Wikipedia:Sockpuppet investigations/Betacommand: Difference between revisions

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Betacommand

Betacommand (talk⁺ · tag · contribs · deleted contribs · logs · filter log · block user · spi block · block log · CA · CheckUser(log) · investigate · cuwiki)

Populated account categories: confirmed · suspected

For archived investigations, see Wikipedia:Sockpuppet investigations/Betacommand/Archive.

09 December 2013

– An SPI clerk has declined a request for CheckUser, and the case is now awaiting a behavioural investigation.

Suspected sockpuppets

Werieth (talk⁺ · tag · contribs · deleted contribs · logs · filter log · block user · spi block · block log · CA · CheckUser(log) · investigate · cuwiki)

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Editor interaction utility

Please see the recent behavioural complaints of user:Werieth, in reference to their edit-warring and highly aggressive behaviour towards other editors in particular relation to WP:NFCC. This has led to a suspicion, first raised by user:Arnhem 96, that they are the return of user:Betacommand, an editor banned for just such aggressive behaviour.

See ongoing and recent discussions at:

Please also follow the links from these.

Several issues have been noted:

Primarily an aggressive pursuit of NFCC, even beyond a reasonable interpretation of such.
Edit-warring over other editors to enforce this.
Aggressive behaviour towards other editors.
Repeated blanket assertions that NFCC supports immediate image deletion, even for aspects that are broadly agreed to require careful per-item study and have a somewhat subjective nature, such that other opinions are valid and worthy of respect.
Utterly ignoring 3RR on the basis that NFCC over-rides it. Even though the policy is clear that it does not, and they have been regularly warned over this specific issue. How any editors reach 6RR or an amazing 18RR, yet aren't blocked for it?
Appearing from nowhere only a couple of months after Betacommand's ban and diving immediately into the same aggressive pursuit of NFCC. Although they've been here little more than a year, they've always been ready to chew out long-established editors who disagree with them. This may not be Betacommand, but they were no from-scratch newbie.
Single-purpose editing at a great rate, above any typical editing rate. This is very single purpose in pursuit of NFCC, although both demonstrated occasional bursts of other editing tasks, especially for Werieth making these look more like camouflage than a broader interest.
Utter disinterest in the improvement of articles or the encyclopedia. An image with a poorly formatted (even when present) FUR is an excuse to delete it, never to fix the issue and move forwards instead. They encounter
Overlapping their pursuit to even such obscure topics as Iranian cinema: Cinematic style of Abbas Kiarostami. Betacommand found it, Werieth removed all of the images (on such an obviously visual arts topic).
Poor English language skills and similar sometimes bizarre choice of words. Andy Dingley (talk) 02:25, 9 December 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Kww has just seen fit to block the person best equipped to supply such diffs. Funny that; he unblocks Werieth, he blocks the editor complaining of it. Andy Dingley (talk) 03:11, 9 December 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Whoever actually owns the account remains unblocked, Andy, so there's no interference with the ability to provide diffs, just the elimination of yet another WP:ILLEGIT violation.—Kww(talk) 03:25, 9 December 2013 (UTC)[reply]

If it makes anyone feel better, in the silly terminology we apparently now use around here, I "own" the block now. The block should not be interpreted as disagreeing with whether there are grounds for this SPI; I'm agnostic on that. --Floquenbeam (talk) 03:53, 9 December 2013 (UTC)[reply]

I note that you have also locked the talk page of the editor most able to supply the diffs requested below. Just what are you trying to "prevent" with this preventative block? Andy Dingley (talk) 04:00, 9 December 2013 (UTC)[reply]

I'm preventing an illegitimate sockpuppet from editing against policy. Assuming for the moment his actual account is not blocked, he's free to use that one to supply diffs. --Floquenbeam (talk) 04:15, 9 December 2013 (UTC)[reply]

@Kww - Then would you care to tell me who the main account owner is, so that I can ask them? You do of course know who this dread puppeteer is, don't you? It's not as if you'd ever block an account for socking because you're just sure they've got to be someone else really.

Or at least you'd only do that if there was huge evidence they weren't a brand-new editor as they claim. Maybe by them dropping straight into a policy area where "the complexity of NFCC [is] far far more than" [2] an established editor could possibly understand. Andy Dingley (talk) 03:57, 9 December 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Andy, I had been active on other wikimedia projects for a while before coming to enwiki to edit, I had also watched stuff for quite a while before editing. When I made my first edit to enwiki I had somewhere around 9,000 edits globally. Werieth (talk) 04:00, 9 December 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Do you think 9,000 edits under your previous identity is more, or less, than Arnhem 96 had? Andy Dingley (talk) 04:05, 9 December 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Its not a previous identity. They are all under my global account. Werieth (talk) 04:06, 9 December 2013 (UTC)[reply]

For confirmation see Special:CentralAuth/Werieth (or Meta:Special:CentralAuth/Werieth if you don't want to do it from en, either way sorting by attached date and number of edits helps to see different things). The history may be slightly confusing, for clarification, it seem that although the account was created in 2010, it wasn't used anywhere until 2012. You can see the first edits here were in June 2012 Special:Contributions/Werieth ([3]). Prior to that there were a number (I didn't check the number) of edits to commons Commons:Special:Contributions/Werieth ([4]) and simple-en Simple:Special:Contributions/Werieth ([5]) and possibly a small number (must be under 30 total if any) to other wikis. Nil Einne (talk) 14:00, 9 December 2013 (UTC)[reply]

While obviously not conclusive either way, the timing does seem a little suspicious. The first edit to simple-en which seems to have been the first edit overall at 04:56, 6 February 2012 and the creation of the simple-en account itself at 03:46, 6 February 2012 (as shown earlier), was just after it was becoming clear at Wikipedia:Arbitration/Requests/Case/Betacommand 3/Proposed decision#Betacommand banned that a ban here at en was passing, with the 9th and so majority (out of 16) support coming at 21:13, 5 February 2012 as also recognised by arbs at 21:19, 5 February 2012. Perhaps just an unfortunate coincidence but I can see why people are concerned from this alone. Nil Einne (talk) 15:04, 9 December 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Comments by other users

Accused parties may also comment/discuss in this section below. See Defending yourself against claims.

