Wikipedia:Sockpuppet investigations/PANONIAN/Archive

Report date September 15 2009, 16:50 (UTC)

 * Suspected sockpuppets


 * Evidence submitted by Hobartimus

User:PANONIAN blocked multiple times including for mass POV pushing( "with an expiry time of 72 hours ‎ (mass edit-warring, see WP:ANI#POV pushing and edit warring by User:PANONIAN)") has a history of abusive combative style and clearly views editing wikipedia as war exl. [http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=User_talk:Mr._Neutron&diff=140584637&oldid=140564874 I will not give up. You can start revert war...] I really do not understand what I done wrong, not to mention that I was reported by user who is indeed an Greater Bulgarian nationalist -posted by block evading account, just after getting blocked. And more recent examples of personal attacks and generally abusive acts "the only reason that I can imagine is that you hate Serbs so much" also threats to incite ethnic conflict between editors "Have in mind that I will discuss your case with Romanian and Slovak users". The IP activity involves edit warring and other abusive activity in some of the same articles frequented by the user, creating a larger than real appearance of support for the POV of PANONIAN and hiding his edits from scrutiny into possibly hundreds of IPs (only listed a few examples of IPs, when there is a direct connection to him and the IP range is dynamic) given this user's past tendencies we need a CheckUser to see clearly in this case and to flush out any other accounts. From WP:SOCK "Sock puppet accounts

Wikipedians prize their use of consensus to determine issues and their assumption that most people are trying to help the project. Sock puppets are used to counter these prized features by creating the illusion of greater support for a viewpoint and evading sanctions." Much of the IP activity centers around the article Demographic history of Bačka The talk page was edited by the following people:

Edits ↑ User

52 (52/0) PANONIAN

45 (45/0) Hobartimus

21 (21/0) Fcsaba

14 (12/2) PaxEquilibrium

14 (14/0) 212.69.2.147 (anon)

12 (11/1) Rjecina

6 (6/0) 81.18.63.100 (anon)

3 (3/0) Wladthemlat

1 (1/0) 81.18.49.156 (anon)

PANONIAN being a major participant under his own name and three different anons (alleged), creating an illusion of considerable support for his viewpoint. The article itself also shows heavy anon activity from the same range Demographic history of Backa revision history Compare this recent edit by an IP from and an edit by PANONIAN a day ago  the same IP has a contribution history (contrib history) with a mass of controversial edits in a few hours and calling edits vandalism  signaling that all the IPs are used in a good hand bad hand scheme, where the main account can remain blameless for their activity in violation of WP:BADHAND. If the CheckUser comes up with "unrelated" (esp with regard to the most recent ) I will extend a personal apology towards PANONIAN. Hobartimus (talk) 04:27, 16 September 2009 (UTC)
 * Considering the number of IP sockpuppets I'm afraid this might only be the tip of the iceberg. After all these are just the sockpuppets that I collected as "likely" candidates just from a few articles, a CheckUser would be essential to flush out others and possible alternates/sleepers. If a user is allowed to operate an IP sock army over a period of months then all the references to scrutiny from the SOCK policy, or indeed any admin action becomes meaningless against such user. In effect this would allow PANONIAN to commit disruption, edit warring, extremist POV pushing on an unprecedented scale. If every IP from a dynamic range has it's own separate contrib history with nothing liking them together how would any admin even deal with the problem? Even outright, full-on vandals get 4 warnings before being blocked, a dynamic IP range would need how many before any action whatsoever is taken? I will need more time to collect more evidence necessary for the CheckUser to proceed, but personal attacks and other disruption by PANONIAN will need to be handled separately. In fact I'm not sure why he is allowed to bring content issues at a place where he is supposed to prove that he is not the sockmaster of the IPs, but I will have to address it if it's not removed. Hobartimus (talk) 14:16, 16 September 2009 (UTC)
 * On second thought it might be necessary to launch a different investigation altogether as this place only deals with the checkuser itself as was said, blockings and determination on whether policy was violated are done elsewhere. For the purpose of future cases or discussions (such as ANI, RFC, community ban discussions etc etc) will this below result be the same as a CONFIRMED, on all suspected sockpuppets? Or if in a future case something really bad comes up, posted by an IP listed in a similar CU case, can somebody say (THAT of course wasn't me, I only ever said some of them may have been mine). Hobartimus (talk) 14:37, 16 September 2009 (UTC)


 * Comments by accused parties    See Defending yourself against claims.


