Wikipedia:Sockpuppet investigations/Siddiqui/Archive

Evidence submitted by VernoWhitney
See Requests for checkuser/Case/Siddiqui and User_talk:Thatcher/Archive20 for previously identified accounts.

Extensive copyright problems (Contributor copyright investigations/Paknur, Contributor copyright investigations/Hrh80 and Contributor copyright investigations/AlphaGamma1991) and a focus on Pakistan-related articles.

Similar notations in move logs of Siddiqui, sock Paknur, and suspected AlphaGamma1991.

User:AlphaGamma1991 and sock User:Misaq Rabab overlap edits at Ministry of Environment (Pakistan), AlphaGamma1991 also overlaps Siddiqui on a large number of articles.

User:Marduking and User:Siddiqui overlap on some historical articles such as Tughlaq dynasty and Bahlul Khan Lodi.

User:Marduking and User:Hrh80 show a strong overlap in the international relations articles and overlap editing at least at Pakistani community of London

I am aware that this could simply be converging interests, but wikistalk's results aren't encouraging to me.

VernoWhitney (talk) 20:51, 26 July 2010 (UTC)

Comments by accused parties
See Defending yourself against claims.

Comments by other users
While I agree that overlap may be coincidental, I think this is worth looking into. For example, see this text from Siddiqui. The article was redirected in 2006. The text was flagged as a copyvio and removed, here. Four years later, the User:AlphaGamma1991 resurrected the article and added some of the same text, albeit formatted differently, here. ("The Municipality levied for the first time House Tax on Property owners, setting an example to other cities in the South Asia. This paved the way for the beginning of District Taxation in the field of Local Government and Finance." → "The Municipality levied for the first time House Tax on Property owners, setting an example to other cities in the South Asia. This paved the way for the beginning of District Taxation in the field of Local Government and Finance.") This could be a coincidence, since he may have independently copied the content from outside of Wikipedia to put in the same article, but I think coincidences like this (and there are others) raise valid flags.

User:Siddiqui and his socks have created a huge copyright tangle on Wikipedia, both in importing text from other sources and in copying liberally from other articles without attribution. So far, copyright or licensing issues have been found in every article I've looked at from User:AlphaGamma1991 (who has had about a dozen Corensearchbot notices since registering and is currently blocked 48 hours because he doesn't seem to be paying attention to them). If this is the same contributor, the behavior is entrenched. It would be good to know if there are sleepers. --Moonriddengirl (talk) 21:07, 26 July 2010 (UTC)

Clerk, patrolling admin and checkuser comments

 * - Something seems fishy here, and a CU verification with added sleeper check would be a benefit here. ( X!  ·  talk )  · @136  · 02:16, 27 July 2010 (UTC)
 * ✅ Marduking = AlphaGamma1991, in Canada, so may be Siddiqui based on prior checkuser results. No other accounts. Hrh80 is ❌. John Vandenberg (chat) 12:02, 27 July 2010 (UTC)
 * Both accounts already blocked by Moonriddengirl. Marking for close. TN X Man  17:32, 27 July 2010 (UTC)

Evidence submitted by Favonian
The Kamransani login is created shortly after is blocked as a sockpuppet of Siddiqu, and their first (and so far only) contribution is the recreation Karachi Fashion Week which had previously been created by AlphaGamma1991 and deleted the day before the recreation. Favonian (talk) 17:12, 28 July 2010 (UTC)

Comments by accused parties
See Defending yourself against claims.

Clerk, patrolling admin and checkuser comments

 * ❌ on the CU data, and the deleted article is quite different. Definitely curious. John Vandenberg (chat) 17:20, 28 July 2010 (UTC)
 * There doesn't seem to be much to do here, other than keeping an eye on the Kamransani edits. TN X Man  17:30, 29 July 2010 (UTC)

Evidence submitted by Moonriddengirl
I believe that this may be yet another incarnation of prolific copyright infringer User:Siddiqui, whose CCI is the oldest on our books (see Contributor copyright investigations/Paknur). Since we began evaluating his concerns, we have had to expand it to include subsequent socks, User:AlphaGamma1991 and User:Marduking. I have just discovered that this user is recreating content deleted by that investigation. In the case of Namira Salim, he not only recreated it, but used some of the same infringement. He recreated Pakistanis in Greece with the same text. He has recreated Pir Ilahi Buksh Colony, although I don't believe he used the same content. Many of the contribs of earlier socks have been deleted for copyright concerns, but there's still obvious overlap in editing area:. If this is a sock, he was not caught in the last go-around, but possibly because User:Siddiqui has demonstrated a history of maintaining a drawer. (He seems to have started the habit to back himself up, not to evade blocking. That came later.) There is the possibility of similarity of editing interests, but the fact that he revived particularly Namira Salim months after its deletion with some of the same content, failing to mention the copyvio in his edit summary and with some of the same content is troublesome. There's already some suggestion of copyvios in his user talk history, and I see several G12s. I think we really need to figure out if he must be added to the CCI. Moonriddengirl (talk) 20:00, 7 November 2010 (UTC)


