Wikipedia:Sockpuppet investigations/Sopher99/Archive

08 June 2014

 * Suspected sockpuppets




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

Editing on the same subject, Syria. Editing on these pages (not all): Syrian presidential election, 2014, Dick Black (politician) and Syrian Civil War. All they keep revering the same users and keeps adding the same text. Examples: https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Syrian_presidential_election%2C_2014&diff=611948853&oldid=611948726 https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Syrian_presidential_election%2C_2014&diff=611948377&oldid=611948025 https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Syrian_presidential_election%2C_2014&diff=611819916&oldid=611811768 https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Syrian_presidential_election%2C_2014&diff=611879171&oldid=611866536 https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Syrian_Civil_War&diff=611958003&oldid=611957849 https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Syrian_Civil_War&diff=611958417&oldid=611958003 https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Syrian_Civil_War&diff=611960527&oldid=611960064 https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Syrian_Civil_War&diff=611855022&oldid=611853885 https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Dick_Black_%28politician%29&diff=611977043&oldid=611973802 https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Dick_Black_%28politician%29&diff=611946793&oldid=611946582 LibDutch (talk) 07:00, 8 June 2014 (UTC)

I am ip 69.123.218.73. I Made it pretty clear that I was that IP and have just made a new account. Besides, your edit warring is what brought Sayresvile, me, and erlbako to that page to edit. So don't complain that everyone is editing the same article — Preceding unsigned comment added by XxReflectionxX (talk • contribs) 11:20, 8 June 2014 (UTC)

https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=User_talk:69.123.218.72&diff=611859649&oldid=611855667 XxReflectionxX (talk) 00:11, 12 June 2014 (UTC)

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

Firstly, LibDutch himself has a sockpuppet and is the subject of a sockpuppet investigation I have opened: Sockpuppet investigations/LibDutch.

Second, two of the IPS he is accusing reflection of using were actually used by me, proving these claims by LibDutch false.

An admin needs to see this and review LibDutch's case, as he is a serious problem on Syrian Civil War related subjects.
 * So, you now admit that you have two sockpuppets? Because you say: "two of the IPS he is accusing reflection of using were actually used by me".--LibDutch (talk) 13:59, 8 June 2014 (UTC)
 * No. I created an account today. Those are two dynamically generated IP addresses from an ISP I had used to edit Wikipedia before making an account today. You are nothing but a POV pushing troll, who creates sock puppets and then harasses other users with false bad faith claims. IPinvestigates (talk) 16:19, 8 June 2014 (UTC)
 * I haven't create any sock puppets. I'm not POV pushing or a troll. You revert my edits without explanation.
 * Yes you are a troll. You delete sources and hide information, adding nothing to articles only taking away, and harrass productive users. IPinvestigates (talk) 16:34, 8 June 2014 (UTC)
 * I always explain why I remove sources or information...--LibDutch (talk) 16:37, 8 June 2014 (UTC)
 * But you never have valid reasons. You just say "I don't like it", like a child. IPinvestigates (talk) 16:44, 8 June 2014 (UTC)
 * Bullshit. A example: "The source don't provide any source. And you present it like a fact but it isn't the gov claims 11 million voted.".--LibDutch (talk) 16:48, 8 June 2014 (UTC)
 * "The source doesn't provide a source". Haha. The source IS a source you circular reasoning idiot. And if you have a conflicting source, you provide both sources, you don't delete the one you don't like. IPinvestigates (talk) 16:55, 8 June 2014 (UTC)
 * I already provided a other sources and if it was true other sources would also say it.--LibDutch (talk) 16:59, 8 June 2014 (UTC)
 * Two new independent users were created to confront LibDutch's disruptive editing. That alone speaks volumes and the quicker this User is kicked out of Wikipedia, the better. I suspect this User is a sock puppet master who has been active on Syria Civil War articles for years. IPinvestigates (talk) 21:20, 8 June 2014 (UTC)

King of Hearts, if LibDutch's sock isn't ArabUAE, I will figuratively eat my hat. The only reason I created an account was to prove this, as IPs can't create sock puppet investigations. I will probably abandon the account right after the case is concluded too. Signing in is a hasstle and I prefer the anonymity of not having a username. But this is important as LibDutch is a highly disruptive user who engages in dishonest bad faith behaviour. And his sock puppet will be exposed as soon as you check. IPinvestigates (talk) 04:50, 10 June 2014 (UTC)
 * If it turns out that you are not a sockpuppet, then I will look into that case. King of &hearts;   &diams;   &clubs;  &spades; 08:05, 10 June 2014 (UTC)


