Wikipedia:Sockpuppet investigations/Curvesall/Archive

Evidence submitted by Noleander
Most of the suspect activity is on Racism in Israel. Four accounts have made similar edits, in rapid succession, in the following order: User:Giligandon,  User:Curvesall, then the IP, then most recently  User:Mostiessin.

A) Curvesall said on the talk page he is "going on vacation" for awhile, and then the Mostiessin account was created. From the Talk page on Racism in Israel:  "Will be going on vacation to the islands, not always with the ability to edit. All I am asking is a bit of repair of the damage you have done. Please don't make drastic changes befote addressing them here."

B) Both Curvesall and Mosstiessin tend to add new sentences in a Talk page in a peculiar way: (i) they never indent with ":", and (ii) they tend to post their content immediately underneath the prior editor's comments without a blank line (or an indent ":"), which (when displayed after the edit is accepted) causes the new text to appear on the same line as the prior editor's signature.  Here is where Mostiessin does it:    and Curvesall doing it:

C) The User: Mostiessin account was created just today, after Curvesall's changes to Racism in Israel were undone, and that new account immediately re-inserted some of the changes as follows:

C1) Two specific changes made by both editors are:
 * 1) combine "Sephardic" and "Mizrahi" sections into one section
 * 2) insert word "Secular" in the "Yemenite baby controversy" section
 * Here are diffs of Mostiessin making these two changes in the article:.
 * Curvesall on the Talk page:  explaining why  the article should combine "Sephardic" and "Mizrahi" sections into one section

D) All of the editors are not native speakers of English, and they make similar grammar mistakes. Here is a Talk page diff from Mostiessin that has grammar errors:  and here is a Talk page diff from Curvesall:

E) They show an interest in an obscure person: Elias Abuelazam The diffs for the IP are:  Here is user:Mostiessin editing it:

F) All the accounts:  User:Curvesall,   the IP,   User:Mostiessin, all seem to focus on a single article: Racism in Israel. G) I asked user Mostiessin on their Talk page if they had a second account, and they did not reply but instead deleted my question:.

H) The evidence regarding user Giligandon is not quite as strong as the other accounts:  here is an edit by Giligandon This edit and an edit by Curvesall  this edit  - those edits are rather similar, but I cannot say they are conclusive. --Noleander (talk) 15:26, 21 August 2010 (UTC)

Noleander (talk) 15:08, 17 August 2010 (UTC)

Comments by accused parties
See Defending yourself against claims.

Comments by other users
I am intrigued by C. Can you help provide some diffs. wiooiw (talk) 16:46, 17 August 2010 (UTC)
 * I put the diffs above in section "C1".  Also, I discovered another sockpuppet in the process:  User:Gilgandon --Noleander (talk) 17:10, 17 August 2010 (UTC)

@Noleander clerks try their best to not have the checkuser tool used, and one may not even be needed here as this is starting to look like a duck. wiooiw (talk) 16:49, 17 August 2010 (UTC)
 * Okay. If it is more convenient to avoid the checkuser tool, I guess we can do without it. --Noleander (talk) 16:52, 17 August 2010 (UTC)
 * Wiooiw : Question: I am supposed to notify the suspected sockpuppets of this investigation?  Or does some admin do that?    I want to make sure they have an opportunity to provide rebuttal information. --17:32, 17 August 2010 (UTC)
 * You can but notifying is not mandatory. wiooiw (talk) 17:39, 17 August 2010 (UTC)
 * This edit and this edit is extremely similar. wiooiw (talk) 18:40, 17 August 2010 (UTC)

Clerk, patrolling admin and checkuser comments

 * This seems fairly likely based on behavioural evidence. I've blocked Curvesall for two weeks, and the socks have been indefinitely blocked. The IP is rather stale. Peter Symonds ( talk ) 16:39, 27 August 2010 (UTC)

Evidence submitted by Noleander
A previous sock investigation for User:Curvesall was done at Sockpuppet_investigations/Curvesall/Archive. Since then, it appears Curvesall has taken to creating multiple accounts, and using them for just 1 or 2 days, then discarding them, and moving on to another  account. The list of new "1 day" accounts is above. The reason I think these are all User:Curvseall is the following:

1) Not a native speaker of English

2) These accounts are in-use for only 1 day or 2 days, then abandoned.

