Wikipedia:Sockpuppet investigations/Mushroom9/Archive

14 September 2014

 * Suspected sockpuppets




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BigJolly9 was created approximately two weeks after Mushroom9 was blocked for copyvios and appears to have started where Mushroom9 left off. Both users have created multiple copyright problems -- Contributor copyright investigations/Mushroom9,. Both users share an interest in Indian subways and railway lines. I haven't confirmed this -- Mushroom9's and BigJolly9's editing history overlap on ~300 articles and Mushroom9 has edited ~675 unique articles.

BigJolly9 appears to already have been familiar with Wikipedia before registration, inserting redirects, infoboxes and wikitables on the second day of being registered. MER-C 11:16, 14 September 2014 (UTC)

Comments by other users
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Clerk, CheckUser, and/or patrolling admin comments

 * A review of the two editors' accounts (i.e. behavioural evidence) does seem to indicate quite strongly that these two users are one and the same. Although the master is stale, there is some residual log information from which I can confirm they are editing from the same city. --Jezebel's Ponyo bons mots 22:50, 16 September 2014 (UTC)
 * Given the behavioral evidence, combined with the small bit of technical evidence from Ponyo, I've blocked the account as a sock. Mike V  •  Talk  23:09, 16 September 2014 (UTC)

13 August 2015

 * Suspected sockpuppets




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First five: Loud quacky sounds emanating from Foodpanda / hellofood where BigJolly9 (known sock of Mushroom9) and SPA pals have been active. The article is part of a group of subsidiaries or investments of Rocket Internet under investigation for extensive abuse here: WP:COIN ([//en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Wikipedia:Conflict_of_interest/Noticeboard&diff=675847806&oldid=675835711 diff]). Brianhe (talk) 02:26, 13 August 2015 (UTC)

User InfernalH created Gun politics in India, which was on BigJolly9's [//en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=User:BigJolly9/sandbox&oldid=602879861#to_do to do list]. Subsequent edits included Indian beer stuff (also on his to-do) and a return to the master's favorite, train stations: [//en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Purple_Line_(Namma_Metro)&diff=prev&oldid=675572003], [//en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Namma_Metro&diff=prev&oldid=675572089], [//en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Rapid_transit_in_India&diff=prev&oldid=675572256]

Comments by other users
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Clerk, CheckUser, and/or patrolling admin comments

 * - to compare non-stale accounts (Tintimbo, Sneh1593 and InfernalH) per provided evidence.  Vanjagenije  (talk)  00:46, 17 August 2015 (UTC)





— Berean Hunter   (talk)  00:50, 1 September 2015 (UTC)
 * Tintimbo and Sneh1593 appear to be technically ❌ to each other and the group above. However, I've blocked Sneh1593 as the account appears to be used solely for SEO spam. Looking at the checkuser archives shows that the accounts geolocate to a different city of the listed master. Mike V • Talk 17:03, 17 August 2015 (UTC)
 * Closing.

28 November 2015

 * Suspected sockpuppets


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This account was created shortly after the previous sockpuppets were blocked. It has the same editing interests, particularly "x in India" articles (cf. and,  and ,  and  and ) and also railway articles (compare    with the evidence presented at Sockpuppet investigations/Mushroom9/Archive).

Like Mushroom9, whose edits led to a lengthy CCI at Contributor copyright investigations/Mushroom9, Kinoko kokonotsu also engages in frequent copyvios. Many edits (e.g.,, , ) have material copied or closely paraphrased from the sources. Other contributions are copied without attribution from elsewhere on Wikipedia (e.g.,  has text copied from ). Psychonaut (talk) 11:38, 28 November 2015 (UTC)