 * I am not even surprised to see that could do this. For a while, LibDutch has been editing these middle eastern pages and making constructive edits, surely he will have some opposition. After reading this SPI, I am pretty sure that the actual image behind these edit conflicts is much different than many would've expected.  Occult Zone (Talk • Contributions • Log) 16:40, 13 June 2014 (UTC)


 * I'm not all that surprised, but I am very disappointed. -Kudzu1 (talk) 22:28, 13 June 2014 (UTC)

Clerk, CheckUser, and/or patrolling admin comments

 * - - I will accept XxReflectionxX's explanation regarding the IP addresses, and there is no evidence that Sayerslle is related. But I think it's possible that IPinvestigates is a sock, given that his first action was to create an SPI against LibDutch. King of  &hearts;   &diams;   &clubs;  &spades; 04:33, 10 June 2014 (UTC)
 * IPinvestigates and Sayerslle are ❌ to the above and to one another. IPinvestigates is undoubtedly related to someone else, but I can't find any definitive evidence linking them to another account. ​—DoRD (talk)​ 16:19, 13 June 2014 (UTC)
 * Moved from XxReflectionxX to Sopher99 to reflect true master. King of &hearts;   &diams;   &clubs;  &spades; 20:19, 13 June 2014 (UTC)
 * Master and two confirmed puppets indeffed and tagged. No action against IPs or other named account.--Bbb23 (talk) 21:22, 13 June 2014 (UTC)
 * Bbb23: Are you sure about the indef on the master? I myself would have done something more like 2 weeks or 1 month. King of &hearts;   &diams;   &clubs;  &spades; 00:35, 14 June 2014 (UTC)
 * KoH, I see your point, but considering that they have been socking for at least three years, indef isn't unreasonable. ​—DoRD (talk)​ 00:49, 14 June 2014 (UTC)
 * Another reason I indeffed was because of the repeated disruptive editing on Syrian civil war articles. XxReflectionxX was obviously created to evade a 3-month topic ban I imposed on Sopher99 on June 2.--Bbb23 (talk) 01:08, 14 June 2014 (UTC)
 * OK then, reclosing. King of &hearts;   &diams;   &clubs;  &spades; 06:48, 14 June 2014 (UTC)
 * Bbb23: Are you sure about the indef on the master? I myself would have done something more like 2 weeks or 1 month. King of &hearts;   &diams;   &clubs;  &spades; 00:35, 14 June 2014 (UTC)
 * KoH, I see your point, but considering that they have been socking for at least three years, indef isn't unreasonable. ​—DoRD (talk)​ 00:49, 14 June 2014 (UTC)
 * Another reason I indeffed was because of the repeated disruptive editing on Syrian civil war articles. XxReflectionxX was obviously created to evade a 3-month topic ban I imposed on Sopher99 on June 2.--Bbb23 (talk) 01:08, 14 June 2014 (UTC)
 * OK then, reclosing. King of &hearts;   &diams;   &clubs;  &spades; 06:48, 14 June 2014 (UTC)

24 September 2014

 * Suspected sockpuppets


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

After 2 years of being inactive, this editor's behavior looks increasingly similar to Sopher's in Syrian civil war-related topics. Sopher previously used XxReflectionxX to evade a topic ban shortly after the sanction was enforced and used it to edit war his way out to push a particular (mainly anti-Assad) POV in the Syrian war topic.

Now Zenithfel is adding highly dubious content (and possible original research), that was usually discussed on the Syrian civil war talk page due to its controversial nature, to the "Alleged ties with the Syrian government" section (10.3.3) in Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (all without edit summaries) and keeps renaming that section to "Relations with the Syrian government".  These edits attempted to misrepresent opinion pieces as known facts, usually through original research and synthesis, because this source he uses doesn't mention anything about an Assad-ISIS alliance. Sopher's editing experience involved a lot of OR, though I can only refer to a discussion we had here for now which kind of confirms his intentions (hopefully I will find some diffs by tomorrow).

Sopher frequently used bare URL refs          and so does Zenithfel, as seen in the previous diffs (+    ).

A lot of edit warring on Christianity articles (Sopher on Resurrection of Jesus ; Zenithfel on Jesus ). The most common I found was the elimination of the word belief (Sopher:   ; Zenithfel: ). Fitzcarmalan (talk) 02:55, 24 September 2014 (UTC)


 * I would also recommend a WP:SLEEPER check here. Fitzcarmalan (talk) 02:52, 25 September 2014 (UTC)


 * and I have observed the edits and discussion made by these two users. There are few similarities that can be considered reasonable, they are unusual among other editors.


 * Use of word "no concrete", "not concrete".


 * Use of direct URLs in edit summaries.,


 * Providing more weight to "english sources", and rejecting non-english sources


 * "Better wording"


 * Criticism of Moussa Ibrahim, claiming that whatever Ibrahim said has "No proof" and remain "unproven".


