Wikipedia:Sockpuppet investigations/Ctfn/Archive

07 April 2014

 * Suspected sockpuppets


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Fixation with The Mahfouz Foundation, Mahfouz Marei Mubarak bin Mahfouz and Burke's Peerage (which is used as a ref in Mahfouz Marei Mubarak bin Mahfouz). I was ignoring this until they both !voted at Articles for deletion/Mahfouz Marei Mubarak bin Mahfouz. Stuartyeates (talk) 22:33, 7 April 2014 (UTC)
 * restating the case based on helpful comments from Bbb23: This edit by User:Ctfn is almost identical to this series of edits by User:ErraticallyIntelligent. In each case unreferenced information on living people was restored (after having been previously deleted by myself). Both editors have a numerical majority of their edits to these three articles (+the AfD, +these issues on various talk pages). Stuartyeates (talk) 10:19, 14 April 2014 (UTC)

Comments by other users
''Accused parties may also comment/discuss in this section below. See Defending yourself against claims.''
 * Added BenoitHoog. Likely sockpuppets/COI SPAs ˉˉanetode╦╩ 19:07, 9 April 2014 (UTC)

Clerk, CheckUser, and/or patrolling admin comments
--Bbb23 (talk) 18:14, 13 April 2014 (UTC)

I'm going completely by behavioral analysis here. I think that it's a slam-dunk that ErraticallyIntelligent=Ctfn. To explain... First of all, Stuartyeates above shows a diff where both editors make almost identical edits at the same article. Secondly, practically every page that ErraticallyIntelligent has edited was also one that Ctfn edited. Finally, the timeline of edits is consistent with an editor operating two accounts. Let me break it down:

Ctfn makes two edits on February 9. Then, the next day, EI makes edits starting at 00:53 until 02:32, then stops. At 10:10 on that day, Ctfn makes a single edit. Less than a half hour later, EI begins editing, from 10:33 until 11:51, then stops.

This pattern is consistent with a single editor editing for an hour and a half, taking a break for 8 hours, then continuing to edit for another hour and a half (across two accounts) then stopping.

More important is that neither account is active for almost two months, then on March 31, both editors return on the same day (Ctfn editing in the beginning of the day, EI editing in the middle of the day).

April 2 and 3, Ctfn is active, but not EI. In fact, EI isn't active at all until February 7, when they edit one more (and so far, final) time to add another !vote to an AfD in support of Ctfn.

Let me also mention that the edits that happened around the same time were also to the same articles. All of this looks like classic sockpuppet behavior. Also, EI's account was created on October 28 2013, just after Ctfn returned from a weeks-long break in editing the encyclopedia. I have no hesitancy in declaring this connection per WP:DUCK.

It's less clear with BenoitHoog, however. BH does have a significant amount of overlap, but has also edited a number articles not edited by Ctfn. On the other hand, there are some pretty solid connections. The fact that BH happens to show up at AfDs to lend support to Ctfn (and in one case, IE as well) at almost the same time (in one case, a minute apart) is incredibly suspicious. Again, it's not as clear, but I believe that I can call this one as well for behavioral reasons. Also, on a more subjective perspective, the communication styles of all three editors (seen at the AfDs they participated in) is extremely similar.

What I'm going to do is block the two sockpuppets indefinitely, and block the original account for a month, with the provision that if they are found to be evading the block with a sockpuppet, or if they use sockpuppets after the block expires (to support them in AfDs, edit wars, or to just evade scrutiny) they can be blocked indefinitely. With that, I'm requesting closure of this case. --  At am a  頭 18:18, 15 April 2014 (UTC)

19 September 2014

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Repeating recreation of Mahfouz Marei Mubarak Bin Mahfouz and Draft:The Mahfouz Foundation under variations of capitalisation and namespace, using the identical text. Compare to The Mahfouz Foundation and Mahfouz Marei Mubarak bin Mahfouz created by the master (I don't have access to deleted edits, but I recall them being similar). Stuartyeates (talk) 10:27, 19 September 2014 (UTC)

Comments by other users
''Accused parties may also comment/discuss in this section below. See Defending yourself against claims.''

Hi Stuart,

I only hold one account. The two pages have been created at the first time by my colleagues but they failed to create them in a proper way so the task has been handed over to me. My only account is Midoahmad as you can see. The tow articles are about a notable person and charity which are helpful for many charties, students and patients worldwide. I have been striving and striving to find a wikipedian to help me in creating the pages and publish them online but seems everyone is very busy. Please help me as i do not have wide experience in using Wikipedia.

Many thanks. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Midoahmad (talk • contribs) 11:07, 19 September 2014‎ (UTC)
 * Copied from the talk page. Callanecc (talk • contribs • logs) 12:34, 20 September 2014 (UTC)

Hi Callanecc,

Thank you for your time and help. For the two articles i have added more information and more reliable sources and references to make the the articles more solid and wealthy with evidences. I do not know which versions of the articles you are comparing against but i can send you these two articles with all information by email if you wish. I have had the initial information of the two articles from my colleague in UK who was working on it but because he has lack of experience with Wikipedia as well as he was travelling a lot so he handed over the information to me and i have managed to gather more information from the Foundation itself and its founders to make the articles more wealthy of information.

Please kindly help me because i have been more than 3 months trying to create them but every time i get very disappointed from lack of support from Wikipedian.

Cheers, AhmadMidoahmad (talk) 16:22, 20 September 2014 (UTC)

Clerk, CheckUser, and/or patrolling admin comments

 * The two versions of Special:Undelete/The Mahfouz Foundation created by the master and Midoahmad are almost exactly the same. Based on that, can you explain how you had the same content? Callanecc (talk • contribs • logs) 13:03, 20 September 2014 (UTC)
 * If I'm reading this correctly it's more a case of MEAT than SOCK. Anyone who is "tasked" with writing an article probably shouldn't be writing it. The article(s) is deleted, I'm not sure a block is going to make a difference at this point. I'll leave one final explanation of our conflict of interest guidelines on 's talk page, and if they continue to try to recreate the article then a block should be considered.-- Jezebel's Ponyo bons mots  23:29, 9 October 2014 (UTC)