Wikipedia:Sockpuppet investigations/RobertRosen/Archive

17 November 2012

 * Suspected sockpuppets




 * User compare report Auto-generated every hour.

User:RobertRosen is on an indefinite block for his personal attacks/ harassment directed at me and issuing legal threats to Wikipedia. After his block, User:Arunaroy started participating in the discussions RobertRosen was involved in and signed their post at WP:BLPN as B K Das, which is the same person (B&&&&v K666r Das) RobertRosen claims to be. Check the link in their post for an Email address (b55555@gmail.com).


 * User:OsianFan started editing at Korkoro where me and RobertRosen had some disagreements over his content removal and replaced the contentious sentence with an uncited claim.


 * 180.151.50.98 started editing Korkoro and Anuradha Ghandy (another page to which I have contributed significantly) and posted such] unmentionables.


 * IndianBLP Not many edits, but mainly directed at Anuradha and Kobad Ghandy and my talk page.


 * User Talk:Youreallycan expressed concern on User:HotPepperSpray's editting pattern closely resembling User:RobertRosen's. This user made references to conspiracy theorist publications such as Vigil Online, the same publication User:RobertRosen used to support his claims. HotPepperSpray, which was created after RobertRosen's block, has also started posting in the discussions RobertRosen was involved in.


 * It is worthwhile to have a look at RobertRosen's threats of sending anonymous strangers after my edits and of his block leading to more IDs mushrooming. morelM  William  20:15, 17 November 2012 (UTC)

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


 * 1) I am an accused in this matter. I state as follows. I am a confirmed and verified editor at a competing wikipedia project "Scholarpedia" where RobertRosen is an Admin. Like many academics I do not edit at crowd sourced Wikis with unverified users and rampant sockpuppetry such as Wikipedia. The unfair block of an expert editor/ScholarpediaAdmin like RobertRosen has caused much discussion at Scholarpedia.
 * 2) A very recent previous CheckUser request by MWilliam against RobertRosen on WP:ANI for the very same Aruna Roy incident was declined after considerable discussion. . Here William has admitted his complaint was baseless "I can't think of any socks" causing Admin:GiantSnowman to overturn the WP:SPI initiated.
 * 3) For the allegations made against me, a) User:YouReallyCan's "dif" never wrote that my editing pattern is similar to Rosen's. What he actually said to William was  and also this   b) Whatever I wrote about Vigilonline.com was taken from previous edits by RobertRosen at Wikipdia which I read and researched here on my own. It was not given to me by Rosen.
 * 4) RobertRosen had previously disclosed on his own he has very recently (2 days back) set up a VPN for users of NIC.IN TLD (ie. entire Govt of India servers who are IP range blocked from editing at Wikipedia till 2016) like Aruna Roy to set up accounts at Wikipedia and protest their articles. Aruna Roy is a member National Advisory Council (http://nac.nic.in) and is range blocked from complaining about her article. I am at ".ac.in" and am range blocked. I know Aruna Roy personally. So we friends of Aruna Roy are joining wikipedia and using VPN technology to register our protest at 2 things at Wikipedia A) libelous text on living Indians like Aruna Roy  B) Unfair blocking of Robert Rosen.
 * 5) If VPN is only way to access WikipEdia is it a crime to use it ? If Chinese and Iranians can use Freegate or Ultrasurf then why can't blocked Indian public servants. I don't know about the other accounts or their motivations but it may be similar. RobertRosen never asked me or anyone else I know to join Wikipedia or support him. It is his goodness which calls me here.
 * 6) I do not know RobertRosen or communicate with him. Everything I have posted here is from public Wikipedia pages. RobertRosen is one of the best editors to be found anywhere (see him at Scholarpedia) and even here at Wikipedia was respected for his consensus building among even seriously edit warring editors.
 * 7) Importantly the editor who made this complaint is a confirmed sockmaster himself known as User:Manorathan  operating under a new name MorelMWilliam. He has  engaged in disruptive edit-warring with numerous other editors besides RobertRosen on pages like Aruna Roy spanning over 2 years and constantly refers to "conspiracy theories" by editors who disagree with him..
 * 8) About the edit-warring (3 reverts each) between RoberRosen and MorelMwilliam at Korkoro, William has WP:OWNership issues with that article. Now another long-term contributor to that page User:Truthkeeper88 has also reverted William and reinserted RobertRosen's Good faith edit.
 * 9) As posted elsewhere (at several places on Wikipedia) by RobertRosen, Wikipedia has blocked access to official Indian Government IP ranges til 2016. So 2 days ago RobertRosen set up a VPN tunnel for B.K.Das (on behalf of Aruna Roy who can't post to wikipedia because of blanket range block of the NIC.IN TLD servers) with exit nodes to public TOR exit nodes. This is already stated on talk page of RobertRosen 2 days back, One such public exit TOR server node is 180.151.50.98 (Spectranet/Chennai) see here . Mr.B.K.Das is Director in Government of India in-charge for National Informatics Centre NIC.IN and has already disclosed he is "http://hub.nic.in" in charge of NIC.IN Top level domain  B.K Das is not "Bibhav Kumar" who actually works with Arvind Kejriwal who is having a recent nasty public dispute with Aruna Roy see here
 * 10) RobertRosen is a senior admin at other scholarly wikipedia sites like scholarpedia. After his unjust block at Wikipedia instigated by former sockmaster Manorathan(aka MorelMWillliam) many outside editors are opening account on Rosen's VPN tunnel using public TOR exit nodes to ensure that RobertRosen's long legacy of good editing at Wikipedia is not damaged/vandalised by Sockmasters like Manorathan. RobertRosen has not hidden anything about use of VPN, it is on his talk page. If the Wikipedia IP range block on 164.xxx.xxx.xxx is opened all this VPN/TOR/PROXY nonsense will stop and sanity restored. Finally, also investigate  previously confirmed Sockmaster MorelMWilliams to see how many accounts he has like User:Joyson Prabhu and if has also opened multiple accounts to link it to RobertRosen after he admitted on WP:ANI to Admin:GiantSnowman that he could not think of any socks of RobertRosen. HotPepperSpray (talk) 12:49, 18 November 2012 (UTC)