 * Frequent use of word, "Nescafe" in summaries.


 * Pro rallies are "staged",


 * Both users like to keep every single discussion on their User_talk:____, they don't archive or remove the discussions.

 Occult Zone (Talk • Contributions • Log) 12:10, 27 September 2014 (UTC)

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

Stop making false accusations against Zenithful,i knew him since i have began editing on wikipedia since three years ago,Zenithful is way different than Sopher99. both edit differently,i still remember when you tried to falsely accuse me of Sockpuppetry,this attitude is unacceptable by you accusing editors of sockpuppetry with no proof,Fitzcarmalan.Alhanuty (talk) 23:20, 24 September 2014 (UTC)
 * Trust me, it is no habit of mine to go around accusing people of sockpuppetry (though you've accused me of meatpuppetry way before that). In your case it was self-admission, so you really don't have an argument pal. However, we are in SPI now, which is the proper venue to "accuse" anyone of being a sock or a master. Fitzcarmalan (talk) 01:26, 25 September 2014 (UTC)

i was logged off when i made the comment,any way,i don't believe that Zenithful is A sockpuppet,i have known him way longer than you.Alhanuty (talk) 02:18, 25 September 2014 (UTC)
 * But you were hardly logged out when you made this, this, this as well as these 3 incredibly similar edits , were you? Furthermore, do you have any counter-evidence to prove your claims that Zenith is not Sopher? Fitzcarmalan (talk) 02:49, 25 September 2014 (UTC)


 * There are some similarities. Following the indef block of Sopher99, Zenithfel seems to have been evoked after almost 2 years.  Occult Zone (Talk • Contributions • Log) 01:57, 25 September 2014 (UTC)

but that doesn't mean they are the same.Alhanuty (talk) 02:11, 25 September 2014 (UTC)
 * Have you checked the archive? All of them, including Zenithfel can be described as single purpose accounts having pro-rebellion POV, misrepresentation of sources and continuous edit warring is also apparent. How would you describe?  Occult Zone (Talk • Contributions • Log) 16:42, 25 September 2014 (UTC)

Zenithful didn't make alot of edits in the syrian civil war,most of his edits were in the Libyan civil war,and it doesn't mean that his edits appear to favor the rebels means that he is Sopher99,also a crucial evidence that Zenithful never got blocked and he respected the 3RR rule,while Sopher didn't and got blocked multiple times and topic banned.Alhanuty (talk) 17:55, 25 September 2014 (UTC)
 * If you read those edits you would know that why I considered him to be a "single purpose account having pro-rebellion POV" just like any other Sopher99's account. Sopher99 seemed to have been very active in those subjects as well. Apparently, Zenithfel's edits were always supported by Sopher99(including his other accounts). Makes it easier to believe that Zenithfel never needed to revert 4 times in 24 hours.  Occult Zone (Talk • Contributions • Log) 03:00, 26 September 2014 (UTC)

but,still i can't and don't believe that Zenithful is a sockpuppet for Sopher99.Alhanuty (talk) 14:08, 17 October 2014 (UTC)

Clerk, CheckUser, and/or patrolling admin comments
More evidence is needed,. What you've provided so far is generally unconvincing. First, there are lots of editors on both sides of the Syrian civil war pages. The fact that Sopher99 and Zenithfel apparently agree (I haven't verified it) is not saying much. Second, do you know how many editors use bare URLs? Even I do when I'm lazy. That, too, doesn't mean much. The Jesus stuff is the best of what you've got. Zenithfel seems to have gotten away with edit warring, whereas Sopher99 got nailed more than once. The belief/faith thing isn't accurate as Zenithfel didn't substitute the word faith for belief in that one diff. In poking around on my own, I did find some similarities, but what I found isn't really good enough, either. For example, both have them have a lot of deleted contributions. I think it's because they tagged articles and templated articles that later got deleted rather than creating articles that were deleted, but I didn't go through all of them because it's very tedious. Neither of them archives their talk page, but there are a fair number of editors who, unfortunately, don't. One dissimilarity. Sopher99 said, "Your welcome." Zenithfel said "Your Welcome." Both of them used "your" instead of the correct "you're", but that's a common error. To the extent one can read anything into it, it's interesting that the case of "welcome" is different with both. So, back to my original request: I need more.--Bbb23 (talk) 21:28, 26 September 2014 (UTC)
 * - The archive is unless i'm missing something. --  DQ   (ʞlɐʇ)  20:16, 26 September 2014 (UTC)
 * I've indeffed and tagged Zenithfel. This was not an easy decision. The evidence presented by was helpful (and well presented). Each piece, standing alone, although some pieces were better than others, would not have been enough, but, cumulatively, they had an impact on my decision. I also spent a long time poring through the contributions of the accounts. Two things I found that connected Zenithfel to Sopher99. First, they both edited Portal:Current events a lot, almost obsessively. Second, both stated that they were at a professional level of English and an intermediate level of Spanish. In fairness, there were also dissimilarities. Sopher99 spent a great deal of time reporting editors to WP:AN3, whereas Zenithfel did not. Sopher99 edited quite a few other language wikis, whereas Zenithfel made just a few edits to the German wiki, which is not one Sopher99 contributed to. On balance, I believe a block was justified.--Bbb23 (talk) 18:39, 11 October 2014 (UTC)

