Wikipedia:Sockpuppet investigations/Gantuya eng/Archive

18 February 2011

 * Suspected sockpuppets


 * User compare report Auto-generated every hour.

''Please list evidence below this line. Remember to sign at the end of your section with 4 tilde characters " ~ "''

I waited to press charges against Gantuya, and after thinking about it for a while, I reached a tentative conclusion. Kim Han Gul has been blocked indefinitely, while Monkh was blocked for a meagre 2 weeks.

The same (or similar) opinions on Mongolia-related pages (see the Inner Mongolia page). The same behaviour, such as failure to explain reverts on multiple occasions: See this edit summary by Monkh and this peculiar edit summary.

Though as seen by the talk page, Monkh was clearly worse HXL's Roundtable, and Record 23:30, 18 February 2011 (UTC)

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


 * There are many editors that support HXL's views too. They in a very well organised cooperation. Why don't you check them? ༄༅།།གང་ཐུ་ཡཱ།། (talk) 04:01, 19 February 2011 (UTC)


 * I have no connection with the 2 editors mentioned above. ༄༅།།གང་ཐུ་ཡཱ།། (talk) 04:04, 19 February 2011 (UTC)


 * Because that is a waste of time and I will admit one thing. I once edited under a previous screenname, but since have moved on to this one. And focus on your own behaviour and do not use others as a scapegoat.
 * Oh and anyone can say that. Wikipedia has this tool called Checkuser. If the software claims a connection, then there is nothing that can be done to clear you of your guilt. Guilty until proven innocent, not vice versa. --HXL's Roundtable, and Record 04:06, 19 February 2011 (UTC)

Note: Gantuya has abruptly decided to retire. So, until he starts riling things up, a clerk may considering closing this case. --HXL's Roundtable, and Record 04:52, 19 February 2011 (UTC)


 * Ridiculous. I don't like her, so she must be a sockpuppet. Why not investigate me, too? Yaan (talk) 23:00, 19 February 2011 (UTC)


 * You are even more ridiculous. I am not friendly towards you, and moreover, I dislike quite a few editors. I won't investigate a person without good reason. Read the evidence that I gave above, and note that Gantuya has since retired. --23:10, 19 February 2011 (UTC)


 * I am also retiring. The evidence is right in your eyes. Yaan (talk) 23:12, 19 February 2011 (UTC)
 * P.S.: What would the "User compare report" for Gantuya and me look like? Any idea why I returned to wp just today? Yaan (talk)


 * Enough with this sarcasm. When you intervened in the link dispute at the Inner Mongolia talk page, you did not seem similar at all to Gantuya. Since you wrote much, and I have little time ATM, I won't delve into specifics. --HXL's Roundtable, and Record 23:29, 19 February 2011 (UTC)


 * Now that the CU results are in, Yaan might consider apologizing for the histrionics. It's like, multiplied by every dispute that Gantuya has had ever, that has repeatedly set off warning bells; not a personal grudge, although Gantuya's behavior is certainly conducive to them. And I have a hard time believing that Gantuya the person has a serious intention to retire, given the fanaticism that the sockpuppeteering shows. Maybe the account will be retired. In any case, the case should not be prematurely closed, because editors need recourse when a new Gantuya sock attacks another article. Quigley (talk) 02:30, 20 February 2011 (UTC)


 * Quigley might consider pondering the phrase "given the nature of the IP range they are on they should be closely reviewed before administrative actions is taken". Yaan (talk) 13:16, 20 February 2011 (UTC)
 * and you might consider pondering that Quigley only opposed premature closing of the case and that IP ranges are always considered before blocking, due to the potential for collateral damage. --HXL's Roundtable, and Record 15:28, 20 February 2011 (UTC)

Clerk, CheckUser, and/or patrolling admin comments

 * - Endorsing based on behavior. Something is going on here. —  Hello Annyong  (say whaaat?!) 02:41, 19 February 2011 (UTC)
 * The following are ✅, but given the nature of the IP range they are on they should be closely reviewed before administrative actions is taken:
 * ( Blocked )
 * ( Blocked )
 * ( Blocked )
 * ( Blocked )
 * ( Blocked )
 * ( Blocked )