 * I've added a couple IPs which have have the same editing interests ("x in India", Indian rail, etc.) and moreover tend to edit articles immediately after Kinoko kokonotsu edits them. (This is best seen with the history for Domestic policy of Narendra Modi: .) —Psychonaut (talk) 11:46, 28 November 2015 (UTC)
 * In light of the stale CU data, could you help evaluate the behaviour? You two had a much greater involvement in the CCI than I did. —Psychonaut (talk) 13:21, 28 November 2015 (UTC)
 * Thanks for the analysis, Diannaa. My own report is based mostly on Kinoko kokonotsu's similarity to User:InfernalH and User:Co9man, two sockpuppets which were linked on the basis of strong behavioural evidence to Mushroom9/BigJolly9.  I'm not sure that we can give much weight to time of day evidence to judge the relationship between all these accounts, though.  For one, the activity times for the first pair don't match those of the last pair.  And despite InfernalH and Co9man being conclusively linked to each other by CU, the times of day the two accounts are active are completely complementary:    —Psychonaut (talk) 15:59, 28 November 2015 (UTC)
 * Sorry, it looks like my analysis was incomplete as I was not aware there were further socks. (I should have checked the August SPI report; my mistake.) -- Diannaa 🍁 (talk) 17:34, 28 November 2015 (UTC)
 * Any chance someone could take action on this report? To summarize:
 * The two IP accounts have strong similarities to Mushroom9, BigJolly9, and Kinoko kokonotsu.
 * Kinoko kokonotsu has strong similarities to InfernalH and Co9man.
 * InfernalH, Co9man, and BigJolly9 are proven socks of Mushroom9.
 * Preferred time of day for the edits does not seem to be consistent, even among the confirmed socks.
 * Irrespective of any sockpuppetry, the three new accounts are causing copyright problems.
 * —Psychonaut (talk) 15:48, 15 December 2015 (UTC)

ChampignonNeuf is a strong match to Mushroom9, both in terms of editing interests (Indian rail) and the username (which is French for "Mushroom Nine"). And since CU has also linked ChampignonNeuf to Kinoko kokonotsu, I think it's clear that all three accounts are operated by the same individual. —Psychonaut (talk) 11:49, 2 January 2016 (UTC)

Comments by other users
''Accused parties may also comment/discuss in this section below. See Defending yourself against claims.''
 * The account was created August 21, 2015, but BigJolly9 was blocked September 16, 2014 (11 months prior). In contrast, BigJolly9 was created May 8, 2012, which was only a few weeks after Mushroom9 was blocked on April 24, 2012.
 * Both BigJolly9 and Mushroom9 named their cites in a series, ie, ref name=":1", ref name=":2", ref name=":3", etc. This was the main "tell" that led me to realize that BigJolly9 was a sock. I'm not seeing any of those with this user.
 * I don't recall BigJolly9 and Mushroom9 editing with IPs.
 * Time of day is not a match; BigJolly9 edited all week long, from 08:00 to 16:00, and Mushroom9 edited weekdays from 08:00 to 16:00. Kinoko kokonotsu is editing on Mondays between 04:00 and 20:00, and on Fridays from 16:00 to 20:00.
 * It looks like we have enough violations to open a CCI investigation on Kinoko kokonotsu and the IPs. -- Diannaa 🍁 (talk) 15:06, 28 November 2015 (UTC)
 * Time of day is a closer match between Kinoko kokonotsu and InfernalH/Co9man than it is with the earlier pair (Mushroom9/BigJolly9). Subject matter is similar:
 * Kinoko kokonotsu has six articles in common with InfernalH, 9 in common with Co9man, and the three accounts have three articles that they have all edited.
 * Kinoko kokonotsu has one article in common with Mushroom9: Telecommunications in India. Four of the five accounts have edited this article.
 * Kinoko kokonotsu has eight articles in common with BigJolly9, including the article Zomato, which was edited by all four of the most recent accounts.
 * All five accounts share the disregard for copyright law.
 * The two IPs listed above have a strong overlap in subject matter with the Mushroom9/BigJolly9 pair (govt programmes, metro lines and stations, cell phones). -- Diannaa 🍁 (talk) 18:12, 28 November 2015 (UTC)

Clerk, CheckUser, and/or patrolling admin comments

 * I've denied the CU request. The socks in the archives are .--Bbb23 (talk) 12:57, 28 November 2015 (UTC)
 * Can we use August CU logs and compare Kinoko kokonotsu to them? behavioral evidence is strong ( vs, vs ), but I don't think it is strong enough to block.   Vanjagenije   (talk)  20:42, 27 December 2015 (UTC)
 * I've looked at the account and based upon the limited technical data available, it seems very . Also I saw that and  are ✅. Please be sure to double check with the behavior. . Mike V • Talk 23:55, 27 December 2015 (UTC)
 * It seams that "Kinoko kokonotsu" also means "Mushroom nine" in Japanese, so I blocked them all and tagged as confirmed. Closing.  Vanjagenije  (talk)  19:49, 2 January 2016 (UTC)

03 January 2016

 * Suspected sockpuppets


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Stale but reporting here for record-keeping purposes. This is a very obvious sockpuppet used extensively to edit articles of the other sockpuppets, often immediately after they were created. Psychonaut (talk) 11:29, 3 January 2016 (UTC)