Suspected sockpuppets



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

This account aroused suspicion as soon as it started editing last year (see this AN report by and also this). I immediately thought of Sopher, for my own reasons, but I also had no evidence back then. A single-purpose account, whose contributions are all about suspected chemical attacks in Syria, and who starts quoting policy immediately after its creation? And despite the fact that Sopher was a relatively experienced editor, they were also notorious for being easily dragged into WP:SOAPBOXing in talk page discussions (e.g. this, and most of what you can find in the Talk:Syrian Civil War archives). LylaSand's first lengthy comments on a talk page were pure soapboxing (check out this recent thread). Also notice the association of all the civil war fatalities with Assad. Lyla's "Syrian government killed over 300,000 civilians" and Sopher's "60,000 killed by army artillery.." (that was the death toll back then in April 2013). But then it gets more interesting with the following edit summaries: Sopher used bare URLs in some of the above edit summaries where the word "paragraph" was used (omitted them from diffs, obviously). LylaSand, so far, only mentions the publisher's name, e.g. Newsweek and The Economist. But then again, sockpuppeteers learn from their mistakes, particularly experienced ones like Sopher. This might not be a perfect SPI report, but LylaSand is a fairly new account with only 348 edits. Requesting CU due to history of sleepers. And by sleepers I was referring to Zenithfel, the last suspected sock. Fitzcarmalan (talk) 14:53, 14 April 2018 (UTC)
 * LylaSand
 * Reinstating this. For the ibtimes you will find it at the fourth paragraph, and for newsweek it says it at the fifth paragraph.
 * First paragraph of the Economist
 * Sopher
 * ISIS fights regime in Sayyida zainab front, second paragraph under "figure 6"
 * government forces driven out of crossing, 6th paragraph. Clashes in Kasab village, 7th paragraph
 * And many more (e.g. this and this)
 * Il7aseral (a Sopher sock)
 * it is about Aleppo too. Please see the third paragraph
 * I admit I'm not that familiar with the CU process. But couldn't there a slight chance that the potential sock is operating socks of its own? The account undoubtedly looks suspicious, as pointed out earlier. Fitzcarmalan (talk) 17:27, 14 April 2018 (UTC)

"Removing POV pushing" "shortening" (often involves POV-ish content removal) "its pov pushing" "stop pov pushing" "pov pushing" in uncommon verb tenses: "We already talk about..." "already stated in X section" Fitzcarmalan (talk) 19:41, 16 April 2018 (UTC)
 * LylaSand:
 * Sopher:
 * LylaSand:
 * Sopher:
 * I7aseral:
 * LylaSand:"Its pov pushing"
 * Sopher:"its kind of pov pushing"
 * LylaSand:
 * Sopher:
 * LylaSand:"do not POV push"
 * Sopher:"horrible pov pushed map"
 * LylaSand:"We already talk about russia, hezbollah..."
 * Sopher:"We already talk about Saudi arabia..."
 * LylaSand:"This is stated already in both the attack and aftermath sections. 3 times is too much"
 * I7aseral:"This is already stated in a previous section. Also this is not the section for combatants."

Has anyone looked through this yet? Fitzcarmalan (talk) 15:24, 30 April 2018 (UTC)

Comments by other users
''Accused parties may also comment/discuss in this section below. See Defending yourself against claims.''
 * Fitz, try pinging or . It's worth pursuing cause this is pretty WP:DUCK. Étienne Dolet (talk) 20:12, 19 May 2018 (UTC)
 * Indeed it is. Will you please review the evidence? It's been sitting here for far too long. Fitzcarmalan (talk) 20:57, 19 May 2018 (UTC)

Clerk, CheckUser, and/or patrolling admin comments
This case is. CU declined.--Bbb23 (talk) 16:48, 14 April 2018 (UTC)
 * It's rare to run a CU without any other user/account to compare against, and an exception is not warranted here.--Bbb23 (talk) 17:50, 14 April 2018 (UTC)

— Berean Hunter   (talk)  14:03, 20 May 2018 (UTC)
 * Blocked based on behavior. There is also technical data that shows that the two are in the same proximity and use the same ISP which would make them . No other accounts seen.