Tiptoety talk 01:30, 20 February 2011 (UTC)
 * For the record, a decent amount of these are sleeper accounts. I blocked and tagged most, though I left a few accounts alone, either because they were blocked before or I didn't think the pattern matches. —  Hello Annyong  (say whaaat?!) 15:45, 20 February 2011 (UTC)
 * Maybe I am missing something, but is there anything beyond HXL's observation (gosh, both write mostly about Mongolia-related topics and at around 5 pm Mongolian time) that makes you think Gantuya and Monkh_Naran are the same people, while Hoshi.sasori is not? Yaan (talk) 16:07, 20 February 2011 (UTC)
 * Hoshi.sasori's edits are in a completely different set of pages. There's overlap between Gantuy and Monkh, but Hoshi is totally unrepresented there. —  Hello Annyong  (say whaaat?!) 18:09, 20 February 2011 (UTC)
 * So that they are both writing on completely mainstream (for Mongolians) topics makes them sockpuppets? That they both argued the same completely mainstream (for Mongolians) POV on one talkpage, in a discussion that began with some strong, but remarkably ignorant statements by another user? Or that both of them did not always fill out edit summaries (omg, who could fail to do that)?
 * I fail to see how HXL's observations could be evidence for anything beyond the fact that both Gantuya and Monkh_Naran post from Mongolia. Certainly a very similar pattern could be established to press sockpuppetry charges against HXL and Quigley. And even HXL says that Gantuya and Monkh_Naran behave rather differently.
 * This means that either (via Quigley) those IP adresses establish beyond doubt that all users above are one and the same person. Or, otherwise, that if an IP check on its own was inconclusive then an IP check coupled with some very trivial observations is still inconclusive.
 * Yaan (talk) 19:10, 20 February 2011 (UTC)


 * The overlap covers not just "mainstream (for Mongolians)" topics; they cover plenty of esoterica like the swastika and an (un)healthy amount of historical battlegrounds in Chinese/Korean/Mongolian history. The behavior is pretty distinctive, too: the writing on the talk pages are, always edited afterwards to correct formatting errors with headings and indentation (like , [in which Monkh continues a talk page conversation on fellow sockpuppet's Kim Han Gul talkpage] and , with Gantuya's characteristic unrelated-to-article rants). Both accounts follow editors (Korean User:Historiographer, Chinese User:Mathpianist93) with which they have disputes to topics that are not "completely mainstream (for Mongolians)" such as historical Japan–Korea disputes and China-Tibet disputes . Gantuya and Monkh like to accuse other editors of VANDALISM IN ALL CAPS , and like removing Chinese historical maps as "inappropriate" or "not appropriate" . Gantuya has described at the map that Monkh so conveniently removed.


 * Gantuya eng/Monkh Naran has a few particular obsessions, like including Cyrillic on articles for Inner Mongolia [which uses traditional script], primping schools in Ulan Bator , and describing the Qing or Manchu Dynasty as the Qing or Manchu "Empire" . Both have a bizarre fixation on "literacy" and use the metaphor of the house for talk pages, demanding "who invited you here" when users try to raise etiquette issues, or describe talk page messages as "intrusions".  Other editors have sniffed a connection between Gantuya eng and Monkh Naran since , pointing out that Monkh ! If their behavior differs at all, it's because Gantuya eng acts as the good hand account, while Monkh Naran is the bad hand. During edit wars they [or another sock, such as Kim Han Gul] always follow each other, with Monkh using personal attacks  or no edit summary at all . And Gantuya/Monkh are always accusing others of being "rude" , warning other editors to "be civilic"/"be civilised" , and threatening to "report" other editors . Not only are the spelling and grammar throughout are extremely similar, but both Gantuya and Monkh make copious use of distinctive emoticons like :) and ;) . The smoking gun to all of this has been Gantuya eng's reaction to the accusations. First, Gantuya deflects with counter-accusations, and then makes a huffy retirement. If the accusations were mere "trivial observations", then Gantuya/Monkh would be confident enough to stay and fully dispute the allegations, no? Quigley (talk) 23:20, 20 February 2011 (UTC)


