Wikipedia:Sockpuppet investigations/HRA1924/Archive

04 April 2014

 * Suspected sockpuppets


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has taken over editing at ANI for blocked sock User:TrangDocVan. per WP:DUCKTEST. ''' Flat Out   let's discuss it   03:38, 4 April 2014 (UTC)

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

Clerk, CheckUser, and/or patrolling admin comments
Sockmaster was already indef blocked for other reasons. DocVanTrang was already indef blocked and tagged by User:The Bushranger. I've tagged sockmaster HRA1924. Nothing left to do.

Suspected sockpuppets



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I am submitting this SPI under the HRA1924 casename, because as I understand it this is the only existing case for accounts of WP:LTA/IAC. I am not necessarily sure this is HRA1924, but I am sure that there are links to the IAC sock/meat farm, and a CU is the only way to be sure. Evidence:
 * Despite having 47 edits to their name, AAP ka Lawyer (AKL) shows a substantial knowledge of Wikipedia and its policies, as can be seen on their talk page, where other users have also expressed suspicions about their account.
 * Their article space edits are restricted to articles about figures within the Aam Aadmi Party, a target of the IAC sockfarm: Atishi Marlena, Sandeep Kumar (politician) and Ashish Khetan are all figures with links to this party, and these pages constitute 3 of the 4 pages they have edited in the article space, the fourth being the page India Against Corruption, another target of this sockfarm (this is behavior described at WP:LTA/IAC: I am not pulling this off the top of my head).
 * Their ninth edit was to an RFA (mine) once again displaying a certain precociousness.
 * Furthermore, in their oppose vote, they dragged up an old dispute that I had had, with another editor who was blocked as part of the IAC sock/meat farm: the editor is Landirenzo, the dispute is at Talk:Medha_Patkar. This dispute occurred long before AKL ever registered here.
 * There are behavioral tendencies similar to that account, such as an allergy to using primary sources for uncontroversial information, otherwise a fairly common practice: AKL, Landirenzo.
 * Finally, the IAC accounts are known for making legal threats. I have yet to see a threat from this account, but there is certainly a large quantity of legalese being thrown around: see and.

For me, this constitutes some fairly loud quacking. I have, however, interacted with this bunch a fair bit, and so I admit I might be a little quick to see wrongdoing where (possibly) none exists. Vanamonde (talk) 12:57, 11 September 2016 (UTC)


 * I'm not sure what constitutes being stale, but I believe this was the most recent user. I'm not sure, however, because not every account has an SPI page associated with it, nor am I sure that every account has been listed at the LTA page. Regards, Vanamonde (talk) 13:48, 11 September 2016 (UTC)
 * Thank you. I have also notified of this SPI: Sitush has tangled with the IAC accounts more than I have, and might possibly know of newer accounts. Regards, Vanamonde (talk) 14:32, 11 September 2016 (UTC)
 * I see, thank you. What would your evaluation (and that of ) be of the behavioral evidence? Vanamonde (talk) 04:57, 14 September 2016 (UTC)

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

I am not aware of any recent activity by the sockfarm until now. I have already voiced my suspicions that AAP ka Lawyer is a part of it, perhaps in the vanguard given the recent political troubles of the Aam Aadmi Party, with which the farm had many issues. Vanamonde's analysis is very clear and accords with my own. Beyond it, I can only add that the tone seem strikingly similar, although this is difficult to express in the form of examples. - Sitush (talk) 17:11, 11 September 2016 (UTC)

Clerk, CheckUser, and/or patrolling admin comments
Do you have one blocked account as part of this group who is not ?--Bbb23 (talk) 13:42, 11 September 2016 (UTC)
 * For an account to be checkable (not stale), it has to have edited Wikipedia in the last 90 days. From that you can easily see that the account you listed is way stale. My impression in glancing at some of the accounts listed at the LTA is that most were blocked in 2014. Therefore, the only thing that could be done by a CU is to look at the CU logs for the CU-blocked accounts to see what IPs they used and what IPs the new account uses. That might add a bit of technical support to the behavioral evidence, depends. I've put your CU request back, but I'm not doing anything for the moment. I'd rather wait for a clerk to do an independent behavioral review and see whether they want to endorse a limited check or want to block based on behavior.--Bbb23 (talk) 14:03, 11 September 2016 (UTC)


 * Note that I already checked the account two weeks ago based on an email and my own review of its history and couldn't tie it conclusively to any account or specific group.-- Jezebel's Ponyo bons mots 17:40, 13 September 2016 (UTC)
 * Based on Ponyo's comment above, and on the staleness of previously blocked accounts, I'm going to decline CU here and leave this one to be handled on behavioural evidence. —  Rich wales (no relation to Jimbo) 03:43, 18 September 2016 (UTC)
 * please block this account. It's hard to see how a username implying that they are the lawyer for an organization related to the dispute created only after other accounts are blocked is a genuinely unrelated user who has, as their ninth edit, a comment against a user on the other side of the dispute in an entirely unrelated forum, referring to the dispute. It's also hard to see how choosing that username is not intended to have a chilling effect, especially considering the evidence given. Ivanvector (Talk/Edits) 13:35, 21 October 2016 (UTC)
 * Blocked indefinitely. This sock/meatfarm is a bit odd, so I'll leave the tagging to a clerk. ~ Rob 13 Talk 02:28, 24 October 2016 (UTC)