Wikipedia:Sockpuppet investigations/ByzantineIsNotRoman/Archive

Suspected sockpuppets
Though ByzantineIsNotRoman and SamuelLion1877 don't have any direct overlaps, they both have a near-exclusive focus on wars and battles. They mainly focus on ones in Eastern Europe, the Near East, or the Middle East. For example, SL edited Russo-Turkish War (1877–1878) and BINR edited Russo-Turkish War (1686–1700). Both are particularly focused on infobox edits involving results or casualty counts.

I got clued into this after blocking Special:Contributions/2600:6C51:427F:2100:0:0:0:0/64, which was redoing some of SL's edits at Russo-Turkish War (1877–1878) after their block (SL's edit on 30 November, SL blocked on 30 November, the IP's edit on 1 December). The same /64 was blocked in August by as an IP sock of ByzantineIsNotRoman. Firefangledfeathers (talk / contribs) 03:00, 4 December 2023 (UTC)


 * I'll post more tomorrow, but before I head off to bed I want to point out that I missed the existence of, an editor that is also interested in wars/battles from the same regions, and who posted on 1 December at Talk:Russo-Turkish War (1877–1878) to support the same infobox casualty edit that SL and the IP were making. The timing of BIR's appearance is suspicious, as it came a day after SL's block, and because BIR had never previously edited that particular talk page or article. Firefangledfeathers (talk / contribs) 05:02, 4 December 2023 (UTC)


 * , sorry about two mistakes one my part. First, I forgot that August (BINR's last active date) was so long ago (wow!), and second, I neglected to add BIR as a suspected sock. Technically BIR would be the sockmaster, as the oldest account. Firefangledfeathers (talk / contribs) 23:41, 4 December 2023 (UTC)
 * Hey . Thanks for blocking BIR and SL. Any thoughts on the connection to BINR? And any opinion on how to merge the cases? Both to BIR maybe? Firefangledfeathers (talk / contribs) 03:34, 6 December 2023 (UTC)
 * Thanks! Firefangledfeathers (talk / contribs) 03:35, 6 December 2023 (UTC)

Comments by other users

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

Clerk, CheckUser, and/or patrolling admin comments

 * - ByzantineIsNotRoman is so CheckUser won't tell us anything useful. Sir Sputnik (talk) 22:38, 4 December 2023 (UTC)
 * With another account added, I'll put this back into the CU requested queue. Sir Sputnik (talk) 00:10, 5 December 2023 (UTC)
 * - Please, compare the two non-stale accounts.  Vanjagenije  (talk)  00:37, 6 December 2023 (UTC)
 * ✅ – bradv  03:35, 6 December 2023 (UTC)

Suspected sockpuppets

 * ( original case name)

Per admission at ANI. Confirmed by CU evidence. – bradv  03:29, 6 December 2023 (UTC)

Comments by other users

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

Clerk, CheckUser, and/or patrolling admin comments

 * – bradv  03:29, 6 December 2023 (UTC)

Suspected sockpuppets
Also came up in CU, this is a previous account. – bradv  03:33, 6 December 2023 (UTC)

Comments by other users

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

Clerk, CheckUser, and/or patrolling admin comments

 * Found the connection to the real master during CU. Cases merged. All blocked and tagged. – bradv  03:36, 6 December 2023 (UTC)

Suspected sockpuppets
Friuli1212's edits involve various changes and deletions of (usually) well-sourced information relating to military history, mostly in North Africa and the Middle East, which is what most of ByzantineIsNotRoman's edits were about too. ByzantineIsNotRoman also edit-warred on some particular articles and Friuli1212 is repeating some of the same reverted changes on some of the same articles.

In particular, see these examples: R Prazeres (talk) 04:42, 6 December 2023 (UTC) R Prazeres (talk) 04:42, 6 December 2023 (UTC)
 * Eighth Crusade: compare &  (and much subsequent edit-warring) with.
 * Barbary Crusade: compare &  with.
 * Battle of Ain Jalut: Both accounts made arbitrary changes to the number of combatants, not identical in the exact numbers they left behind but a similar reduction that ignores the already cited sources:, , compared with


 * Note: I just noticed that there was another sock account, SamuelLion1877 (above), which was blocked along with ByzantineIsNotRoman just before this account was created, which further suggests a WP:BLOCKEVADE. R Prazeres (talk) 05:05, 6 December 2023 (UTC)

Comments by other users

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

Clerk, CheckUser, and/or patrolling admin comments

 * ✅ and . I'll tag and block. --Yamla (talk) 10:48, 6 December 2023 (UTC)

Suspected sockpuppets
Found via CU. – bradv  05:44, 12 December 2023 (UTC) –  bradv  05:44, 12 December 2023 (UTC)

Comments by other users

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

Clerk, CheckUser, and/or patrolling admin comments

 * – bradv  05:45, 12 December 2023 (UTC)

Suspected sockpuppets
Duck. Firefangledfeathers (talk / contribs) 13:53, 12 December 2023 (UTC)