 * This is ridiculous. I admit that I am not always loged on when I edit Wikipedia and I usually have similar IP numbers as those listed above, so some of these IP numbers presented by user:Hobartimus are probably mine. However, I do not see that it is forbiden to edit Wikipedia while not loged on because I do not use those IP numbers to violate any Wikipedia rule or policy - as everybody can see, I mostly add images to the articles or categorize articles with these IP numbers, for example these IP numbers are mine: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Special:Contributions/81.18.62.88 and http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Special:Contributions/81.18.49.76 - I certainly do not think that these edits are abusive or something like that. However, user Hobartimus is one of the reasons why I do not want to log on since he track my edits (when I am loged on) and vandalize articles which I edit. He harasing me for more than 2 years by reverting my edits in numerous articles and accusing me for sockpupetry and other things (this page is an example of it) and I really do not know where to ask protection from his behaviour (and there are other users who were also his victims). The fact is that he is nationalist POV pusher and he will do anything to present that POV in Wikipedia and thus he harasing and accusing other users that do not agree with his behavior. I will always support an admin mediation in this case, but seems that admins are not interested in that. PANONIAN  07:19, 16 September 2009 (UTC)


 * Also, I was not present in Wikipedia for about two years and my involvement in Wikipedia two years ago mentioned by Hobartimus is really irrelevant here. But I have to answer to his accusations anyway: first, I was not blocked "multiple times" and certainly not for "mass POV pushing" - I was blocked 2 times for 3rr violation and mass revert warring, but I was not the one who was pushing POV. When I returned to Wikipedia after two years, I was mostly involved in map drawing and I was not involved in such revert warring. As for examples of my edits presented by Hobartimus, I do not see why would be wrong that I told to somebody that he has to prove his edits on the talk page (that is something what user:Hobartimus do not want to do as well) or to warn him not to delete referenced data from the articles (what user:Hobartimus do). As for the question whether my IP numbers are involved in revert waring, I did had few problems with user:Hobartimus in "Demographic history of Bačka" article, but even then I did not violated Wiki rules, including 3rr and I always elaborated my edits on relevant talk pages (which cannot be said for user Hobartimus who reverting all my edits from that page, not only those with which he do not agree). I also did not used IP numbers for "creating a larger than real appearance of support" since I never claimed that I am somebody else, but I done that to hide my edits from user:Hobartimus in some articles since, as I already stated, he constantly harasing me - of course, I do not hide my edits from him because I am afraid of him or because my edits are violation of Wiki policy, but because I do not have much free time as I had before, so I would rather avoid conficts with Hobartimus which would give me more free time to do something useful (otherwise I would lost most of my free time dealing with him). In "Demographic history of Bačka" article, I also did not used IP number to violate any Wiki rule, but you can see that talk page of that article have a large discussion where I tried to resolve this issue with user Hobartimus but he simply ignoring my comments there and reverting article to an outdated version (he reverting all my edits there, not only those with which he do not agree, but also my creation of table content, category change, etc, etc - this is very good example of harasing). In fact, you can check this diff and you can judge this case by yourself: http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Demographic_history_of_Ba%C4%8Dka&diff=314070190&oldid=314068319 - 1. user Hobartimus claim that he revert article to "consensus version", while it is evident from aticle talk page that such consensus does not exist, 2. he deleting referenced data for 1715 and 1720 census (probably because he does not like the fact that Serbs were majority in Bačka in that time), 3. he reverting my category change from "Bačka" to "History of Bačka", while it is clear that this is historical article, 4. he deleting introduction description that censuses before 1910 were for entire Bačka and those after 1910 for Serbian Bačka only (and it is correct information that should be presented to Wiki readers), 5. he reverting my improvement of the table of content (and I have no idea why he would do that, since he never tried to elaborate that on the talk page). It is one thing when you revert those edits of other users with which you do not agree, but if you revert ALL edits of one user, including those that are clearly nothing else but improvement to the article, then it is undisputed case of user harasing. Even two years ago, when I was involved in such problems, I never reverted any edit of other users that were general improvement for the article. PANONIAN  07:40, 16 September 2009 (UTC)
 * Finally, if you check edits of user:Hobartimus, you will see that he is involved in constant revert wars with multiple users in many articles related to Slovakia, Romania, Serbia (for example here or here), etc trying to push Hungarian nationalist POV (and other users will confirm this). PANONIAN  08:25, 16 September 2009 (UTC)


 * Comments by other users

Requested by Hobartimus (talk) 16:50, 15 September 2009 (UTC)
 * CheckUser requests


 * Clerk, patrolling admin and checkuser comments


 * Hobartimus, can you take a look through WP:SOCK and post some recent diffs as evidence for violations of that policy? Thanks, Nathan  T 20:22, 15 September 2009 (UTC)


 * as PANONIAN stipulates that the IPs listed belong to him. Whether a violation of the SOCK policy has occurred is a separate determination; note that editing sporadically without logging in is not necessarily against the policy, particularly if IP edits are (1) dispersed in time (2) not used to violate 3RR (3) not used in discussion to create an artificial consensus. Nathan  T 13:47, 16 September 2009 (UTC)

No action taken. I don't see abuse via multiple accounts here. MuZemike 19:20, 17 September 2009 (UTC)
 * Conclusions