3) Focusing on one of two articles: Racism and ethnic discrimination in Israel or Judaism and violence
 * User:Barrasita
 * User:Evengee ]
 * User:Listasonis
 * User:Stud1989
 * User:Ip82166

4) Has the habit of not indenting comments in a Talk page, as if unfamiliar with the ":" symbol, as follows:
 * User:Barrasita
 * User:Evengee
 * User:Listasonis
 * User:Stud1989
 * User:Ip82166

The reason for the checkuser request: The evidence listed above is circumstantial, so it is a bit weak. I know that checkuser is a pain in the neck to perform, and if there were more concrete evidence, I would provide it. But the the accounts are only in-use for a day or two, so there is not much to go on. Noleander (talk) 23:44, 8 September 2010 (UTC)

Comments by accused parties
See Defending yourself against claims.

Clerk, patrolling admin and checkuser comments
❌ –MuZemike 03:19, 9 September 2010 (UTC)
 * Marking for close, no action taken. TN X Man  13:50, 10 September 2010 (UTC)

Evidence submitted by Noleander
Meat, not Sock - The above accounts are, in my opinion, violating WP policies against sock-puppetry or meat-puppetry.

Background - It started with User:Curvesall and an SPI was opened 17 August 2010 Sockpuppet investigations/Curvesall/Archive. That resulted in a positive finding of sock-puppetry. Additional accounts were subsequently created, and engaged in a nearly identical editing pattern, and a second SPI was opened 8 Sept 2010, Sockpuppet investigations/Curvesall/Archive. In that investigation, a checkuser was performed, and it was negative, so the SPI was closed (on hindsight, I think that second SPI was closed too quickly and instead should have been converted into a meat-puppetry investigation).

Seminar by Yesha_Council  - In early August 2010, two Israeli groups, Yesha_Council and Israel Sheli held a class on "Zionist Editing for Wikipedia".  That class is mentioned in two WP articles: Yesha_Council and Reliability of Wikipedia. Details about the class are available in two news articles;   entitled "Wikipedia editing courses launched by Zionist groups",   and  titled "First Ever: Zionist Wikipedia Editing Course". The first article includes the quote: "One Jerusalem-based Wikipedia editor, who doesn't want to be named, said that publicising the initiative might not be such a good idea. 'Going public in the past has had a bad effect,' she says. 'There is a war going on and unfortunately the way to fight it has to be underground.' 

Patterns - Because this is meat-puppetry, I don't think a checkuser will be useful. The common behavioral trends are:
 * They have very brief edit histories (sometimes, the account is created, used for a couple of days, then abandoned)
 * They engage in tag-teaming, where one account will start a certain issue/discussion (e.g. Talk or AfD discussion), then a 2nd account will finish it
 * They focus on pro-Israel topics
 * Their first edit they make is invariably a minor (e.g. punctuation) edit on other (non-Israel related) articles, as if they were instructed to do that so it would not appear as if they were editing 100% Israel-related articles.
 * They have virtually no significant edits to non-Israel related articles (WP:SPA-ish)
 * English is their second language
 * They tend to not create User pages
 * Typically do not indent with ":" on Talk pages

Behavior began in Aug/Sept 2010 - Note that most accounts were created (or started significant editing) in the August/Sept 2010 timeframe. Strangely, three of the accounts were originally created in April 2010, but laid mostly dormant until Sept 2010. Here are the dates they created their accounts (or started using them significantly):