Comments by other users

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

Clerk, CheckUser, and/or patrolling admin comments

 * Noting this IP range block for the record. Obvious IP block evasion per location match with prior IPs and behavioral overlap with socks including Antonio1968x and SamuelLion1877. Firefangledfeathers (talk / contribs) 13:55, 12 December 2023 (UTC)

Suspected sockpuppets
Kaspersky205 (CA) was created on 12 December, and four minutes after NuancedProwler (CA), who was blocked by (block details) as a suspected sockpuppet of ByzantineIsNotRoman (creation of relevant category), on 15 December; it appears this was due to the activity of Antonio1968x – a confirmed sockpuppet of ByzantineIsNotRoman (relevant category) – in the page Mozambican War of Independence. Antonio1968x (diff1, diff2), NuancedProwler (diff1, diff2, diff3), and Kaspersky205 (diff) have all tried to add the same information to the infobox of the aforementioned article. I could add more. Demetrios1993 (talk) 06:39, 16 December 2023 (UTC)

Comments by other users

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

Clerk, CheckUser, and/or patrolling admin comments

 * Blocked and tagged. Leaving the CU request, which seems like a good idea given how quickly this latest one was created. Bbb23 (talk) 13:57, 16 December 2023 (UTC)
 * ✅ to each other and, just short of confirmed, to the sockmaster:


 * I'll tag and block. --Yamla (talk) 14:03, 16 December 2023 (UTC)

Suspected sockpuppets
CaesarsTopGuyngl was created on 17 December 2023, soon after Kaspersky205 (CA) was blocked by as the latest sock of ByzantineIsNotRoman. CaesarsTopGuyngl initially made a few edits to random articles before reinstating Kaspersky205 and IP's edits to the Balkan Wars article. 

On 21 December 03:02, four days after creation of the account and after making several more edits to achieve confirmed user status, CaesarsTopGuyngl edited the semi-protected Russo-Turkish War (1877–1878) article This had previously been heavily edited by one of BINR's socks SamuelLion1877 and related IP (CA)   (which had led to 's initial SPI report on BINR). Khirurg (talk) 05:04, 24 December 2023 (UTC)

Comments by other users

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

Clerk, CheckUser, and/or patrolling admin comments

 * ✅ to each other and previous socks:  shortly. Izno (talk) 05:30, 24 December 2023 (UTC)

Suspected sockpuppets
A new account created by the end of December, restoring edits, , , of confirmed sockpuppets of ByzantineIsNotRoman ,  (first ever edits in those articles by JeanCesarGraziani). The few articles they edited in the topic area (including their very first article ) match the previous sockpuppet narrow interests. Vanezi (talk) 04:03, 19 February 2024 (UTC) Vanezi (talk) 04:03, 19 February 2024 (UTC)
 * I have added another month old account who racked up most of its contributions by doing over 400 edits in their own user page . What’s interesting is that the very few article edits they made in this topic area are almost exclusively articles previously edited by the now banned sockpuppet of ByzantineIsNotRoman - and more than that, the interaction analysis shows that both LoneWolf803 and SamuelLion1877 (one of ByzantineIsNotRoman socks) have been pushing the exact same content in both article sock, sock, sock, LoneWolf803, LoneWolf803, and its talk page . Vanezi (talk) 08:48, 22 February 2024 (UTC)

Comments by other users

 * Accused parties may also comment/discuss in this section below. See Defending yourself against claims.
 * I am sorry it has come to this. I genuinely fail to see how any of this you posted is reasonable evidence to back up your allegations. I read and noticed a few (3) coincidental edit overlaps with the sock users you mentioned, in which case I apologize for the confusion and in the future I would be more than happy and willing to expand my editing range, but that is a separate issue entirely. I have attempted twice 1 2 to compromise, be civil, and reason with you. I even reverted my edit here 3 at the anthro disasters article upon learning of the sock edit and the inflation that my edit caused. I also (in line with your edits) removed the nation of Armenia as a perpetrator for the persecution of Ottoman Muslims 4 since it wouldn't be accurate to list the modern Armenian nation as responsible for actions committed by (some) Armenian auxiliaries/gangs/irregulars in Russian and French service. Again, I apologize for the accidental restoration edits of a sock user, I genuinely had no clue and am still learning many basics of Wikipedia editing. With all due respect, this feels either like a simple misunderstanding or an attempt to maliciously retaliate over an editing dispute. I kindly ask that you reconsider. Thank you. JeanCesarGraziani (talk) 07:01, 19 February 2024 (UTC)

Clerk, CheckUser, and/or patrolling admin comments

 * I have removed LoneWolf's EC permission for obvious gaming. Izno (talk) 23:46, 14 March 2024 (UTC)
 * (And reverted, based on a good faith read of a report to WP:VPT.) Izno (talk) 16:44, 15 March 2024 (UTC)
 * LoneWolf803 is . . JeanCesarGraziani is technically - geolocates to the same area on a different network. .  Spicy (talk) 15:57, 30 March 2024 (UTC)
 * Behavioral evidence strongly suggests a connection, combined with the technical evidence it is enough for a block. The Wordsmith Talk to me 22:57, 4 April 2024 (UTC)