 * So you have brought some more examples of very generic Mongolian POVs (really strange that none of the two should like a map that displays their country as part of some island. Truly a tell-tale sign of the ultranationalist sinophobe.), plus again their joint participation in one discussion, of the many both have been in. And again some behaviour that looks similar because everyone does it (omitting edit summaries, correcting formatting errors, using smileys).
 * The only new "information" I see is an in-depth-analysis of allegedly similar grammar or vocabulary from two very short posts, one by Gantuya and one by Monkh_Naran. Certainly if I ever come across more than one Chinese user who makes mistakes with articles or gender, or uses words like "westerner", I am going to assume they are all sockpuppets.
 * Oh yes, both have used the word "literacy/literate" at least once. How damning, even if Monkh_Naran means something rather different than Gantuya. Both of them have edited the Swastika article. How unhealthy, nevermind that the swastika is a very common symbol in Mongolia, or that Monkh_Naran wants to tell everybody how it is a holy symbol, while Gantuya points out how it is used by certain extremist political groups.
 * Yaan (talk) 23:30, 20 February 2011 (UTC)


 * I have brought more than you will acknowledge, and in a short time too, which should show the blatancy of the sockpuppeteering. To ascribe all the shared unsavoury behaviors between the Gantuya/Monkh accounts as "generic Mongolian" is frankly an insult to all Mongolians. The diffs I picked were only examples of shared quirks, limited for readability to compare the two accounts quickly. They both did not only mention literacy only "once"; Gantuya has written whole discourses on the subject as . Were this a different forum, I could have also produced plenty of writings that are "tell-tale signs of the ultranationalist sinophobe". A cursory scroll through Gantuya's (and Monkh's) contributions will show you plenty of the generic signs of the undying nationalist: edit warring, incivility, personal attacks, accusing others of "vandalism" and "censorship", rejecting all scholarship not coming from, etc.


 * In this page we've seen Monkh follow Gantuya to fight edit wars on Qing Dynasty, Tsagaan Sar, and Inner Mongolia (multiple times). The editing is far more tendentious, as administrators in Monkh Naran's previous sockpuppet investigation have acknowledged, than is the mainstream for any nationality. And to bring us back to earth, despite your acting as if all of Mongolia was captured in this CU, there are many more acknowledged Wikipedians in Mongolia than were mentioned here. Nitpick and wikilawyer as you may to cast doubt on each individual clue, but all of the behavioral evidence taken together with the positive checkuser results are just too much to be coincidence. This investigation is overdue for archiving now, because the sarcasm, the battleground mentality, and the barbs against Chinese users in this discussion so far have been, to borrow a line from Gantuya eng, . Quigley (talk) 00:55, 21 February 2011 (UTC)
 * Actually, I have seen how Monkh_Naran edited the Qing Dynasty article more than two years after Gantuya last touched it. It sounds rather dishonest to describe this as Monkh Naran following Gantuya around. It sounds even more dishonest to turn her complaint about the wholesale dismissal of Mongolian sources into the rejection of all scholarship not coming from Mongolians. In fact, the post in question does not even deal with scholarly sources.
 * Yes, Gantuya has written about literacy more than once, and I can well imagine that Monkh_Naran has used the word "illiterate" more than once. But when one uses literacy to refer to the ability to read and write (Gantuya) and the other is using "illiterate" as a synonym for "uninformed" (Monkh_Naran), I still fail to see connection. And certainly in 4000+ edits mostly dealing with Mongolian history and culture, some posts on literacy are no bizarre fixation. In fact, the topic is apparently interesting enough to even attract editors that normally don't specialize in Mongolia.
 * I think you are also wrong with your "many more acknowledged Wikipedians in Mongolia", but maybe I was just browsing the wrong topics. As far as I am aware, Gantuya was the most active and one and also the one whose contributions were most valuable. But I guess that doesn't really matter anymore now anyway.
 * Re. your "insult to all Mongolians", I wonder if you ever heard the term "cultural differences". Whether you and I like it or not, most Mongolians are not particularly pro-Chinese and neither Gantuya's nor Monkh_Naran's POVs seem in any way uncommon. At least those POVs that I have come about.
 * Last not least: Assuming that a hint that ESL speakers of the same mother tongue may share certain linguistical patterns (a topic you have brought up) is not per se "disgusting, disgusting, and again disgusting", I wonder why you think your or HXL's ethnicity is of any relevance in this discussion.
 * Yaan (talk) 02:55, 21 February 2011 (UTC)
 * Folks, this conversation is done. At this point it's starting to veer off topic and away from the sockpuppet case. The checkuser has been run and blocks have been issued accordingly. Let's move on. —  Hello Annyong  (say whaaat?!) 03:04, 21 February 2011 (UTC)


 * Oops, the CheckUser returns no result, but Gantuya has already be blocked? ––虞海 ( Yú Hǎi )  ✍  11:55, 9 April 2011 (UTC)