Wikipedia:Sockpuppet investigations/DesertPanther/Archive

Suspected sockpuppets



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It seems very likely that DesertPanther and Saucysalsa30 are either sockpuppet or meatpuppet accounts that have coordinated their votes in the AfDs for both Georges Sada and Three Whom God Should Not Have Created: Persians, Jews, and Flies in order to ensure their desired outcome. There is very little to distinguish the accounts as their arguments are identical and their word choice tends not to vary at all. For example, DesertPanther has written (inaccurately) that Kanan Makiya's highly-respected and widely-cited Republic of Fear: The Politics of Modern Iraq (University of California Press, 1998) "cannot be used as a reliable source, because it admitted by itself that it is unreliable," whereas Saucysalsa30 has referred to "Kanan Makiya's (pseudonym Samir Al-Khalil) Republic of Fear ... which itself claims to being unreliable." This is a highly irregular, novel interpretation of Makiya's commonplace qualifier about the difficulties of gathering evidence from inside closed-off, authoritarian societies, and by itself should be enough of a red flag to justify checkuser.

Making the case against 5IEPF0gTsTJLbfdu313E (formerly known as SeriousSam11) is going to require a much longer series of diffs, so bear with me, but keep in mind that in the following diffs 5IEPF0gTsTJLbfdu313E is advancing highly irregular (in English-language sources) Iraqi propaganda about Iran being responsible for the Halabja chemical attack while falsely alleging that the reliable sources exonerating Iran have an Islamic motivation and dismissing other reliable sources with distinctive terminology such as "unknown blog" (for sources that are not blogs at all):
 * "Not an investigation, not at Stockholm, unsourced, uses Islam as an argument, falsely claims cyanide is not lethal, claims Iraq used cyanide agents (verifiably false), ignores Iranian/MSF confirmation of cyanide deaths, uses Iran govt denial as proof" (this is a comical, word salad attempt to discredit the Stockholm International Peace Research Institute because, among other reasons, it is supposedly "not at Stockholm" and is making a religious appeal by invoking "Islam as an argument");
 * "Leo Casey is not 'long-standing, reliably sourced content'. He makes an absolutely incorrect claim that no doctors examined the bodies, when that absolutely did occur." (Casey never said anything of the kind, but note the disdain for policy-based concerns about large-scale deletion of long-standing, reliably sourced content, which the editor mocks with scare quotes);
 * "The whole article is an opinion piece full of other incorrect statements written in an unknown blog. It's telling you would consider this to be 'long-standing, reliably sourced content'." (disdain for consensus, unnecessary personalization of a dispute ("It's telling you would consider ... "), and dismissing a Dissent "opinion piece" as an "unknown blog" when it is neither).

I could of course go on, but let's compare those diffs with diffs from Saucysalsa30, shall we?
 * "The defense provided thus far is hopelessly erroneous, that because such a source has been long-standing, it should be valid." (disdain for WP:BRD as regards long-standing content);
 * "Further, the is largely a one-sided exceptional opinion piece even making religious appeals at least from reading the first 100 pages ie. WP:QS/WP:UNDUE. If this is not an issue, make a talk page section as to why you believe original research and failed verification should be allowed." (word salad, unnecessary personalization, falsely claiming that an academic book published by University Press of Florida is an "exceptional opinion piece" and is "even making religious appeals");
 * "original research, POV, and bad sourcing (Iranian blog websites? Really? You claim that's a good source)" (word salad, unnecessary personalization ("Really? You claim that's a good source"), falsely claiming that reliable sources are "Iranian blog websites");
 * Also, in this diff Saucysalsa30 admits to knowing me "for years" amidst a barrage of wildly inappropriate personal attacks so over-the-top that you can't help but laugh and roll your eyes, despite this supposedly being our first interaction and Saucysalsa30 being a fairly new account.

