Wikipedia:Sockpuppet investigations/Mike willaims/Archive

09 July 2013

 * Suspected sockpuppets




 * User compare report Auto-generated every hour.
 * Editor interaction utility

Persistent attempts to spam articles with mentions of a non-notable individual, S. Nick Barua. Sockmaster User:Mike willaims has been blocked for one month. Msnicki (talk) 20:19, 9 July 2013 (UTC)

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


 * Thanks for opening this case. 219.66.196.20 can be added to the list as well. --Matthiaspaul (talk) 20:43, 9 July 2013 (UTC)
 * Added to Msnicki's list above. --Matthiaspaul (talk) 21:07, 9 July 2013 (UTC)


 * For the records, see also this recent thread where admin Kudpung temporarily semi-protected most of the affected pages (however, the list of affected pages given there is no longer complete): --Matthiaspaul (talk) 20:52, 9 July 2013 (UTC)
 * Checking the edits at Commons is insightful as well, as in one of the edits the user reveals his true identity as Saikat Nick Barua (if this wouldn't be clear already): --Matthiaspaul (talk) 21:04, 9 July 2013 (UTC)

Clerk, CheckUser, and/or patrolling admin comments

 * Obvious sock, indef blocked the sock, doubled the master's block to 60 days. The IPs don't make sense to block, most are majorly stale but might be useful in the archive. Dennis Brown &#124; 2¢ &#124;  WER  20:35, 9 July 2013 (UTC)

28 August 2013

 * Suspected sockpuppets




 * User compare report Auto-generated every hour.
 * Editor interaction utility

This user ("Mike willaims", who has repeatedly identified himself as Saikat Nick Barua) has a clear COI and is SPAMing en:WP since about 2011 by promoting himself and a number of companies related to him. He does so by dropping his name (Saikat Nick Barua, S.Nick Barua, Nick Barua and variants) as well as those of Dipak Barua and Dilip Barua into various articles, where he claims to be a software developer at Microsoft and Symantec / Norton, a fashion designer at Esmod and MaxMara, and/or an executive at a number of companies, who's names (DC group of Companies, DC Enterprises, T.K Group of Industries, T.K. Group, KANBE Pte Ltd and variants thereof) he drops into various articles as well.

While this may or may not be the case, and despite having been asked to do so many times, he has not provided a single reliable source supporting his claims. Some of the (few) links he provided were blog entries with text copied from Wikipedia (including text he had added to WP himself), others were personal photos showing himself and various other persons.

Over all these months I have not seen a single edit by this user, which could be characterized as useful for this project. All he appears to be interested in is trying to insert his name into Wikipedia without any evidence of notability. Various editors have attempted to communicate with him (through edit summaries and on article and various user talk pages) to no avail.

I have also done some research outside WP in order to evaluate notability but could not find anything, which would establish that this individual is notable by our standards, nor have I found any independent and reliable sources which could support his claims.

The user is currently blocked for SPAMming and circumventing his block using a sockpuppet "Mike Blackler". Nevertheless, he continues to circumvent this block by creating new socks ("Yuji Yoshida") and editing under various IPs (these IPs have been active recently: 219.66.195.173, 219.66.194.91, 119.18.148.3, 61.209.156.33). The new sock even started to create an article about Saikat Nick Barua (without any sources) under User:Yuji Yoshida/S.Nick Barua and User:Yuji Yoshida/sandbox.

In addition to his accounts and IPs used at en:WP, this user also maintains an account at Commons (Commons:User talk:Mike willaims), which is used solely for the purpose to upload the photos used in some of his bold SPAM edits at en:WP (putting his photo next to that of highly notable Yale and Rice university alumni like astronauts etc.).

The IP addresses he used seem to be semi-static over longer periods of time and not shared with other users, so it might make sense to block them as well.

List of affected articles so far (possibly incomplete):


 * Nick,
 * Barua,
 * Kobe,
 * Hyōgo Prefecture,
 * Dhaka,
 * Esmod,
 * Milan Fashion Week,
 * Norton AntiVirus,
 * List of programmers,
 * List of Young Global Leaders,
 * Political consulting,
 * List of management consulting firms,
 * List of Yale University people,
 * Rice University,
 * List of Rice University people,
 * Chittagong,
 * Chittagong City College,
 * Kawran Bazar,
 * T K Group,
 * Bengali literature,
 * List of Bengalis,
 * Bangladesh,
 * Economy of Bangladesh,
 * List of Bangladeshi people,
 * List of companies of Bangladesh,
 * List of conglomerates in Bangladesh

Since all edits by this user so far showed the same and very obvious editing pattern as discussed above, I skip providing detailed diffs for now (of course, they can be provided if necessary, but my time is limited).

In order to save us all time and energy we could better spend on article contributions, I would like to suggest a firm block of this user and all his socks and IPs (including the Commons account), since he has shown no insight into what Wikipedia is and is not, and just continues as before. I don't see anything useful coming out of this editor any more, unfortunately.