 * I'm shocked by this vengeful and despicable action. When I learned over on scholarpedia that robert had gotten blocked for "abusive behavior" at wikipedia I simply could not believe it. I took time off to read the goings-on over the past 11 days and immediately saw that the REAL SOCKMASTER MorelMwilliam was gaming the system, unlike robert who is always the perfect gentleman and always helpful to newbies. I then made a series of scholarly edits (also using the VPN) to an article evidently very dear to that despicable SOCKMASTER, ie. Korkoro. My edits were all predicated on standard wikiwiki type policies and contained sufficient edit summaries to inform other editors. At times I may not have been logged in, so it is likely that certain edits recorded at the I.P. 180.151.50.98 on Korkoro were made by me. I don't know what the I.P.I used then was, I have checked the exit (??) I.P. used by the VPN is now 142.4.28.211 - a dynamic TOR node. I don't consider myself to be a sockpuppet, but I did open this new account using the VPN link provided in sympathy for Rosen's unlimited block and thereafter "collaborated with SOCKMASTER MorelMwilliam to help him improve the article Korkoro in a civilised, decent and neutral manner with proper edit summaries". FYI, I do not know this Aruna Roy lady so did not edit her pages. I used the VPN access link only because it was there and I wanted some degree of anonymity. I tested it, found that it worked, and used it. I don't mind if my account is blocked as a MEATPUPPET. I was making a political protest against the despicable quality and non-existent academic standards of the Wikipedia project. I also made 3 unlogged Good Faith Wikipedia policy edits to article Anuradha Ghandy which are marked as 180.151.50.98 (those 3 are mine). these were after I scanned MorelMWilliam's contribution histroy and saw him reverting without talking. Robert has nothing to do with my actions and did not convince me in any way to do it. OsianFan (talk) 17:37, 18 November 2012 (UTC)