 * 5 Aug 2010 - User:RolesRoice
 * 9 Aug 2010 - User:Giligandon
 * 10 Aug 2010 - User:Curvesall    (account created 16 April 2010, but not used much til Aug 2010)
 * 17 Aug 2010 -  User:Mostiessin
 * 20 Aug 2010 - User:Ip82166
 * 29 Aug 2010 -  User:Stud1989
 * 31 Aug 2010 - User:Evengee
 * 4 Sept 2010 - User:Llistasonis
 * 8 Sept 2010 -  User:Barrasita
 * 8 Sept 2010 - User:Salamaat (account created  25 April 2010, but not used much til Sept 2010)
 * 13 Sept 2010 - User:Nazarethian
 * 16 Sept 2010 - User:RS101
 * 19 Sept 2010 - User:Ip101
 * 20 Sept 2010 - User:Dallas hero1989
 * 28 Sept 2010 -  User:Lawsmass  (account created 19 April 2010; but not used much til Sept 2010)
 * 1 Oct 2010 - User:Blitzland

Examples - The behavior has been steady since mid August 2010. A few representative examples:


 * 1) Vote stacking - User:RS101 !voting on Articles for deletion/Cracking the Quran code here   and then User:Dallas hero1989's account was created, and the only the account did was to support RS101:    "Keep per RS101s great argument".


 * 2) Tag teaming - User:Barrasita added some (very poorly sourced) content to Islam and violence here ; which was reverted as needing better sources and less POV; and then new account User:Blitzland was created and is now proposing to re-insert the material here.


 * 3) Tag teaming - User:Salamaat made a poor change to Jews and the slave trade here which introduced some peculiar grammar errors; then User Lawsmass re-introduced the same errors here despite being told about them.
 * Here is an update that illustrates the disruptive effects of their tag-team editing: User:Salamaat and User:Lawsmass tag-teamed on Jews and the slave trade, and when I invited them to discuss it on the Talk page, they refused to participate, and instead just edit-warred , resulting in a page protection: .    --Noleander (talk) 20:25, 8 October 2010 (UTC)


 * 4) Disruptive editing and tag-teaming - Users  User:RS101, User:Lawsmass, and User:Salamaat  are engaged in WP:Disruptive editing and WP:Tag teaming  in the article Racism and ethnic discrimination in Israel.  The article was protected   for a few days to get them to come to the Talk page, but they were silent during the protection period, but when it was over, they resumed deleting content (,  , and )  without explanation on the Talk page.   User lawsmass tag-teaming on the Talk page:.


 * 5) Vote stacking - User:Lawsmass and User:RolesRoice echoing each other at Articles for deletion/Nazism in Arab Palestine:  and.


 * 6) Vote stacking- ip101 voting  and user:Nazarethian voting the same way     in the AfD for Articles_for_deletion/Apes_and_pigs_in_Islam.

Comparison with CAMERA campaign - A couple of years ago, the CAMERA group launched an initiative to do some collaborative editing in WP. There was a lengthy ANI investigation that resulted in several editors being permanently banned. The CAMERA episode seems substantially different than this Yesha_Council effort: CAMERA was entirely in secret, with explicit goals to subvert WP policies, whereas Yesha_Council publicly announced their plans.

Help requested - Of course, there is no  prohibition on editors attending classes, or even collaborating outside WP - however, if editors start tag-teaming, vote-stacking, and editing disruptively, then it becomes a problem. The WP:Meat and WP:Disruptive editing policies provide for blocking editors that violate the policies. Therefore, my request is for an admin to temporarily block two users: User:RS101 and User:Salamaat, for their violation of those guidelines in the Racism and ethnic discrimination in Israel article; and to issue warnings to the other editors, reminding them of the WP:Meat policy. --Noleander (talk) 16:55, 1 October 2010 (UTC)

Comments by accused parties
See Defending yourself against claims.