Thanks for investigating this case. Matthiaspaul (talk) 16:20, 28 August 2013 (UTC)

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


 * I agree with the claim. I wrote the archived investigation of this editor and can attest that the alleged spamming behavior has continued for months through one alias after another.  Msnicki (talk) 16:59, 28 August 2013 (UTC)


 * Okay, sockpuppet Yuji Yoshida has been blocked indefinitely, and IPs 219.66.194.91 and 119.18.148.3 have been blocked for 6 months now. Thanks for that. But what about the sockmaster Mike willaims (the block comment can be read as if the block would have been expanded to indef, but it is still at 2013-09-07. Mistake?). And what about the IPs 219.66.195.173, 61.209.156.33, 202.53.170.195, 219.66.196.20, 61.196.5.203 - shouldn't they be blocked as well given that they have not been shared with other users so far and some of them have been used both, recently as well as back in 2011 already - and by the same user -, that is, they appear to be semi-statically assigned. The typical editing behaviour of this user is to work in "bursts", rapid changes to a number of articles to one of his "themes" followed by silence under that account or IP for days, weeks or months, until he continues as before. Thanks for looking into it. --Matthiaspaul (talk) 18:59, 28 August 2013 (UTC)

Clerk, CheckUser, and/or patrolling admin comments

 * I've blocked the named user Yuji. I blocked the IPs which are most likely to be used again (that are static, often used) for six months. All named users tagged. Users reported at commons. NativeForeigner Talk 19:00, 28 August 2013 (UTC)
 * Yeah, I just caught that I didn't expand the master block to indef, which I have taken care of. I'm not willing to block an IP, even a static one for edits that occurred over a year ago. The 61.x are dynamic. So I'm only leaving two users that I think is within discretionary range unblocked. One of which is in a different location from the other IPs and only has one edit. Even four months is pretty stale for an IP, and I'll keep an eye on the targeted articles. NativeForeigner Talk 19:07, 28 August 2013 (UTC)
 * (I hope it is okay to reply here, if not, please move in the section above.) Thanks, NativeForeigner, for the explanation. I agree with your rationale, but applying this to the IPs listed above, I feel 219.66.195.173 should have been blocked as well (last edits less than 1 month ago, oldest edits in 2011, all edits by same user, all edits same misuse pattern, same IP range as the other blocked IP). In either case, thanks and greetings. --Matthiaspaul (talk) 19:23, 28 August 2013 (UTC)
 * It's fine. I almost did the same thing you are doing: they last edited in 2012. NativeForeigner Talk 20:11, 28 August 2013 (UTC)
 * :-) Oh dear, how embarrassing... I really didn't see that. Enough sock hunting for today, I guess... ;-) Cheers --Matthiaspaul (talk) 20:36, 28 August 2013 (UTC)

21 September 2013

 * Suspected sockpuppets




 * User compare report Auto-generated every hour.
 * Editor interaction utility

Once again adding non-notable S. Nick Barua to the same set of files as in the past. Obvious block evasion. Msnicki (talk) 08:50, 21 September 2013 (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

 * Blocked the IP address for one month. —  Rich wales (no relation to Jimbo) 15:07, 21 September 2013 (UTC)

26 September 2013

 * Suspected sockpuppets




 * User compare report Auto-generated every hour.
 * Editor interaction utility

Saikat Nick Barua (aka User:Mike willaims) is circumventing his indefinite block again by editing as an IP. In these edits he is once again inserting TK Group into an article. Both, the company and the article affected match his previous editing behaviour (see list of affected names and articles in older SPIs and user talk pages), and the IP geolocates to Chittagong as well (as did previous IPs). These older edits ( and ) clearly show, that the edit was carried out by the same user, and IP 119.18.148.3 is one of the IPs still blocked from previous socking by this user. If you check that IP's edit history, it becomes obvious, that this in fact the same COI user who identified himself previously as Saikat Nick Barua. Since this user is SPAMing us since 2011 now, it is obvious that he will not stop unless we stop him. Beyond blocking the affected IPs for a longer time and permanently semi-protecting all the affected articles (see older SPIs for a list), can we put the names he drops into articles into a badword filter or feed them into a bot? What about filing abuse reports (so that this user's abuse will start to have actual consequences for him)? Matthiaspaul (talk) 13:12, 26 September 2013 (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
The IP is stale to block now. But Economy of Bangladesh is in my watchlist and I'll block/protect if further activity continues. Elockid( Boo! ) 17:46, 6 October 2013 (UTC)

10 October 2013

 * Suspected sockpuppets




 * User compare report Auto-generated every hour.
 * Editor interaction utility

Once again adding non-notable S. Nick Barua to Esmod with this edit. Obvious block evasion. Msnicki (talk) 08:23, 10 October 2013 (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

 * Unfortunately, that IP is now, though the report was good at the time. Closing without blocking since he'll now be on another IP. Reaper Eternal (talk) 02:13, 20 October 2013 (UTC)