Wikipedia:Sockpuppet investigations/Photopinka/Archive

21 March 2013

 * Suspected sockpuppets




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There are two articles involved: Rashumon and Datatune. Rashumon was created on October 15, 2011, by User:Harmonysoft who was indeffed on November 15, 2011, as a spamuserblock. I didn't list them because they are indeffed and old. However, they predate Photopinka, which, technically, makes them the master.

By a different spelling, DataTune was created on October 22, 2011, by User:Datatune, who was soft-username-blocked on October 22, 2011. The article was recreated on October 23, 2011, by User:Vullik (who has not edited since 2011 but is probably a sock) and then deleted after an AfD discussion.

We now jump to 2013. The current Datatune was created by User:Watling2003. In its short history it has been edited by Haephrati, who is the creator of the software, and by Kleopatra1932, Zahid2005, and Photopinka. It is currently at AfD.

Rashumon, also software created by Haephrati, has been edited by Photopinka, Haephrati, Kleopatra, and the two IPs. It has also been edited by User:Johnstone2000, whom I did not list above. Johnstone made only three edits on September 25, 2012. One was to Rashumon, one was to his talk page, and the third was unrelated to this complex mess. I figured he was too old to list. (I am also not including users whose edits don't appear suspicious to me.) Bbb23 (talk) 00:24, 21 March 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

 * - Overall there's no way that all these new editors wandered into the topic of a marginally notable company by random chance. I'm pretty sure there's either socking or meating going on, and thus CU would be helpful. Rschen7754 08:37, 21 March 2013 (UTC)
 * is in the same geographic area, but is not a match to the other accounts, so behavior should be the deciding factor., of course. ​—DoRD (talk)​ 17:50, 21 March 2013 (UTC)
 * Blocked all accounts indef due to the disruptive nature (borders on spamming). IPs are stale. Rschen7754 19:24, 21 March 2013 (UTC)
 * is in the same geographic area, but is not a match to the other accounts, so behavior should be the deciding factor., of course. ​—DoRD (talk)​ 17:50, 21 March 2013 (UTC)
 * Blocked all accounts indef due to the disruptive nature (borders on spamming). IPs are stale. Rschen7754 19:24, 21 March 2013 (UTC)
 * is in the same geographic area, but is not a match to the other accounts, so behavior should be the deciding factor., of course. ​—DoRD (talk)​ 17:50, 21 March 2013 (UTC)
 * Blocked all accounts indef due to the disruptive nature (borders on spamming). IPs are stale. Rschen7754 19:24, 21 March 2013 (UTC)
 * Blocked all accounts indef due to the disruptive nature (borders on spamming). IPs are stale. Rschen7754 19:24, 21 March 2013 (UTC)

24 March 2013

 * Suspected sockpuppets




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

All four six have shown up to !vote at Articles for deletion/Datatune, an AFD already plagued by sock-puppetry. The first tranch of User:Photopinka socks were identified and blocked, their comments struck (by me) from that AFD. But while the SPI was going, another group of three showed up.

The most interesting is IP 209.44.123.130 who showed up to post a comment with an edit summary attacking an admin. The IP has since been blocked. That comment was removed, but was later reinstated by User:Zahid2005 word-for-word. Zahid2005's history is interesting. Having commented at the AFD, xe then set about "building an edit count" with a bunch of innocuous edits to random articles. But a closer inspection revealed almost all of them were completely bogus - redlink creation, capitalisation where it wasn't needed and removing commas where they were needed. I've reverted almost every single on of xe's edits to article space. Having left a message pointing that out, I got an acknowledgement that xe had to be more careful. Then xe set about making a bunch more of the same type of edits and some more comments at the AFD.

I suspect there are a couple of sleeper accounts in there - accounts that were set up, made a couple of random edits (of similar style) and then disappeared, only to be reactivated again for this AFD.