I could give many more diffs if necessary (in fact, more is piling up as I write this), but this is all highly unusual, suspect behavior. There are just not that many editors out there that can only be described as Saddamists, or that will shamelessly WP:BLUDGEON talk pages with ridiculous lies such as Stockholm International Peace Research Institute being an Islamic organization that thinks cyanide is safe, that an academic book published by University of California Press boasts of its unreliability, or that another academic book published by University Press of Florida is "a one-sided exceptional opinion piece even making religious appeals," and that official statements from Saddam-era Iraqi officials (including Saddam himself) are more credible. The high levels of dishonesty and aggression, coupled with word salad bludgeoning, are strong behavioral evidence in and of themselves, to speak nothing of both 5IEPF0gTsTJLbfdu313E's and Saucysalsa30's sustained (almost to the point of tl;dr) personal attacks against me (an editor that Saucysalsa30 has supposedly just met). Finally, while by no means determinative, the only editors to slap a POV tag on Halabja chemical attack in the past two years at least are (you guessed it!) 5IEPF0gTsTJLbfdu313E and Saucysalsa30, while 5IEPF0gTsTJLbfdu313E's previous handle (SeriousSam11) has a striking resemblance to Saucysalsa30 and may have been changed for that reason (in July 2019, more than 13 months after the last edit made by that account but only two months before Saucysalsa30 was registered and started editing in September 2019). TheTimesAreAChanging (talk) 20:32, 28 November 2020 (UTC)

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

Greetings,

I firmly believe that it is cowardly for anyone to use an alt account for sock puppeteering. But do you know what is even more cowardly? Making false claims in an attempt to shut down opposition regarding this or that article.

Go ahead and try to do any sorts of checks you want to do to prove these baseless accusations of these three accounts being belonged to one person, because I am 100% certain you won't be able to.

One thing I have to admit though, is that @Saucysalsa30 asked me for advice regarding AfD, and this is how I got involved in these two articles. That being said, my opinions are based on conclusions based through my own research about the two matters. Besides, my vote was not that consequential because others voted to delete as well.

Thanks, and have a great day/evening! — DesertPanther (talk) 22:01, 28 November 2020 (UTC)
 * "One thing I have to admit though, is that @Saucysalsa30 asked me for advice regarding AfD, and this is how I got involved in these two articles." That sounds like inappropriate canvassing and/or meatpuppetry to me. Also, the DesertPanther account had been inactive for seven years prior to the AfDs, thus begging the question of how Saucysalsa30 would even know this account. But I digress.TheTimesAreAChanging (talk) 22:10, 28 November 2020 (UTC)


 * "No puppet, no puppet. You're the puppet!" - Donald Trump
 * No, giving advice and writing a comment or two in AfDs aren't canvassing. Canavassing is you and @Qahramani44 working on tandem on the same topics.
 * To put it mildly, it is absolutely none of your business that I was inactive for seven years. Also, I am not a newbie as you might like to think. I work in one of the biggest informatics companies in the world, and I personally met with the cofounder of Wikipedia on multiple occasions.
 * This whole charade of yours will reflect extremely poorly on you. After closely checking your account, and since all the patterns I have seen so far confirm my suspicions, I will see to it that a certain three letters abbreviated agency investigate possible links between your character and an enemy state intelligence services.
 * Enjoy! — DesertPanther (talk) 00:41, 29 November 2020 (UTC)
 * Not to mention TheTimesAreAChanging has been guilty before for sockpuppetry. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Sockpuppet_investigations/TheTimesAreAChanging/Archive Saucysalsa30 (talk) 08:09, 29 November 2020 (UTC)

_______________________________

While I take no joy in seeing TheTimesAreAChanging's accusations disproven once again and came across this by means of another shaky Incident report that TheTimesAreAChanging made, I have to add some context here, and explain how AfD works since TheTimesAreAChanging is not aware of it.

It is evident that TheTimesAreAChanging is upset about their POV narrative and defense of blatant content violations on the Iraqi_invasion_of_Iran article were dismantled in the Talk page and revisions (which apparently sparked this Sockpupppet accusation), and this includes their defense of bad sourcing (user-generate blog content are reliable sources? really?), original research, failed verification (even to the extent that the content in the Wikipedia article directly contradicts what a source says), and other violations. Because I challenged TheTimesAreAChanging and made Talk sections explaining these content violations, and because his response amounted to a single comment containing personal attacks, a tangent, a refuted claim, and claiming (then backtracking) that Washington Post isn't a reliable source and being upset about it, along with edit warring, they are making multiple Incident reports as a response including this one. The obvious motive is since they can't beat and have been beaten by the opposition, then the opposition has to be silenced". That the go-to response by TheTimesAreAChanging is attempts at repression is disappointing.

