Wikipedia:Sockpuppet investigations/BenYaamin/Archive

Suspected sockpuppets



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BenYaamin is a SPA that recreated a previously deleted article for an Iranian hacker (Behzad Qasemi). After the article was brought to AfD at Articles for deletion/Behzad Qasemi (2nd nomination) and received a delete !vote, the account Mahdiaar that had no previous edits, !voted to keep (see Special:Contributions/Mahdiaar). After another delete !vote was added, the account Iranwikimanage, that had only one previous unrelated edit, quickly !voted in three other articles and then on this same Afd (see Special:Contributions/Iranwikimanage). BenYaamin also uploaded three images in copyvio to commons (see here) and after I tagged them for deletion Mahdiaar edited them as well. All have been deleted from commons now by for copyvio, so I cant provide those diffs. BenYaamin recreated them up to three times so far. In commons Mahdiaar made hundreds of minor edits starting on April 20th one day after the creation of the article by BenYaamin (see here).Crystallizedcarbon (talk) 19:15, 24 April 2020 (UTC)

Comments by other users
''Accused parties may also comment/discuss in this section below. See Defending yourself against claims.''
 * Can confirm. User:Mahdiaar added Persian and English captions for c:File:Qasemi.jpg and Persian caption for c:File:ًQasemi is presenting the theory of Corona cyber virus.jpg and c:File:Behzad Qasemi.jpg. Ahmadtalk 19:24, 24 April 2020 (UTC)

Clerk, CheckUser, and/or patrolling admin comments

 * Master and socks blocked indefinitely. Tagged and closing. Callanecc (talk • contribs • logs) 13:45, 25 April 2020 (UTC)

Suspected sockpuppets
There's an impressive WP:GAMING here. First, I'll note the following already globally locked users as a sock of this, which were not mentioned in the previous case and are not blocked here (but doesn't matter as already globally locked) just for reference: - see also:, , BenYaaminHusseini. These are also some previous obvious socks, stale but just for reference: ,

Meyboad is registered after latest cross-wiki Behzad Qasemi spammer sock BenYaaminHusseini was globally locked. Now the "WP:GAMING" part which became successful for him unfortunately. Since Behzad Qasemi name was salted and required extended confirmed access he had to become extended confirmed first. So he made all these smokescreening edits and created some legit articles (although some of the ones I checked have terrible machine translation and formatting problems btw) and waited, and as soon as he became extended confirmed, he did this: - the real reason why he was registered and suffered to become extended confirmed. It would be best to salt that name at admin level like this another variation of it: - pinging.

He of course did the same gaming at Commons as well, lots of smokescreening uploads to upload these previously deleted images:

Btw, he created this another salted for extended confirmed non-notable article as well:, it was last deleted and salted with the "Created by a banned or blocked user (Aliasghar ghorbandokht) in violation of ban or block" reason. That's an Iranian UPE sock farm that was recently active as well: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Sockpuppet_investigations/Aliasghar_ghorbandokht/Archive

So this Behzad Qasemi sock farm could actually be the "Aliasghar ghorbandokht" UPE sock farm that was hired by Behzad Qasemi, I mean both this case and "Aliasghar ghorbandokht" case could be for the same thing but there's no need to waste time with figuring that out or with any case merging etc. The ones that spam Behzad Qasemi could be grouped in this one. Tehonk (talk) 09:05, 17 February 2024 (UTC)


 * Note: I just discovered another SPI report was created in 28 January already by @Local Variable under another Iranian UPE sock farm case here: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Sockpuppet_investigations/ArmanAfifeh
 * Anyway, like I said these Iranian UPE sock farms are likely closely related with each other. What's clear is Meyboad is part of one of these UPE sock farms and he studied how to game the system really well. Tehonk (talk) 20:17, 17 February 2024 (UTC)

Comments by other users

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


 * I'll just note this account before the case is archived:, it did not visit enwiki yet but just noting here in case he tries to do same gaming with that new account again here. I see Meyboad is denying sock usage in his talk page, but the new account Devexloper is registered just one day after he was blocked on 5 March, what a coincidence! Tehonk (talk) 22:55, 7 March 2024 (UTC)

Clerk, CheckUser, and/or patrolling admin comments

 * - I've already this sock under Sockpuppet investigations/ArmanAfifeh. Behavioral evidence strongly suggests that BenYaamin is itself a sock of ArmanAfifeh, so this whole case/archive may need to be merged there. The Wordsmith Talk to me 00:08, 5 March 2024 (UTC)
 * It can be hard to tell whether UPE sock farms are operated by the same group or if they're a different person/organization being paid by the same clients. I'd have to see really strong behavioural evidence - not just recreating the same spammy article- to be convinced that merging a case consisting of 3 stale accounts is worthwhile. So I'm just going to close this now that Meyboad has been dealt with at the ArmanAfifeh SPI. Spicy (talk) 21:58, 15 March 2024 (UTC)