Not connected to any of the above, but maybe it's Noleander's hateful point of view drive on wikipedia that draws opposition? + - Boy, is this how noleander tries to censor anyone who disagrees with this anti-a-group-of-people posting campaign on various subjects? that's mighty low! fyi, just checking at the above... I would never post something like this: I am a proud Muslim (nor would I create such a feminine user-name as curve...) though very moderate. Maybe Noleander should be blocked? I don't believe that he himself believes in his above theory but if it can block anyone that stands in his weay, why not?Salamaat (talk) 19:15, 8 October 2010 (UTC)
 * Salamaat: the conclusion I've reached is that you are working in collaboration with User:RS101 and User:Lawmass (details above) to sway consensus in improper ways.  That is called "meat puppetry", see WP:Meat for explanation.  That is different than "sock puppetry" described at WP:Sock.   All the above dozen editors, including you, started meaningful editing in Aug/Sept 2010, and you are mostly doing "me too" edits to sway consensus in an unfair manner.   --Noleander (talk) 19:42, 8 October 2010 (UTC)

''[NOTE: the following comments were interspersed above, in the Evidence section, above another editor's signature. Im moving them to the appropriate place so there is no confusion over the authorship --Noleander (talk) 19:37, 11 October 2010 (UTC)]'' "Noleander hate Background"? I never heard of such a user name curvesall, I got to "Noleander" through his anti Jewish campaign on: Judaism and violence which led me to his terrible, terrible falsification of history at his page Judaism and the slave trade defining to anti-semitie: Louis Farrakhan's Nation of Islam material as "documenting"... his "war of extermination" to blame on the Jews: and to use in his Judaism and violence, yet objecting to any material on violence by another religion... so to make Jews look evil.Salamaat (talk) 15:55, 11 October 2010 (UTC) Don't know what yesha is"  I just made a google search on this, well, I would have dedicated my contributions on Zionism, Israel, settlements, If I did.  Actually I think the settlements are an obstacle to peace.Salamaat (talk)
 * Comment: You are not about "anti or pro Israel" You are about anti Jewish subjects and material, don't you dare try to mask your campaign via "opposing zionist occupation crap." Also, Why would you contribute so much on your negative page: Criticism of the Talmud?Salamaat (talk) 15:55, 11 October 2010 (UTC)


 * Comment:Silly argument,. So why didn't all of the above "vote" in that subject?Salamaat (talk) 15:55, 11 October 2010 (UTC)


 * Comment:I would never post against my (Islamic) faith nor against the prophet PBUH, but your "objection" there and push to inf;ate Judaism and violence reaffirms your anti Jewish "cause."

"we are all one"?
 * Comment: I would love more people to comment on your horrific attempt to "change" historical facts, why didn't all of the above, if

Disruptive editing and harassment Actually your disruptive edit warring also entails also harassing all who stand in your way, Why else would you harass Bus Stop?Salamaat (talk)
 * Comment:

So why didn't rolesroice and others comment on Jews and slave trade?Salamaat (talk) 15:55, 11 October 2010 (UTC)
 * Comment:

Comments by other users

 * NOTE: As of October 9, 2010, I've added two new accounts to the list above: User: Nazarethian and User: Ip101. I think these would be worth checkusering, too, as they display exactly the same patterns of behavior as the other users under investigation. Admins: Please don't close this SPI until these two additional accounts are checkusered and dealt with, too. We want to be thorough. Stonemason89 (talk) 03:14, 9 October 2010 (UTC)


 * Comment by Shuki I think someone is merely fishing here. --Shuki (talk) 12:56, 10 October 2010 (UTC)


 * Comment: One of the above-named editors Lawsmass, has just filed a frivolous SPI as an obvious bad-faith attempt at revenge. I think it's fairly obvious that he and most (if not all) of the above-named users are not here to improve Wikipedia, but to troll. Stonemason89 (talk) 18:17, 10 October 2010 (UTC)


 * Comment: Nazarethian (mentioned above) has been confirmed as a sockpuppet of User: Trendsies. See Sockpuppet investigations/Trendsies. Stonemason89 (talk) 04:08, 11 October 2010 (UTC)


 * While at it:

Can there be a checkuser for your meatpuppets or/and socpuppets (who are "with you so fast" on your action at Nazism in Arab Palestine and in push for deleting my page.:

Salamaat (talk) 15:55, 11 October 2010 (UTC)

Clerk, patrolling admin and checkuser comments
All accounts are ❌ based on technical evidence. –MuZemike 17:04, 1 October 2010 (UTC)
 * MuZemike: Can you clarify?  I thought the SPI process was the correct process to use for meat-puppet investigations?  And I thought that meat-puppetry was always a subjective "duck" sort of evaluation?  --Noleander (talk) 17:08, 1 October 2010 (UTC)
 * I have basically ruled out that there is no socking going on, not as to whether "external soliciting" is going on. –MuZemike 17:12, 1 October 2010 (UTC)


 * I see only three blocked, two for socking. I will give this a few more hours for admins to consider blocking since it's already been a week. -- DQ  (t)  (e)  11:59, 8 October 2010 (UTC)
 * The three blocks you see are from the older, first SPI at Sockpuppet investigations/Curvesall/Archive. This newest SPI includes a request to block two additional editors  User:RS101 and User:Salamaat (see above for details).   No admin has yet done a final review of this newest SPI, nor has any admin blocked any "new" users under this latest SPI.  In other words, I think we are still waiting for an admin to pass judgement and decide whether or not to block any users.  --Noleander (talk) 17:32, 8 October 2010 (UTC)
 * Ok, that's different definitely. I will take a look at these when I get home and post my blocking recommendation. -- DQ.alt (t)  (e)   17:39, 8 October 2010 (UTC)  —Preceding unsigned comment added by DeltaQuad.alt (talk • contribs)


 * Looking this over, there is clearly no socking going on. As for meatpuppets, that's not my area of expertise, but if patroling admins could say which ones they WON'T block, then we can bring this to a close. -- DQ  (t)  (e)  21:20, 8 October 2010 (UTC)
 * What about Ip101 and Nazarethian? These two haven't been checkusered yet at the time I'm writing this. The former is especially suspicious, since its username is very similar ("Ip" followed by a number) to one of the other ones that has already been checkusered. Stonemason89 (talk) 03:15, 9 October 2010 (UTC)
 * I just discovered that there was a seminar in early August 2010 titled "Zionist Editing for Wikipedia" and it is briefly mentioned in  Reliability of Wikipedia, and it seems likely that it is the cause of this meat-puppetry.  I just now added details about the seminar above in this SPI in the "evidence" section.  So we should probably see if other editors have any insight to the seminar before closing this SPI.   Though I do still request blocks, as soon as possible, of  User:RS101 and User:Salamaat based on meat-puppetry described above in the Examples section. --Noleander (talk) 14:41, 9 October 2010 (UTC)

 [Segment redacted] 

This section is for clerks and responding admins only. Please do not place unrelated comments in this section. -- Sh i r ik ( Questions or Comments? ) 17:11, 11 October 2010 (UTC)

Blocked under WP:MEAT -- Sh i r ik  ( Questions or Comments? ) 17:12, 11 October 2010 (UTC)

Blocked, WP:MEAT and WP:DE (persistent reverts of a single editor across many pages/POV pushing) -- Sh i r ik ( Questions or Comments? ) 17:28, 11 October 2010 (UTC)

I see possible connections to Sockpuppet investigations/Weaponbb7 which may need to be investigated. -- Sh i r ik ( Questions or Comments? ) 17:35, 11 October 2010 (UTC)

Blocked under WP:MEAT and WP:DE in the same manner as  -- Sh i r ik  ( Questions or Comments? ) 17:40, 11 October 2010 (UTC)
 * Blocked in the same (possibly a sock despite technical evidence?) -- Sh i r ik  ( Questions or Comments? ) 17:42, 11 October 2010 (UTC)

The connection between the others is interesting to note but insufficient for me to block under WP:DUCK right now. However, the connection to WP:Sockpuppet investigations/Weaponbb7 still needs to be discussed. -- Sh i r ik ( Questions or Comments? ) 17:57, 11 October 2010 (UTC)