Regarding how AfD works: For one, when an article is deleted, the revisions are gone too. So my activity, DesertPanther's, Phil's, Gadling's, and other users are not visible in the revision history and Talk page on the articles any longer. You probably noticed this was absent when you were digging through users' histories.

Also, as DesertPanther and other users such as Hob Gadling were involved in those articles (pre-deletion), one of the policies of AfD is that users who were involved in the articles should be involved in the AfD. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Articles_for_deletion#After_nominating:_Notify_interested_projects_and_editors There already was discussion about creating an AfD, and evidently users who were following the "Georges Sada" and "Three Whom God Should Not Have Created: Persians, Jews, and Flies" Talk pages were aware an AfD was coming. This is not canvassing or meatpuppetry at all, especially when Wikipedia formally encourages other editors to be involved in the AfD. To reiterate DesertPanther's point, his vote was unnecessary anyways. The arguments made otherwise to delete the pages were solid, while the case to keep was tepid at best (in the case of Georges Sada for example, it was the misuse of an essay as a formal policy). Saucysalsa30 (talk) 23:14, 28 November 2020 (UTC)

Another note to further disprove this bizarre accusation, my first edit was in September 2019. The 5IEPF0gTsTJLbfdu313E account has not had a revision since May 2018. '''There is about 16 months of no overlap between these accounts, which fails to meet what a sockpuppet is. A sockpuppet means at a minimum using multiple accounts simultaneously.''' As for the DesertPanther account, that is an entirely different user and person as has already been proven and admins can prove even further with IP checking. For starters, I suggest you read up on what sockpuppetry is: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Sockpuppetry

'''By the way, I see you have been proven to use simultaneous sockpuppet accounts before. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Sockpuppet_investigations/TheTimesAreAChanging/Archive''' Saucysalsa30 (talk) 08:02, 29 November 2020 (UTC)
 * I'm not sure if Saucysalsa30 is admitting that he is the operator of the SeriousSam11/5IEPF0gTsTJLbfdu313E account in his statement above. The reason why it is relevant is because SeriousSam11/5IEPF0gTsTJLbfdu313E was already blocked 24-hours for editing warring (which obviously has a bearing on the current AN3 case against Saucysalsa30 if he is a repeat offender), and was warned by several users that he might face a much longer, possibly indefinite, block if he continued his pattern of edit warring and personal attacks during his last major series of edits (a tirade against me at ANI). (Admins and editors, including the closing admin, made comments such as "SeriousSam11 would do well to step away from the article for a good long while and re-read WP:NOR when s/he returns."; "I'm telling you, though, you're not guaranteed the inalienable right to make a certain number of reverts per day. You can be blocked for continuing to revert people even if you don't violate the three revert rule."; "SeriousSam11 the best advice I can give is for you to request this be closed before you dig yourself into a hole. Your sarcasm and attacks on editors here has very rapidly made the focus of this thread your behavior. ... Never attack the editors who respond here or you will almost surely not get the result you want and will likely be blocked for personal attacks as well."; and "While I am encouraged you actually went to the talk page after being told to do so, considering you didn't learn your lesson the last time, and your hostile attitude towards other editors, I'm starting to think a topic ban may be needed. How about you go edit something unrelated to the middle east for a while?") In addition, Saucysalsa30 has returned to the same article that landed SeriousSam11/5IEPF0gTsTJLbfdu313E in hot water, Halabja chemical attack, with both users slapping it with an unjustified POV tag as a result of their inability to force their preferred changes through by edit warring. Finally, I included the apparent connection between SeriousSam11/5IEPF0gTsTJLbfdu313E and Saucysalsa30 in this report to establish a broader behavioral pattern of using multiple accounts in addition to DesertPanther's odd reappearance and verbatim arguments just in time for the two AfDs. Admittedly, I cannot access the revision history of the deleted articles to see if DesertPanther edited one or both of them previously, nor do I have access to whatever off-Wiki communication occurred between Saucysalsa30 and DesertPanther, so if checkuser exonerates those two accounts of sockpuppetry, then I will accept that whatever occurred was a legitimate notification rather than illegitimate canvassing (barring very strong evidence to the contrary), but there is still no reason not to do a check. In addition, if Saucysalsa30 is indeed the operator of the SeriousSam11/5IEPF0gTsTJLbfdu313E account but believes that his use of these two accounts did not involve any deliberate violation of Wikipedia policies, then he should say so forthrightly, for his own sake, and fully disclose any other accounts or IPs that he may have used in the past for the record.