Comments by other users
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Clerk, CheckUser, and/or patrolling admin comments

 * IP not active any more. Closing.  Vanjagenije  (talk)  13:32, 3 January 2016 (UTC)

Suspected sockpuppets



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Netstar1 and Sibachintanpradhan have similar editing interests as serial copyright violator Mushroom9—generally Indian topics, but specifically very obscure articles such as ASEAN–India relations. (In fact, ASEAN–India relations was one of Mushroom9's articles that got deleted as a copyvio. Netstar1 recreated it, and the only other significant edits have come from Sibachintanpradhan.  Both users have introduced copyright-infringing text:  is from  and  is from .)  Both accounts have been warned for copyright violation; in common with Mushroom9, the warnings were ignored and/or deleted:.

Netstar1 was created around the same time that the previous Mushroom9 sock, Kinoko kokonotsu, was blocked.

you have been previously involved with Mushroom9, and you already warned one of the suspected socks, so may want to have a look at this too. —Psychonaut (talk) 20:05, 2 September 2016 (UTC)

Comments by other users
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Clerk, CheckUser, and/or patrolling admin comments
based on behavioural evidence. — Diannaa 🍁 (talk) 04:52, 13 September 2016 (UTC)
 * . I'm actually not sure if there's anything clearly tied to Mushroom9 for a CU to compare to — everything in the archives for this person appears to be stale — but I've been told in the past that CU's can sometimes find useful material anyway, so I'm willing to give them a chance.  OK with me if another clerk, or a CU, disagrees with me and says there's no point.  —  Rich wales (no relation to Jimbo) 04:06, 3 September 2016 (UTC)
 * Both accounts are but given the network structure even if stuff wasn't stale I'm not sure I could tell you much more than that. NativeForeigner Talk 21:48, 8 September 2016 (UTC)

Suspected sockpuppets



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FlickrWarrior was created on 17th February 2016 after 2 of his major accounts, and  were blocked earlier in January. The Co9Man account was active on commons till January even though it was blocked here in August last year. I don't like filing SPI's because it gives the socks an idea as to how they keep getting caught and thus try to change their habits, FW is one of these trolls with the same standard set of rules. I tried to add a socktag to his userpage, he removed it three times. The similarity is their work on commons, all of these socks have been heavily involved in commons, I would file an SPI there but that wiki has basically just 2 active CU's..and another link is the obsession with Indian politics and love for mass uploading images of indian politicians via Flickr2ommons tool..I personally also think that Mushroom9 is technically a sock of the original vandal, Mrpontiac1-- Stemoc 00:30, 20 October 2016 (UTC)

Comments by other users
''Accused parties may also comment/discuss in this section below. See Defending yourself against claims.''
 * It doesn't matter if Commons has only 2 active CUs. They're active. The master is also blocked there, so you should tell an administrator there to block FlickrWarrior (if he indeed is a sock). Dat GuyTalkContribs 16:45, 22 October 2016 (UTC)
 * I've added contributions from the CU-confirmed accounts to Contributor copyright investigations/Mushroom9. I've also tagged for speedy deletion all their new articles with no substantial edits by other users. —Psychonaut (talk) 14:53, 4 November 2016 (UTC)

Clerk, CheckUser, and/or patrolling admin comments

 * The following accounts are ✅ to each other, behaviorally related to the master and his socks, and matching location with some of the more recent CU log data (2015):
 * Blocked, tagged, closing.--Bbb23 (talk) 14:31, 4 November 2016 (UTC)
 * Blocked, tagged, closing.--Bbb23 (talk) 14:31, 4 November 2016 (UTC)
 * Blocked, tagged, closing.--Bbb23 (talk) 14:31, 4 November 2016 (UTC)
 * Blocked, tagged, closing.--Bbb23 (talk) 14:31, 4 November 2016 (UTC)
 * Blocked, tagged, closing.--Bbb23 (talk) 14:31, 4 November 2016 (UTC)
 * Blocked, tagged, closing.--Bbb23 (talk) 14:31, 4 November 2016 (UTC)
 * Blocked, tagged, closing.--Bbb23 (talk) 14:31, 4 November 2016 (UTC)
 * Blocked, tagged, closing.--Bbb23 (talk) 14:31, 4 November 2016 (UTC)
 * Blocked, tagged, closing.--Bbb23 (talk) 14:31, 4 November 2016 (UTC)