Wikipedia:Sockpuppet investigations/Ramesh shankar4432/Archive

13 October 2012

 * Suspected sockpuppets




 * User compare report Auto-generated every hour.

These are all accounts created each for a specific edit in a specific section of the biography of Adi Shankara. Apart from the bad quality of writing they simply support some aspects of Shankara's life which seem correct to the user. However eventually the suspected puppetmaster & sockpuppets started removing referenced comments of another user with no discussion. I have intervened to stop this behavior and hopefully have things discussed and resolved. The earliest edit of this series seems to be on 26 June 2012 sock1("master"), then on 1 July sock2 and when reverted sock3. Then on 8 September sock4, on 25 September sock5, on 26 September sock6. Then we come to the removal of legitimate, properly cited edits by User:Ganesh J. Acharya: 9 October sock7, 11 October sock8 and after trying to intervene on 13 October sock9. At this point I asked for help and an administrator semi-protected the article and advised me to fill in a report here. There could be earlier instances of this issue or related IP edits I missed. I have not placed warnings on these accounts as they seem to be discarded after every use. Hoverfish Talk 19:45, 13 October 2012 (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

 * Looks likely that there's socking involved. The connection between Narayana nadar2232, Sadasiva nadar 2323 and Gopala nadar1234 is especially compelling since all are trying to remove or rewrite the same passage of text. The usernames are very similar and all accounts have only edited the Adi Shankara article. The writing style is also similar and many of the accounts share the same spelling errors (e.g. uncapitalizing proper nouns such as Tamil). Jafeluv (talk) 08:48, 22 October 2012 (UTC)
 * All accounts blocked, marking for close. Jafeluv (talk) 11:26, 25 October 2012 (UTC)

07 November 2012

 * Suspected sockpuppets




 * User compare report Auto-generated every hour.

First, the names all share an obvious similarity. Second, if you check the edit history of Sambandar, you can see a series of edits by redlinked users all inserting roughly the same unsourced content. The master along with the eighth listed name above (Ravi pillai2236) were blocked by The Blade of the Northern Lights back in August, but he has been returning under the above user names since then. There may be more I haven't listed, and I may not have even chosen the correct "master", though I don't think it matters to much since the user just seems to create a new account every time xe wants to make the same edits. Because there are so many names, and I'm not sure I've found them all, I've requested CU so that we can round up any I've missed. For some specific diffs, compare the following:, , , , , , ,. Qwyrxian (talk) 22:57, 7 November 2012 (UTC)

Comments by other users
''Accused parties may also comment/discuss in this section below. See Defending yourself against claims.''
 * Since User:Ramesh shankar4432 is older than Sastan nadar 7726, should all of this be moved there? As for blocking, I'm arguably involved; I've been reverting this person for a while, which probably falls under allowed admin actions, but I've also made significant other edits on the same article (removing other unsourced info), so someone else should probably block instead of me. Qwyrxian (talk) 04:06, 8 November 2012 (UTC)
 * However, I think that if someone else blocks this round, when the person inevitably shows up again, I'll be justified in blocking each new incarnation. However, I've already semi-protected the article indefinitely, so that may slow things down. Qwyrxian (talk) 04:08, 8 November 2012 (UTC)

Clerk, CheckUser, and/or patrolling admin comments
— Berean Hunter   (talk)  23:27, 7 November 2012 (UTC)
 * - to confirm socking and help discover additional accounts. The oldest listed so far is Sastan nadar7786.
 * - Quite a farm going on at quick glance. Working. -- DQ  (ʞlɐʇ)  00:32, 8 November 2012 (UTC)
 * Technically, but I can upgrade them to by the name formatting that the following groups are related:
 * Note: Some of the following are confirmed to each other, but to make about half a dozen to a dozen different groups doesn't make sense



— Berean Hunter   (talk)  02:08, 11 November 2012 (UTC)
 * Sanjvi1221 is to mass list #1.
 * Raman pillai2232, Ravi pillai2236, Sastan nadar7786, Sastan nadar 7786.
 * Sockpuppet investigations/Ramesh shankar4432/Archive is the previous investigation.
 * If you don't see a name here listed on the previous SPI, that is not CU stale, also report it here please.
 * It will be good to have a second CU look over things once this part of the farm is blocked to see if I missed any. (It's a big range) So just re-endorse it at that point.
 * which might cause a chunk of collateral (~65-70% sock, ~30-35% appearing legit), and it's only a one range out of 3 ranges I saw today. So no doubt, more accounts will show up. -- DQ  (ʞlɐʇ)  01:47, 8 November 2012 (UTC)
 * per DQ's comments above for a 2nd CU to look this over. I've already blocked and tagged what we have so far.


 * I don't really have any disagreements about the list nor do I have anything else to add. I would take some caution on Sanjvi1221 (At the moment, I'd recommend leaving it alone). Extended blocks don't look feasible though. They are coming from a country with typically very busy ranges. Elockid  ( Talk ) 02:56, 11 November 2012 (UTC)

— Berean Hunter   (talk)  15:14, 13 November 2012 (UTC)
 * Closing.