 * On another matter, DesertPanther's statement that he is planning to report me to "a certain three letters abbreviated agency" (presumably the FBI? LOL!) should probably be stricken as a legal threat, although I will leave that to an administrator.TheTimesAreAChanging (talk) 17:11, 29 November 2020 (UTC)


 * Honestly I'm kind of amazed at all the accusations here when my first and only interaction with either of the two users here was two days ago on the Iran-Iraq War article. I can't really comment on the validity of the sockpuppet claim as I've only just discovered this issue, but I will say that the real-life threats that DesertPanther just made (accusations of ties to "enemy intelligence organizations" and veiled threats of reporting to three-letter agencies) should be grounds for an immediate permanent block, this sort of criminal harassment is unacceptable in Wikipedia. --Qahramani44 (talk) 20:23, 29 November 2020 (UTC)

_______________________________

On the diffs/permalinks in the second paragraph, TheTimesAreAChanging said this "'cannot be used as a reliable source, because it admitted by itself that it is unreliable.'" This statement in the source could have been used for any number of things, including making a point. Similar reasoning applies to this (, where it said, '"Kanan Makiya's (pseudonym Samir Al-Khalil) Republic of Fear ... which itself claims to being unreliable."'

On the second user (not typing those letters), TheTimesAreAChanging said this:
 * "Not an investigation, not at Stockholm, unsourced, uses Islam as an argument, falsely claims cyanide is not lethal, claims Iraq used cyanide agents (verifiably false), ignores Iranian/MSF confirmation of cyanide deaths, uses Iran govt denial as proof":
 * 1) This is discredited, cyanide is lethal and nobody should be invoking these arguments, especially like this.


 * "Leo Casey is not 'long-standing, reliably sourced content'. He makes an absolutely incorrect claim that no doctors examined the bodies, when that absolutely did occur." (Casey never said anything of the kind, but note the disdain for policy-based concerns about large-scale deletion of long-standing, reliably sourced content, which the editor mocks with scare quotes):
 * 1) TheTimesAreAChanging is correct.
 * 2) Scare quotes are used in this way, which should cause any good-faith editor to stay away.


 * "The whole article is an opinion piece full of other incorrect statements written in an unknown blog. It's telling you would consider this to be 'long-standing, reliably sourced content'." (disdain for consensus, unnecessary personalization of a dispute ("It's telling you would consider ... "), and dismissing a Dissent "opinion piece" as an "unknown blog" when it is neither).
 * 1) Indeed. He was holding disdain for consensus.
 * 2) It (Dissent) is not a "opinion piece" or an "unknown blog".

On Saucysalsa30, there is one thing that stands out (quoting from TheTimesAreAChanging):


 * "Further, the is largely a one-sided exceptional opinion piece even making religious appeals at least from reading the first 100 pages ie. WP:QS/WP:UNDUE. If this is not an issue, make a talk page section as to why you believe original research and failed verification should be allowed." (word salad, unnecessary personalization, falsely claiming that an academic book published by University Press of Florida is an "exceptional opinion piece" and is "even making religious appeals");:
 * 1) More unnecessary personalisation and even making false claims. this is disruptive.

Tl;dr, this is disruptive and I see behavioral similarities. AnotherEditor144talk contribs 13:00, 14 February 2021 (UTC)

Clerk, CheckUser, and/or patrolling admin comments
, I think I came up empty-handed, like you. Drmies (talk) 16:33, 2 December 2020 (UTC) I've marked this case as closed because there is insufficient evidence to take action on sock puppetry and the case has been open for nearly 3 months. The case has run its course with no further action pending. DrKay (talk) 17:54, 24 February 2021 (UTC)
 * Yeah, it's messy, but CU doesn't hold the answer here (at least for now).-- Jezebel's Ponyo bons mots 23:47, 2 December 2020 (UTC)
 * does considering this case together with Sockpuppet investigations/Infinity Knight do anything useful? -- RoySmith (talk) 15:34, 2 January 2021 (UTC)