Clerk, CheckUser, and/or patrolling admin comments
— Berean Hunter   (talk)  01:55, 20 November 2012 (UTC)
 * - Courcelles 06:07, 19 November 2012 (UTC)
 * Confirmed for named accounts, all of them; no comments on the IP address (which is a proxy anyhow). Courcelles 06:08, 19 November 2012 (UTC)
 * Tagging and closing.
 * Um, I fail to understand how multiple editors editing through the same VPN server would be considered the same editor abusing multiple accounts. I can see the technical evidence may suggest that, but since I've been following this drama, I would say the behavioral evidence doesn't suggest all accounts are the same. ~Amatulić (talk) 03:40, 20 November 2012 (UTC)
 * This is RobertRosen back to make a few small additions in non-article space. 1) I set up the VPN on 15th Nov 2) I informed Wikipedia about it on 16th Nov on "my" talk page 2) Since, from my server logs, about 738 different IPs have used the VPN to make 26,000 visits to Wikipedia (the VPN is restricted to wikipedia.org) in the past 4 days, I assume some really heavy (and seriously non-disruptive editing is going on.) 3) RobertRosen did not use VPNs for his edits at Wikipedia (except for 2 minor edits when User:Arunaroy had a technical issue). 4) As mentioned on RobertRosen's talk page no attempt was made to hide/cloak the X-HTTP_ACCEPT/FORWARD etc HTML Header tags and other things CU typically checks for. RosenRobert (talk) 17:01, 20 November 2012 (UTC)

17 November 2012



 * Suspected sockpuppets


 * User compare report Auto-generated every hour.

Note that BlackMansBurden created his account only around twelve hours after another RobertRosen sock, was indefinitely blocked. There are numerous similarities in the writing style and interests of both accounts, and note especially these two edits by BlackMansBurden and HotPepperSpray respectively. Reaper Eternal (talk) 21:22, 23 November 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

 * I've blocked BlackMansBurden indefinitely. Reaper Eternal (talk) 21:22, 23 November 2012 (UTC)

26 November 2012

 * Suspected sockpuppets




 * User compare report Auto-generated every hour.

The first account listed here filed a report at WP:ANI concerning TheRedPenOfDoom and two articles Barefoot College and Bunker Roy. That account was blocked as a sock of RobertRosen. Not very long after the ANI report was marked as resolved and while it was still visible on WP:ANI, a very similar ANI report concerning TheRedPenOfDoom was opened by Northerncreek who has almost exclusively edited the same two articles with the same point of view as BlackMansBurden. Mathsci (talk) 14:27, 26 November 2012 (UTC)
 * Thanks, Salvio. The three accounts listed below have been blocked by Uncle G. Mathsci (talk) 15:09, 26 November 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

 * The following accounts are a ✅ match to each other:
 * I compared these accounts to and, but the results were . That connection will have to be drawn based on behavioural evidence alone.  Salvio  Let's talk about it! 14:44, 26 November 2012 (UTC)
 * All blocked. Uncle G (talk) 15:10, 26 November 2012 (UTC)
 * Tagged and closed. Reaper Eternal (talk) 18:35, 26 November 2012 (UTC)
 * I compared these accounts to and, but the results were . That connection will have to be drawn based on behavioural evidence alone.  Salvio  Let's talk about it! 14:44, 26 November 2012 (UTC)
 * All blocked. Uncle G (talk) 15:10, 26 November 2012 (UTC)
 * Tagged and closed. Reaper Eternal (talk) 18:35, 26 November 2012 (UTC)

27 November 2012

 * Suspected sockpuppets




 * User compare report Auto-generated every hour.

The users first posts consist of the claim that "each time I challenge his decision to include: " obviously indicate that this editor has otherwise been involved on the page contesting the Time source, 'the actions which have been conducted repeatedly by a plague of socks of RobertRosen. -- TRPoD aka The Red Pen of Doom  00:24, 27 November 2012 (UTC)

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

Salvio has already CU-blocked and tagged this account as a sock of RobertRosen. Mathsci (talk) 03:39, 27 November 2012 (UTC)

Clerk, CheckUser, and/or patrolling admin comments

 * Already blocked and tagged. Closed. Reaper Eternal (talk) 15:04, 27 November 2012 (UTC)