are related to me]. I've readily admitted that WP:FAMILY/possible WP:MEAT was an issue in the first SPI, so my brother retire his account to avoid any reoccurance. This was resolved way back in the 1st SPI. However OccultZone has become paranoid that every new account he encounters thats against him is my sock, from the 2nd SPI onwards, even though he's been repeatedly told that his evidence was weak. I am going to make comprehensive rebuttal, so I just ask that any who look at OccultZone's long and length "evidence" to be fair to me as I have to now make a long and lengthy point-by-point rebuttal of his accusations.


 * Per OZ's opening sentence, are you sure "they" believe your accusations may be correct? As far as I see on the discussion on your talk page, Worm That Turned made it very clear to you that this is the absolute last SPI you are allowed to file against me. Hardly something an admin would propose if they think I am guilty.
 * Regarding the experts he wishes to bring in, I'd like OccultZone and them to confirm that he has not contacted them prior to this, or if he has, to declare what he had communicated to them personally. OccultZone | sent quite a number of private messages to admins/editors about his case recently, and this declaration will remove any disambiguity.
 * I'm still a relatively noob at SPI, so I'd like to bring in the other admins/editors that OccultZone himself had shopped for help from his previous SPI/ANI against me., , . OccultZone repeatedly says that his new evidence could change the minds of those who had seen the evidence, so I'm following through on his claim. He has sent out a lot of mails which I am not sure of the content though, so I'm just sticking with explicitely on-wiki ones. OccultZone is free to point out if I messed any other on-wiki requests. I just want this to be fair to everyone. Note I'm not even including those who have previously commented on the evidence of their own volition. These are people that OZ himself contacted. I won't even bring in people who have gone through the earlier evidence and said they were weak. But if I'm allowed to, can I?
 * When I said took a wikibreak, I meant I didn't want do any direct editing on articles. I don't want to be accused of edit warring anymore. I just wanted to help give advice to my editors from the background. Which can be easily verified from every edit non-related to ANI/SPI since all this started.
 * I requested Bgwhite protect the page, because he was the last admin who protected the page, and was already helping out there as a non-involved party. And I also pointed out to him that the behaviour looked too blatantly like what I would do if I was indeed socking, and I just wanted to avoid being further linked to the case. I was proven correct in this.
 * For the point about using "reported rapes in India are among the lowest in the world", we were both quoting the exact same chunk of text from the article. Of course it would be word for word. And about me giving undue weight to unreported rape, as seen from my edit history on the article | from this diff on, I've already lost interest in that point and never broached that since on the article or talk, and moved on to other parts of the article (tourism) before that "wave of socks" appeared.
 * For the point about the disclaimer about lowest reported rapes in the world, I was clearly making a rhetorical statement that adding a disclaimer in that part of the article would affect other parts of the article, as part of the discussion. OZ's diff about Bargolus shows him explicitey asking add that point in.
 * "per 100,000", word for word, was referencing a phrase in the article. OZ himself saw this phrase being used by another editor was having a conversation with
 * About the WSJ article connection, I note in the diff you provided that Bargolus was wrongly copying the link placeholder (i.e. [8],[9],[10] etc) rather than a correctly formatted link, a mistake I don't commit.
 * the article is about Rape in India: There's only so many ways one can say "This is about XX article". And I've repeatedly pointed out to OZ that even another editor who later argued on his side, used the exact same phrase |
 * I don't have a fixed referencing style. I usually just cut/paste verbatim from the last instance I see if its a revert, or use a totally different style depending on what I can cut and paste from the edited article. | Here's me "using" a totally different editing style, on the very same day and article as the diffs he pointed out.
 * For the point about marital rape, as mentioned above, if you look at the history of the article, its clear from my editing history that I already moved on to focus on other parts of the article (the tourism bits), that one line wasn't even in my mind anymore. I can't help it that Bargolus saw that part of the discussion on the talk page and carried on the conversation.
 * For the tourism point, I was editing extensively on tourism, while Bargolus only made a fleeting mention of tourism to support his arguments about was on women's rights. Clear from the diffs.

Note that many of the points raised are just commonly used words, so I can't imagine how I could possibly raise a defense against that that except that its just english, and considering I have 3000+ edits, the sample size is really beg enough that you can find almost any type of writing similarity with me against anyone else. But let me point out some obvious ones:


 * I haven't used "Hi There" in years, only did that when I was lazy. These days, I try to add the editor's name whom I'm addressing.
 * For the ping template, you'll notice from the diffs that I was merely copying the earlier 2 ping text right above me. So I'd assume that Bargolus copied the (now 3) ping templates right above him.
 * For the "too long to read" edits, considering I was addressing complicated questions raised to me, I don't see how I could have avoided it.
 * About editing OccultZone's Sandbox, ever since OZ undid my reply to him, I haven't even touched his page (I think), much less want to argue with him on his sandbox. I've made my own defense on my own page rather than engage him. So he's talking about 2 people arguing a same point, but using totally different behaviors. That one exception I stepped in, as clear from the post, was in defense of an admin who was being wronged by OccultZone's vendetta.
 * For the bolding of text, I used the bold to emphasize a point I was making. Bargolus was practically using it as a subject header (even though he already had one). Totally different usage.
 * for the point about extensive use of edit summaries on main article, and no edit summaries on the talk page edits, isn't this common practice? Just look at the last 500 edits on Rape in India, from people involved on both sides of the edit war. Specifically, M Tracey Hunter, VictoriaGreyson, Padenton and Human3015. They argued on your points, are they socks as well?
 * As for my editing times, check my history, which will clearly show that I edit at ALL sort of hours.
 * About using 1) 2) 3) to break my points, I also | use asterix/bullets before. You're trying to apply a behavior to me when I have no fixed methodology.
 * "lead paragraph" I also use variations like | "lede para"
 * "lead in" way back in 2013, and if you look at the diff, its a typo: The subject line I specifically used "Lead Is", text I used "lead in is"
 * For many of the common words used, you had to dig all the way back to 2010-2013 for many of them to find those similarities. I.e. "Fleshed out" 2010, "Eye to eye" 2010, "silencing" 2012, "i.e." 2012, "revert" 2013, "big problem" 2012, "in addition" 2009/2012.
 * Resaltador looks like a very infrequent editor based on his contribution list. And it does not help, just as I repeatedly reminded you in ANI, that you were supposed to inform him of ANI. And you already know that TCKTKtool is under a 2 week ban and won't be back til 1 1/2 weeks later. As for admin-shopping, way to call thekettle black. The only thing I did was to ask around how I could expedite CU on the SPI you filed against me because I couldn't tolerate your accusations any longer, while you were specifically looking for people to believe your accusations against me. (And got turned down or told the case was weak or not worth pursuing). Do you really want me to bring in the various diffs to further embarrass you? PS: I see that one of the diffs you claim to be me canvassing included a post of me thanking  after he closed your malformed SPI against me. What are you implying?
 * Just to add on to Mike V's comment, and to address OccultZone's | misleading claim about the page never having been in an edit war before, a quick look at the history page shows that there was already an edit war just over one month after the page was created. In fact, from March 23 2014 onwards, there were many smaller skirmishes, some over the very same POV arguements | (attack on tourists), | (under reported rape) he claims didn't exist before I stepped in. And as noted in the diffs, he was personally involved in those POV arguments, so he knew his accusations were false.

I just want to distance myself away from OZ as possible, and just hope he does me the same courtesy and not wikihound me after this. | For now I'll force myself to believe this is a coincidence. - I really don't want to have to reopen this wound by going after him. Zhanzhao (talk) 22:44, 3 April 2015 (UTC)

Clerk, CheckUser, and/or patrolling admin comments

 * From a technical standpoint, there are some serious problems with this case:
 * First off, Zhanzhao and Bargolus are completely ❌.
 * I've seen where Bargolus has linked themselves to some edits from 49.244.*, e.g. here, and since 124.41.243.167 is in the same country, one might assume that they are the same, but I have not run any checks to confirm that assumption.
 * 72.196.235.154 is a residential cable connection on the other side of the planet from the other IPs, so there's no way that they're related to the other IPs.
 * Since I closed the previous case over the objections of OccultZone, I'm not going to take any action here. N.b. the revdel'd edits OZ mentions above are actually suppressed. ​—DoRD (talk)​ 21:46, 2 April 2015 (UTC)
 * At the request of DoRD, I've run some checks so that I may provide my input on the case. After looking over the technical data, I concur with DoRD that the accounts are ❌. You've compiled a number of diffs, so I think it's reasonable for me to address some of them. Wikibreaks/Retirement: A number of users place a notice on their talk page to declare that they are going on a break, only to return shortly. It's actually quite common and there are a number of essays (A, B) that document this phenomenon. The point made about Bargolus editing while logged out is valid. (Given that he said "again" it's safe to say that this has occurred before.) I would caution him to ensure that he is logged in while editing so that it does not appear that he is doing so in a deceiving manner. Some of the behavioral comparisons made are a bit too common place to be considered as evidence. For instance, i.e., for the sake of, I am comfortable with, lead paragraph, big problem, wow, in addition, and clarification are widely used by all sorts of people. The format is how it's intended to be used, so I can't draw any conclusions here. As for the incorrect use of brackets, I must admit that I've even done that myself in the past and have the preview button to thank for preventing any reoccurrence. I cannot comment on the specifics of the oversighted material other than to say the fact that both users had revisions suppressed does not inherently suggest that they are related. I wish to note that the timing of the accounts is not the same. (Bargolus, Zhanzhao) As for the timesstamps you've provided, it appears to be more of a coincidence than anything else. There's a reasonable range of time where editors from different timezones will be editing. What's 9:30 PM somewhere is only 5:30 PM, 6:30 PM, 7:30 PM, etc. elsewhere. I've looked at the technical evidence extensively and there's no reason to suspect any concern about it's credibility and DoRD has already commented on the 72.XX IP. I think it's important to note that this subject matter is widely read. The Rape in India article garners nearly 40,000 views in the past 30 days and had 161 edits in the same timeframe. I think it's fair to say that it's an article that receives a considerable amount of attention and the subject matter appears to be quite contentious. Thus, it's reasonable to believe that there will be a number of editors who are drawn to this topic. Some of these users will also agree on the same points. I believe that this the case here. I'm closing this case with no action taken. Mike V • Talk 22:13, 3 April 2015 (UTC)
 * Please stop using the confirmed tag. You aren't a checkuser, and I don't remember seeing any CU saying that those two accounts were confirmed. As for the rest, perhaps you're seeing socks when there are actually a number of people who are not in agreement with your version of the article, and now that this case is closed, I suggest that you drop the stick and get back to something else such as editing the encyclopedia. Best ​—DoRD (talk)​ 00:51, 4 April 2015 (UTC)
 * I said that the accounts were technically indistinguishable, which would obviously be the case if two people in a household were using the same device. Note that that is not the same thing as "confirmed". And, now that my conclusions have been verified by another CU, I'm going to have to ask you to stop throwing around accusations of socking against these users. Further accusations will be considered to be personal attacks that will be dealt with as appropriate. ​—DoRD (talk)​ 01:08, 4 April 2015 (UTC)