Wikipedia:Sockpuppet investigations/Philip Adrian/Archive

Suspected sockpuppets



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These accounts add refspam to recent deaths articles. The references link to obituaries on the following sites: theartsofentertainment.com, immiguy.com, and naijafile.com. Edits by these accounts occur shortly after deaths are reported in the media and are almost always solely adding references to the same group of sites. The references are frequently added in the lead, just after the death date.

The Philip Adrian account was blocked for spamming on 27 December 2019. Adewale0801 started editing on 24 January 2020. Adewale0801's edit summary here "This explain her death and cause of death in details" is very similar to the edit summary Philip Adrian used over a dozen times: "This explain details about his death, and it keeps updating." In this edit from December 2019, Philip Adrian lists an obituary whose author is Opeyemi Daramola. Today on the Nick Cordero article, the Opeyemi Daramola account added a naijafile reference and changed a reference's url to theartsofentertainment.. On the same article, Owojames also changed the url of a reference to naijafile reference. Similar behavior on the Hugh Downs article: Opeyemi, Owojames. I've done a cursory search of the domains, but the pattern suggests the possibility of more accounts, so requesting checkuser. gobonobo + c 06:08, 6 July 2020 (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
I've requested checkuser in the template. I just blocked Adewale0801 regardless of sockpuppetry as it's pretty transparent one-note blogspam over a lengthy period of time, but I definitely agree with Gobonobo that there's likely to be a link between the other accounts given the definite similarity in style. It would certainly be useful to see if there is a technical connection. ~ mazca  talk 11:12, 6 July 2020 (UTC)
 * Opeyemi Daramola at least knows Owojames in real life if they aren't the same person. Also similar technical data to Adewale0801. This geographic region is really hard to deal with as a CU, however, so just use your judgement. TonyBallioni (talk) 00:16, 9 July 2020 (UTC)
 * Thanks. Remaining user now blocked too. Marking for close. ~ mazca  talk 00:42, 9 July 2020 (UTC)
 * Tagged all of the involved accounts. GeneralNotability (talk) 02:04, 9 July 2020 (UTC)

Suspected sockpuppets



 * Tools: Editor interaction utility • Interaction Timeline • User compare report Auto-generated every hour.

Building from the last SPI, here are again multiple accounts adding refspam from theartsofentertainment.com and naijafile.com to recent deaths articles. Philip Adrian's sock Opeyemi Daramola was blocked on July 8. Opeyemi04040 started editing on July 10 and has added naijafile and theartsofentertainment references. Then there's Opeyemi Djoped, who edited from July 11-18 before being blocked. Naijafile01 also adds theartsofentertainment refspam. Adewale toyosi has similar behavior and has a name that resembles another blocked sock, Adewale0801. gobonobo + c 07:53, 24 July 2020 (UTC)

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


 * Would it help to add these sites to the blacklist? Including the Facebook pages they've started using. Wikiacc (¶) 23:06, 24 July 2020 (UTC)

Clerk, CheckUser, and/or patrolling admin comments


— Berean Hunter   (talk)  12:22, 25 July 2020 (UTC)
 * Queued COIBot reports at WikiProject Spam/LinkReports/theartsofentertainment.com and WikiProject Spam/LinkReports/naijafile.com, let's see if that finds us anyone else. GeneralNotability (talk) 23:15, 24 July 2020 (UTC)
 * yup - we can blacklist the domains whenever (I'd like to wait for the COIBot report first, just in case these need global blacklisting rather than just local). I don't know if you've modified the blacklist before, I can take care of it if you'd like. GeneralNotability (talk) 23:40, 24 July 2020 (UTC)
 * Thanks . I haven't modified the blacklist before so I'll let you take the lead on this. Wikiacc (¶) 23:42, 24 July 2020 (UTC)
 * , domains blacklisted (noted at Mediawiki talk:Spam-blacklist - the COIBot report does have genuine editors adding these but after looking at the actual website I see precisely zero value in letting them drive traffic to those steaming piles of advertising. GeneralNotability (talk) 00:22, 25 July 2020 (UTC)
 * GeneralNotability, I've added the links above because that places this SPI in the "Discussions: tracked" link in the template and anyone investigating could then find this case. It is a good practice when dealing with spam sock cases.
 * is another account picked up by the report. I believe these links may be good candidates for the global blacklist as the reporting shows these accounts are spamming to multiple projects. That would also be worthy of global locks on accounts, too. Some of the usage on other projects may need to be looked at. RonnieBot on the Dutch wiki seems to have added it., do you think these should be globally blacklisted?
 * , probably better, looks like xwiki campaign. Dirk Beetstra T C 21:13, 25 July 2020 (UTC)

— Berean Hunter   (talk)  12:37, 25 July 2020 (UTC)
 * Courtesy ping for who probably saw the link here on en.wiki before adding it to the Cymru wiki here. Deb, you may want to find another link as this one may be blacklisted.

Indeffing accounts for now with global locks possible. Added poke to compare naijawide.com to naijafile.com — Berean Hunter   (talk)  13:57, 25 July 2020 (UTC) — Berean Hunter   (talk)  13:25, 26 July 2020 (UTC)
 * Opeyemi Djoped is ✅ to Opeyemi04040
 * Adewale toyosi and Naijafile01 are sharing the same ranges as the two above and
 * Naijafile01 used the same IP as the soft-blocked that had spammed (admins only) naijawide.com
 * , thanks, didn't know that adding the linksearch template was procedure for spam sock cases - will try to remember it for next time. These domains may be appropriate for global blacklisting, I was just hesitant to request it since it sure looked like people on other language wikis were adding links to these sites in good faith. Not saying that they should be adding links to these domains, of course, just that it didn't appear to be deliberate spam. GeneralNotability (talk) 20:50, 25 July 2020 (UTC)
 * , the templates result in a track (‘tracked’ In the template). If someone requests delisting then we will see the related SPI and will be more cautious.
 * Note, editors xwiki seem to target the same pages on different wikis. CU will never confirm, but I am quite sure the editors used those IPs. Dirk Beetstra T  C 21:17, 25 July 2020 (UTC)
 * , thanks for the info. Requested global blacklisting at m:Talk:Spam_blacklist., I see a note from Tony in the archive that this region (I know you can't say, but five bucks says Nigeria) is problematic for CU - how strong a result is your finding for Naijawide? I'm going to close up this SPI, but wanted to check if I should bump them to a hardblock for socking. GeneralNotability (talk) 21:41, 25 July 2020 (UTC)
 * GeneralNotability, there shouldn't be a need to change that block since they cannot use the account. The two different accounts used the same IP but not at the same time and not with the same device. If the COIBot report would have shown that the spam resolves to the same server then we would have known that they were related but they don't resolve to the same server. That doesn't mean that they aren't related but nothing tells that they are. I knew that the term was generic enough that they weren't necessarily related. Now that the links are blocked globally, that should do the trick.


 * Per BH's comment above, everyone who needs tagging is tagged and the domains are blacklisted. Closing. GeneralNotability (talk) 14:51, 26 July 2020 (UTC)

Suspected sockpuppets



 * Tools: Editor interaction utility • Interaction Timeline • User compare report Auto-generated every hour.

Opening for the record, to form the basis for a lock request. Kevin ( aka L235 · t · c) 16:41, 5 October 2020 (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

 * Naijafile02 is ✅ to Naijafile01. This range is so congested I'm not able to tease out who's a sock of whom but this SPI needs to all be locked. Requesting locks. Closing. Kevin ( aka L235 · t · c) 16:41, 5 October 2020 (UTC)