As noted, there was a previous SPI but I'm not sure how to merge them without breaking something. So if someone could do that... Stalwart 111  02:51, 24 March 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

 * - Check for sleepers too. — Rich wales (no relation to Jimbo) 04:59, 24 March 2013 (UTC)
 * I believe a sleeper check was done in the last report and the results were posted on 3/21. Thus, the only way new sleepers could be found is if the master registered accounts after the last CU. As for the above list, there is only one registered account that was registered after 3/21, and that is Asaturg. I can't comment on the IP. I suspect a great deal of meat puppetry.--Bbb23 (talk) 11:44, 24 March 2013 (UTC)


 * These accounts are editing from all over the globe. One of them is in the same geographic location as the master, but the technical details don't match. Because of this, I also suspect that some off-wiki canvassing has taken place. ​—DoRD (talk)​ 16:05, 26 March 2013 (UTC)
 * The AFD has been tagged with notavote and linked to this page, and !votes by apparent single-purpose accounts have been marked as such. Any canvassing issues will be considered by the eventual closer of the AFD. I don't think there's much else for SPI to do at this point. Jafeluv (talk) 10:23, 27 March 2013 (UTC)
 * I'd have to agree, unfortunately. Closing. Rschen7754 10:24, 27 March 2013 (UTC)

21 August 2013

 * Suspected sockpuppets




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

Edit warring on Spyware to include text about Hephrati's software, and also on Obfuscation (software), Keystroke logging, etc. to keep in external links to Hephrati's blog posts. Hephrati: diff Yuvalg9 (claiming to not be associated): diff. Yuvalg9 was also previously used in the sockfest that was Datatune's AFD, which is one of Hephrati/Photopinka's articles. See the archived cases. Agovrin is a new account that has shown up to vote keep at Articles for deletion/Rashumon, another of Hephrati's articles. MrOllie (talk) 13:18, 21 August 2013 (UTC)

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

I created a second SPI without knowing about this one with some users in common but also user Johnstone2000 Sockpuppet_investigations/Michael.haephrati Gaijin42 (talk) 16:28, 22 August 2013 (UTC)

Hello, I am Michael Haephrati. I came here to address the ridicules claim about sock-puppets and meat-puppets associated with my account.

This investigation has been initiated following an 'editing war' about 3 small paragraphs or end-notes I have added to 3 articles, which lead not to a "personal blog" but to professional articles at Code_Project. It seems that then, MrOllieasked picked Rashumon, an article that exists here for 3 years, and has not been edited for the last 3 months and nevertheless MrOllieasked decided it's time to nominated it for deletion.

To begin with, I am afraid to say that it seems that several Administrators here are too easy on the trigger when it comes to accusing others of being puppets of any kind. In my case, I was shocked to see that without any exception, anyone who voted in favor of keeping the article, is automatically assumed or accused to be a puppet. To put everything on the table of this investigation, there are more accounts referred to as puppets, and I would like to list them here as well:

1. Agovrin

2. Cesarp123 - See the talk page where his legitimate vote to keep the article has been refused claiming he is a puppet!

3. Marko75 - who voted to keep the article and in return, MrOllieasked asked him very rudely: "Would you mind telling me how you came across this AFD after a seven month absence?".

Needless to say, I am not any of them, nor control any of them, controlled by any of them and/or associated with any of them in any way whatsoever.

Then there is Yuvalg9 who is NOT me, and I am not responsible to anything he has done here, including quoting a forum message I indeed published outside of Wikipedia, in the AFD page. Please refer to my message on my Talk page dated 15:03, 22 August 2013 (UTC): "I indeed canvased outside of Wikipedia not knowing that it is against the policies. I did not publish a similar request on the deletion page and the user who have done that, have done that on his own (probably copied from my forum message). I have nothing to do with him. In any case, I am sorry for that and apologies".

About Johnstone, haven't seen any of his votes here.

Please close this investigation. Please remove the semi protection of the AFD, as it has only been semi-protected based on the assumption that one or more commenters / voters are puppets, which is entirely not true. To make the debate a fair play, please allow any Wikipedia editor, new or old, to express their opinion and to vote. Thank you!M. H. 16:10, 24 August 2013 (UTC)  — Preceding unsigned comment added by Michael.haephrati (talk • contribs)

Clerk, CheckUser, and/or patrolling admin comments

 * - All known socks are . I believe the other accounts are simply meatpuppets instead of socks, per last SPI and per clear evidence of off-wiki canvassing. But... Rschen7754 20:15, 29 August 2013 (UTC)
 * Blocked Michael.haephrati on clear behavioral evidence of sockpuppetry: same articles and advocacy. Even without the sockpuppetry, a plausible case could be made to indefinitely block this user on grounds of disruption alone. Closing. Rschen7754 20:18, 29 August 2013 (UTC)
 * Finally, this should not be taken as an endorsement of the sniping on both sides that I have seen over the last few hours as I've looked at the evidence. --Rschen7754 20:19, 29 August 2013 (UTC)