Wikipedia:Sockpuppet investigations/GokulNC/Archive

Suspected sockpuppets



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On 1 October, Gokul created, a fork of Languages of South Asia. Two editors BLAR'd it on 28 October, which he reverted. On 25 November, Uanfala BLAR'd it again. Observe the timeline of the next day (Gokul edits, BK edits) Since then, BK has continued making edits focused on that one particular phrase, with their substantial content work largely limited to the topics of linguistics and religion in South Asia... or, rather, the Indian subcontinent... including creating ; cf. .
 * 6:51: BawaseerKhwaja is created
 * 7:05 - 7:07: Gokul makes his first edits since the third BLARing, three redirect creations.
 * 7:24 - 7:47: BK makes his first edit, changing "South Asia" to "Indian subcontinent", and then 7 more edits along those lines
 * 7:53: BK creates a userpage, quite similar to Gokul's
 * 8:14 - 11:41: BK makes another 15 edits, many of them still "Indian subcontinent"-related
 * 12:01: Gokul makes a single edit

And then, a few hours ago, BK discovered the undo button, reverted Uanfala's BLAR from a month prior with a long thought-out summary, and a few minutes later found WP:RM/TR, where they and I both unfortunately ran into the fact that SPI clerks are given pagemover, and RM/TR's a nice bit of maintenance work to use that on when it's 4 AM and you don't want to be sock-hunting. ... Sigh.

There's some edit summary tells I could point to, and a few other things, but this is enough to warrant a check, so let's start there. -- Tamzin  [ cetacean needed ] (she/they) 10:06, 31 December 2021 (UTC)

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


 * Hello! I think there is a misunderstanding here. Yes, I know the other person, who is a colleague of mine and works & stays in the same building as mine. Yes, we share similar views and discuss things related to our research domain of work, mostly around sociolinguistics of South Asia & its computational aspects. Having said that, I do not agree this is socket-puppeting, we do not work or sit-down together to conduct vandalism as you have accused. If you think there are any edits done by me (which is either offensive, biased, archaic, uncited), please feel free to undo them with an explanation. Also please let me know if I have not complied to any policies of Wikipedia, will go through it and try to abide by the same. I am new to Wikipedia, earlier I just used to edit articles without having an account; I was suggested by the same person to just create one so that the edits are not easily dismissed in the name of vandalism. Regarding that specific Wikipedia page which I have restored recently, yes, I was aware that it was an already existing page, and I undid it with a proper detailed comment. And I just saw a mention of my name in the Talk page of a related article -- will leave my comment there regarding the same (instead of here). Requesting to let me know if there are any more questions; glad to clarify. And warm new year wishes! :-) BawaseerKhwaja (talk) 07:48, 1 January 2022 (UTC)

Clerk, CheckUser, and/or patrolling admin comments

 * . --  Tamzin  [ cetacean needed ] (she/they) 10:06, 31 December 2021 (UTC)
 * Basically ✅, though some aspects of the technical data suggest "two people in the same place working together" rather than "one person with two accounts"., any preference on disposition here? GeneralNotability (talk) 15:13, 31 December 2021 (UTC)
 * Interesting. I was just about the decline the CU request and edit-conflicted with you.  My take on the writing style is that this is clearly two different people.  For example, choice of editor (visual vs wikieditor) and mobile or not.  Also, BawaseerKhwaja often writes edit comments starting with a first-person present imperfect verb.  "breaking big intro into...", "renaming Aryan to...", "including...", "Converting...".  On the other hand, Gokul writes past-tense, "Added...", "Described...", or (grammarians help me here, present imperative?), "Add...", "Align...", "Move...", "Mention...".  I'm pretty sure they're not the same person. -- RoySmith (talk) 15:48, 31 December 2021 (UTC)
 * But they are clearly tag-teaming, whether or not they are the same person. GeneralNotability (talk) 20:38, 31 December 2021 (UTC)
 * I have requested comment from both accounts. --  Tamzin  [ cetacean needed ] (she/they) 21:05, 31 December 2021 (UTC)
 * Thank you for your honesty here. I will take you at your word. However, please understand that when two editors know each other off-wiki and are editing in similar ways, they are expected not to engage in behavior that could be seen as tag-teaming. Policy advises that, in cases where two editors act too much like one person, they should be treated as one person. For that reason, in the future, @both you and GokulNC:
 * Please do not make similar reverts to the same page (excluding reverts of vandalism).
 * Please avoid engaging in the same talkpage disputes if possible. If you do choose to do so, please disclose in the thread that you know each other.
 * These are the same rules that I follow myself. I share an IP with another Wikipedian, and we always avoid getting involved in each other's disputes, even in situations where we came upon the dispute independently.I'm closing this without action at this time, but with the above expectations in mind. To both of you, please let me know if you have any further questions. Also, @BK, I note that in the past Gokul has disclosed a conflict of interest (COI) regarding his employer. I don't know if that's the same employer you say you both work with, but either way, please be aware of the COI policy (plain and simple guide).Happy editing, and happy New Year's to you too. --  Tamzin  [ cetacean needed ] (she/they) 09:30, 1 January 2022 (UTC)