There is not much else CheckUser can do here. Technically, all the suspected reported accounts above are as unrelated as you can possibly get. There is likely some coordinated online attack of sorts going on (like with 4chan or ED). Admins will need to block individually based on the severity of disruption. –MuZemike 18:36, 11 October 2010 (UTC)

I'm throwing out my earlier mention of Weaponbb7 as a possible connection; probably unrelated after more investigation and appears just to be a coincidental link. I've issued appropriate blocks best I can; the others will just have to be watched for now. Closing case. -- Sh i r ik ( Questions or Comments? ) 18:42, 11 October 2010 (UTC)

Evidence submitted by Nableezy
The last SPI resulted in a number of blocks per WP:MEAT on 10/11. On 10/13 the user Federalostt was registered and immediately picked up where a number of the users, blocked in the last SPI, namely RS101, had left off, adding poorly sourced editorial opinions in the Racism in the Palestinian territories article. The first edit, after blue-linking their user page and 2 other minor edits, is to restore the almost exact version of the article as edited by RolesRoice (here). Since the last blocks, RolesRoice has not edited at all. The shared, very small, topic area between the two and the timing of the edits suggests a common user.  nableezy  - 14:22, 19 October 2010 (UTC) 14:22, 19 October 2010 (UTC)

Comments by accused parties
See Defending yourself against claims. To noleander re: your messgae on my talk page:

What are you trying to tell me? That I have another account? no, I came to wikipedia while googling on Judaism, hitted the page you worked on violence and judaism. I have no interest in Israel or zionism and the like.Marias87 (talk) —Preceding undated comment added 01:18, 20 October 2010 (UTC).

Comments by other users
I added User:Marias87 to the list of suspected meat- or sock-puppets. The prior SPI blocked several users on October 11, including User:Salamaat. Then on October 15, User:Marias87 created an account, and started editing (examples:  and    )  one of the few artricles that Salamaat edited (examples:  and  ). In addition, two other meat-puppet accounts from the prior SPI edited the same article: User:Evengee  and Llistasonis. It is highly probable that User:Marias87 is a sock- or meat-puppet of one of the prior SPI accounts, and therefore User:Marias87 should be blocked accordingly. --Noleander (talk) 19:18, 19 October 2010 (UTC)

For the record, User:Federalostt appears also to be a sock- or meat-puppet: their account was created on October 13, and has focused exclusively on Racism in the Palestinian territories article. In order to get this SPI closed, I do not request any investigation of User:Federalostt at this time. I'm simply recording the observation, so it will be in the archives of this SPI, for future reference. --Noleander (talk) 20:16, 19 October 2010 (UTC)
 * That was the first user I listed (and what was checked) ;)  nableezy  - 20:18, 19 October 2010 (UTC)
 * Ahhh, I see. Okay.  I'll strike that so the clerks don't get confused.  --Noleander (talk) 20:47, 19 October 2010 (UTC)

Clerk, patrolling admin and checkuser comments

 * I'm going to call this very, bordering on ✅. They all share the same useragent at one point or another, but don't overlap on any network ranges. However, I'm quite certain they are using proxies to edit from; I positively identified three or four, and there's no other explanation for why someone would be editing from Florida, Spain, Israel, Mexico, and Guatemala all in the space of a few days. These users are almost certainly the same person, or if not, they're working together and trying to hide it. They could probably be blocked for the proxy use alone. Hers fold  (t/a/c) 19:43, 19 October 2010 (UTC)
 * Note that this does not include Marias87, who was added after I started. I'll check that account now. Hers fold  (t/a/c) 19:44, 19 October 2010 (UTC)
 * Good catch, Marias87 also shares the same data. Hers fold  (t/a/c) 19:48, 19 October 2010 (UTC)
 * Tagged/blocked. Master indef blocked for repeated use of many sock/meatpuppets. NativeForeigner Talk/Contribs 01:55, 21 October 2010 (UTC)