This is getting kind of ridiculous, Andy has been upset ever since I removed a group of non-free files from one of his articles. His failure to actually look at my contributions is grating. I do contribute to articles, I have in fact uploaded about 200 non-free files to date. Given that I do non-free image patrols it is inevitable that I cross paths with a wide group of users, there are bound to be some article overlaps, especially since I have almost 35,000 edits. Andy has shown a repeated lack of understanding with regards to NFCC. There have been several users who have pointed this out to him. His assertion that NFCC enforcement isnt exempt from 3RR (which has been pointed out several times) is false see Wikipedia:EW#3RR_exemptions) Point 5. Given the recent behavior of both Andy and to a lesser degree SlimVirgin who have taken to attacking the messenger, because they disagree with the message, I think this is yet another attempt to attack the messenger. Kww made a comment that I think is quite apt [6] Once again, we get to the crux of the problem: editors that don't wish to follow WP:NFCC decrying its contents and attempting to get the people that enforce it blocked. Contrary to SlimVirgin's assertions, it's one of our clearest policies and well-suited to strict interpretation. The problem is that an extremely high percentage of our non-free content doesn't meet the criteria. The solution to that is not to relax the criteria, it's to simplify the deletion process so that these disputes do not become so protracted.—Kww(talk) 01:29, 9 December 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Werieth (talk) 02:50, 9 December 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Exactly what are, "my articles"? Tweenies? – where my major edit was to remove a bunch of (obviously unlicensed) images from Commons and to correctly relabel them as non-free: something you'd taken no previous interest in, but of course once they were NFC you perked up and deleted them. Or do you mean MAHLE Powertrain, an article I hadn't even edited? Andy Dingley (talk) 03:14, 9 December 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Clerk, CheckUser, and/or patrolling admin comments

Clerk note: Diffs would be really helpful here. This isn't the first time this has been brought up, and I'm not convinced there is anything new from the last time this was considered (see the archive). Legoktm (talk) 02:52, 9 December 2013 (UTC)[reply]
Clerk declined I'm declining the request for checkuser for the same reason it was declined in March: all of Betacommand's known accounts are stale, so the checkuser tool won't be of any help. That being said, a block could still be issued here if investigation into the behavior of the two accounts turns up compelling evidence. Mark Arsten (talk) 03:37, 9 December 2013 (UTC)[reply]
Procedural note: I have just blanket-reverted a massive addition of alleged evidence added by Andrew Dingley proxying for the now blocked User:Formal Appointee Number 6, previously User:Arnhem 96. Since Arnhem/Appointee is evidently an experienced user creating throwaway socks with the sole purpose of hounding Werieth, he is – at a minimum – in breach of WP:ILLEGIT (if not outright ban-evading, which is rather likely), and his activities are clearly an act of wiki-harassment. Using dirty sock tactics of this kind is unacceptable, especially where the alleged purpose is to decry somebody else's sockpuppetry. As we are dealing with wiki-harassment here, I formally warn Andrew Dingley (or anybody else) not to continue acting as the sockpuppeter's proxy by adding his arguments to this discussion on his behalf. If you feel there is a case against Werieth, you need to stand up for it yourself. Further proxying for the sockpuppeter will be met with blocks, and possibly a speedy closure of this report if the discussion here gets too much poisoned by the sock's involvement. Fut.Perf. ☼ 09:52, 13 December 2013 (UTC)[reply]

@@ Line 59: / Line 59: @@
 *{{clerknote}} Diffs would be really helpful here. This isn't the first time this has been brought up, and I'm not convinced there is anything new from the last time this was considered (see the archive). [[User:Legoktm|Legoktm]] ([[User talk:Legoktm|talk]]) 02:52, 9 December 2013 (UTC)
 *{{Decline}} I'm declining the request for checkuser for the same reason it was declined in March: all of Betacommand's known accounts are stale, so the checkuser tool won't be of any help. That being said, a block could still be issued here if investigation into the behavior of the two accounts turns up compelling evidence. [[User:Mark Arsten|Mark Arsten]] ([[User talk:Mark Arsten|talk]]) 03:37, 9 December 2013 (UTC)
+*Procedural note: I have just blanket-reverted a massive addition of alleged evidence added by Andrew Dingley proxying for the now blocked [[User:Formal Appointee Number 6]], previously [[User:Arnhem 96]]. Since Arnhem/Appointee is evidently an experienced user creating throwaway socks with the sole purpose of hounding Werieth, he is – at a minimum – in breach of [[WP:ILLEGIT]] (if not outright ban-evading, which is rather likely), and his activities are clearly an act of wiki-harassment. Using dirty sock tactics of this kind is unacceptable, especially where the alleged purpose is to decry somebody else's sockpuppetry. As we are dealing with wiki-harassment here, I formally warn Andrew Dingley (or anybody else) not to continue acting as the sockpuppeter's proxy by adding his arguments to this discussion on his behalf. If you feel there is a case against Werieth, you need to stand up for it yourself. Further proxying for the sockpuppeter will be met with blocks, and possibly a speedy closure of this report if the discussion here gets too much poisoned by the sock's involvement. [[User:Future Perfect at Sunrise|Fut.Perf.]] [[User talk:Future Perfect at Sunrise|☼]] 09:52, 13 December 2013 (UTC)
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