Wikipedia:Sockpuppet investigations/Varoon Arya/Archive

Evidence submitted by Mathsci
Varron Arya has a history of following me to articles on Bach organ music, where I am one of the main contributors on wikipedia. He did so previously on Orgelbüchlein. Now he has followed me to Clavier-Übung III, making several edits with the IP then one immediately afterwards logged in to his regular account. I left a question on his talk page requesting clarification. He did not reply. Shortly after my message, however, there were two further superficial Bach-related edits on Well-Tempered Clavier by the IP. Varoon Arya is an involved party on Arbitration/Requests/Case/Race and intelligence and indicated that he had retired on July 22. Mathsci (talk) 12:40, 9 August 2010 (UTC)


 * Varoon Arya should explain why he made several edits when logged off, then logged on, received a message, then logged off and made further edits with the anonymous IP.

His edits were disruptive and constituted a user following me to an article and making incorrect statements as he has done before (see below). In particular he edited a paragraph with two citations at the end, from which the material was paraphrased. At no stage did he make any attempt to check the material against the citations. As such his edits seem to have been deliberate wikihounding. He has already made some pretty uninformed remarks in connection with Orgelbüchlein which display a lack of familiarity with the sources for scholarship on Bach organ writing. These were described in the evidence of the ArbCom case as follows


 * Varoon Arya started commenting   on a very complicated table I was preparing for Orgelbüchlein, which even now I have not proofread, claiming that my sources were suspect and that the well-established naming conventions of List of Bach cantatas by liturgical function were invalid. Varoon Arya's claims about naming conventions in Bach's liturgical music seem uninformed and slightly nationalistic - in the diff above, why does he mention "Anglo-American"? One of the world's leading Bach scholars, the German Christoph Wolff, writing in English, uses exactly the same naming conventions as wikipedia.

If Varoon Arya feels the need to wikihound a user by following around their edits and tagging or removing sourced content (not grammatical errors as he claims), he should probably choose somebody other than me, particularly during this ArbCom case. He seems to have decided to manufacture some kind of incident. Other music exports are active on this article. They have made corrections and highly inciteful comments on the talk page of the article. Mathsci (talk) 14:18, 9 August 2010 (UTC)
 * This is the first time I have been wikihounded by someone using an anonymous IP, even if was quite easy to guess who it might be. Varoon Arya has not given a reasonable explanation, probably because there isn't one. Mathsci (talk) 18:21, 9 August 2010 (UTC)

Comments by accused parties
See Defending yourself against claims.

On July 22, I voluntarily retired my registered Wikipedia account. Since then, I have edited Wikipedia a number of times, all under various IPs which my ISP randomly assigns to me, on various articles. As far as I am aware, this does not conflict with Wikipedia policy, and I am allowed to continue contributing to the project anonymously.

Today, under the IP 84.75.167.144, I made 6 edits to Clavier-Übung III, all of which were either minor grammar improvements or tags requesting specific citations to aid the reader. With about 8 tabs open on my browser, I opened another browser window and failed to notice that I was automatically logged on, hence the single edit made under my retired account. As soon as I noticed the error, I logged out and continued editing, this time at The Well-Tempered Clavier, where I made two minor edits of a grammatical nature. I noticed Mathsci's request regarding my IP later this afternoon, along with his notification of this sockpuppet investigation.

I honestly do not know why Mathsci has initiated this investigation - I readily admit to editing under that IP. I have not tried to deceive or mislead anyone in any way, and I do not think my IP edits can be considered "disruptive" - in fact, at least one of the changes I made, though initially reverted by Mathsci, was re-applied by him shortly after the revert.

Perhaps retiring my account means I may no longer edit on WIkipedia as an anonymous contributor. If so, then I apologize for continuing to contribute. Or perhaps I am expected to register a new account so as to prevent being accused of "sockpuppetry" simply because my ISP randomly assigns IPs on a daily basis? Clarification from a clerk or administrator would be appreciated here. -- Aryaman (talk) 13:45, 9 August 2010 (UTC)

(Continued in response to Mathsci addition)

I've explained the chain of events which led to the single edit made under my retired account. It was a simple mistake, not some attempt to "manufacture some kind of incident", as Mathsci implies.

Were my edits "disruptive", as Mathsci claims?


 * Summary: syntax and removal of "central and symbolic" (?)
 * Summary: either get rid of the quotes - doesn't seem to need them - or give a citation
 * Summary: trying to clear up confusing, partly duplicated sentence - though, it seems a bit odd as it is: "Bach in fact was used to playing..."?
 * Summary: perhaps better as a footnote, as it breaks the flow of the narrative, but is marginally interesting
 * Summary:  tagging some weasel words, mentioning Butler is good, but a citation with page number would be even better, grammar

Mathsci reverted all of the above with the summary: reverting POV edits by anonymous IP that do not match the sources (e.g. Williams and Wolff)

Despite the strange justification given ("POV pushing"?), I did not revert Mathsci. I didn't even raise the issue with him. When I noticed that he's displaying WP:OWN behaviour towards the article (note the newly added inuse template), I figured the best thing to do was to just move on. Someone else will eventually notice that the paragraph - and the rest of the article - needs editing. Nothing to get worked up about. My only mistake here is attempting to improve an article of which Mathsci has assumed ownership - and believe me, I'm sorry for the attempt. I'll be sure to check the page history before contributing to an article in the future to make damned sure that Mathsci isn't on it.

The retirement of my account was itself an attempt to "move on" and get some distance between myself and disruptive, wikilawyering editors. I like creating articles, either by writing them myself, like this one, or by translating them into English, like this one. I do not enjoy being dragged to AN/I every time someone makes a revert or gets in a pissing contest over what is or is not a secondary source.

Unless I've missed something, no CU is required, as I freely admit to having edited under an IP. And unless a clerk or administrator suggests I do otherwise, I will continue to contribute to the encyclopaedia anonymously.

And with that, I would like to return this account to its "retired" status. Thanks, -- Aryaman (talk) 15:55, 9 August 2010 (UTC)

Comments by other users
Can I just say that this being brought to the point of a "sockpuppet investigation" looks absolutely ridiculous? bloodofox: (talk) 17:42, 9 August 2010 (UTC)
 * Varoon Arya has admitted using the IP. took me a while to notice that . wiooiw (talk) 01:36, 10 August 2010 (UTC)
 * Since Varoon Arya has acknowledged using an IP, we can assume good faith. Using WP:Multiple accounts is permitted when they are used appropriately. However, it is probably not the best practice to use an anonymous IP to edit the same articles that an editor, who one was previously involved in a dispute with, also works on. Concerns about wikihounding are then justifiable. Wapondaponda (talk) 04:19, 10 August 2010 (UTC)

Clerk, patrolling admin and checkuser comments
– First off, we normally do not endorse CheckUser requests to link an IP with a registered user for potential privacy reasons. Second, the user admitted to being the IP, so there is no reason to run one. –MuZemike 01:37, 10 August 2010 (UTC)