 * Re the check-user data, rats. :/ If this is Siddiqui, he's bound to have more socks squirreled away, as that seems to have been his pattern. If no checkuser, can I get a second pair of, um, ears to listen for quacking? I do not want to make this call myself. If he does seem to be Siddiqui, I will be cleaning up after him, and I would rather not mix my copyright hat with sock issues unless the question is very clear cut. --Moonriddengirl (talk) 13:10, 9 November 2010 (UTC)

Auto-generated every six hours.
 * User compare report

Comments by accused parties
See Defending yourself against claims.

Clerk, patrolling admin and checkuser comments

 * - To confirm and check for sleepers using previous socks if needed. -- DQ  (t)  (e)  21:04, 7 November 2010 (UTC)
 * All of the socks listed in the archive appear to be . TN X Man  21:25, 7 November 2010 (UTC)


 * - This should not have been endorsed in the first place, as all the possible socks to compare it to are . If anything, the original CU who worked the case should have been contacted to see if they kept any data, other than that this is going to have to be handled on the behavioral evidence. Tiptoety  talk 03:56, 11 November 2010 (UTC)


 * I'm taking a look... John Vandenberg (chat) 04:52, 11 November 2010 (UTC)


 * is ❌ on technical info. John Vandenberg (chat) 05:15, 11 November 2010 (UTC)

15 December 2015

 * Suspected sockpuppets


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

This case needs only behavioral analysis.


 * I came across this user (Created on 18 March 2010) whose name is strikingly similar to  (Created on 16 April 2010). Marduking has only 353 edits on English Wikipedia yet connects with Mar4d in 55 articles including many categories and one template.


 * (Created on 9 December 2005) has 11,789 edits and connects with Mar4d in 1066 articles including 31 categories and one template


 * (Created on 18 January 2010) has 5,718 edits connects with Mar4d in 702 articles including many categories


 * with 1,822 edits connects in 323 articles including lists and categories


 * with 1,476 edits connect 226 articles


 * with 242 edits connects in 59 articles


 * with only 52 edits connects in 7 articles


 * Last time when I suspected was socking with, I came to ANI instead of SPI and the result was fruitful as Wikimandia gave some extra evidence and Future Perfect at sunrise gave crucial evidence which only Administrators can see. After that  filed SPI against Mar4d and the result was shocking.


 * In this SPI back in 2011, it was found that Mar4d was using an alternate account but CU was not run as he accepted when the SPI was filed. He was left with a warning. This comment was made by HelloAnnyong:

Sorry, I'm not buying it. You've had Drspaz since early June 2011. You're supposed to mark your accounts as being owned by you. But even besides that, you're clearly using the accounts for less than legitimate purposes. For example, at 5:40 Drspaz makes [this edit]. Five minutes later you make [ this one]. Am I really supposed to believe that in those five minutes you were suddenly on a public connection?'' — User:HelloAnnyong 02:45, 2 September 2011


 * Moonriddengirl found credible evidence The accounts were considered stale and Mar4d was not connected.


 * Why Acejet was not caught? First CU check for Siddiqui was made in July 2010. Acejet made this edit on 21 April 2010. After that he stopped editing for months and edited on 6 January 2011.


 * Mar4d admitted that he has office accounts. Most likely scenario is that when Check Users were checking Siddiqui socks, at that time Mar4d and Lyk4 were being operated from office.

Siddiqui created ten years ago. Writing style of any user can change through time, due to that comparing their English skills won't work. The  Aven gers  01:39, 15 December 2015 (UTC)

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

@The Avengers It won't be correct to say that "Mar4d was not connected" to Siddiqui because "accounts were considered stale" when Moonriddengirl filed the report in 2010. The CU clearly stated that "Mar4d is Unrelated on technical info". @Vanjagenije Care to take a second look? -- S M S  Talk 06:57, 16 December 2015 (UTC)
 * I connected them based on behavioral evidence.  Vanjagenije  (talk)  10:27, 16 December 2015 (UTC)

Clerk, CheckUser, and/or patrolling admin comments

 * The two cases are now merged. Closing.  Vanjagenije  (talk)  10:33, 15 December 2015 (UTC)
 * After carefully reviewing the case, I de-merged two cases.  Vanjagenije  (talk)  21:58, 17 December 2015 (UTC)