User talk:Bbb23

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User:Bc2210 and Jalak Jobanputra

Hi Bbb23,
You blocked Bc2210 [1] as a sock of Jsr2171. Bc2210 created Jalak Jobanputra (which was deleted [2] per WP:CSD#A7), but has now been recreated by 'new' account DRJ18 (talk · contribs).
Just FYI, it could be a coincidence. 220 of ^Borg

Remember indeffed user Max Pumpkin, his multiple socks and their "joke" edits?

Well, he is, per WP:DUCK back as Doctor McMillain. Compare this edit that I linked to when MaxPumpkin & Co got blocked, which includes this little piece of nonsense text: and is sometimes offered a glass of wine if paid before the sell-by date. The buyer could have already paid for the groceries or services listed on the Stock Exchange. The Moon Illusion makes the Moon look larger when it is by the horizon. In the rental industry, an invoice must include a specific reference to the duration of the time being billed, with this edit by Doctor McMillain, which includes this piece of nonsense text and is sometimes offered a glass of wine if paid before the sell-by date. The buyer could have already paid for the groceries or services listed on the Stock Exchange. In the rental industry, an invoice must include a baked beans reference to the duration of the time being billed. One of Max Pumpkin's socks, Bichbarbar, also referred to baked beans in this edit on Education in the Arab World, an article that Doctor McMillain has also edited. Doctor McMillain has also made a couple of other nonsense edits, which as with all "Max Pumpkin" edits must be read very carefully to be spotted, and is in addition to that currently being a pain in the proverbial arse on Smalljim's talk page. Thomas.W ^talk 18:04, 18 July 2015 (UTC)

(talk page stalker) Blocked indefinitely as a not-very-innovative duck. Favonian (talk) 18:25, 18 July 2015 (UTC)

Well, folks, I was knee-deep in a very complicated CU (still not done but I took a break) when the blasted orange banner kept popping up everywhere. I'm very single-threaded, so I just eliminated the banner but ignored the posts - until now. Thomas.W, thanks for the report, and Favonian, I'm just gonna let you take care of these socks, in this and other places. Thanks!--Bbb23 (talk) 18:42, 18 July 2015 (UTC)

I'll do my modest best, but just before I throttled the late doctor's talk page access, this popped up. Just bluster, or do you think this sock farm is related to the Fan Man? Favonian (talk) 18:50, 18 July 2015 (UTC)

One of Max Pumpkin's IP socks claimed to be DB. Thomas.W ^talk 19:26, 18 July 2015 (UTC)

More than one account claimed to be Beals. In an earlier CU I cross-checked against Beals, and the accounts are  Unrelated. As for the latest, the following accounts are  Confirmed: Doctor McMillain (talk · contribs · count), Giftroom x (talk · contribs · count), and Naphtha Termix (talk · contribs · count). There were a couple of already-blocked accounts I identified as Pumpkin. I just tagged those.

There's one other account that's a technical match: Trubblemaker Todd. Although the username is troublesome, Ineed more input on the behavior generally. Can you guys look at it and tell me what you think? Thanks.--Bbb23 (talk) 20:16, 18 July 2015 (UTC)

Oh, it's him alright. The mentioning of "wine" in this diff is the smoking gun. Favonian (talk) 20:27, 18 July 2015 (UTC)

Thank you, thank you, thank you kindly.--Bbb23 (talk) 20:36, 18 July 2015 (UTC)

I deliberately triggered McMillain a bit on their talk page, and got some bragging about Nelson Brothers in return. A now cleaned article created by Daniels Jerkins more than four months ago (as a pre-packaged bundle of nonsense text, hoax content and bogus references), a user account that was blocked by Jpgordon for abusing multiple accounts on 23 March 2015 (with talk page access revoked by Zzuuzz on 9 July 2015), but with no mention of who the other accounts involved were. So there might be far more socks involved, split over two or more accounts named as sock masters. Thomas.W ^talk 21:07, 18 July 2015 (UTC)

The most important question is whether these accounts continue to edit now or if new accounts are created. If there are earlier accounts that are already blocked, it's not that big a deal. It would be great to have everything neat and tidy procedurally, but preventing disruption is the ultimate goal, and neat and tidy is often difficult to achieve, especially here.--Bbb23 (talk) 21:20, 18 July 2015 (UTC)

The Nelson Brothers article gave us a new name that might be of interest, Irishman on the wikicircuit, a user account adding material to the article that was later blocked by Acroterion as a sock of David Beals. Probably because of this edit that, mixed with a lot of more serious text the way Pumpkin-socks do it, added this piece of nonsense: "During the 1947 elections in Greenland, very little happened on the world stage, but it should be noted that David Beals has defeated the administrators of this sad project again, as the edit here is not even serious and yet the fools have been fooled once more". Which I don't see as proof of it being DB, but rather as an attempt to make people here focus on David Beals instead of "Pumpkin", which would increase the new sock master's chances of "survival". So many of the socks attributed to David Beals might actually be Pumpkin-socks. Thomas.W ^talk 21:35, 18 July 2015 (UTC)

Maybe, but that account is stale, so there's no way for me to check. In addition, the account was not blocked by a checkuser. There's no indication a CU was run, and the userpage is not tagged (just a comment in the block log by the administrator).--Bbb23 (talk) 21:41, 18 July 2015 (UTC)

According to a comment on Zzuuzz's talk page Jpgordon blocked Daniels Jerkins as a DB-sock, but that account is also stale. It's not reasonable to believe that Pumpkin hasn't been active between the end of March and the beginning of July, and it's also not reasonable to believe that none of his socks have been blocked during that time. But the problem with Pumpkin's activities being blamed on David Beals is that most accounts that are blocked as DB-socks aren't tagged as such. Making finding those socks, to get a better picture of Pumpkin and his activities, difficult. Thomas.W ^talk 21:55, 18 July 2015 (UTC)

I have a question for those of you who have dealt with these MP's socks and their "joke" edits. This article European Union commodities (edit | talk | history | links | watch | logs) was created by Doc McM. The end of the sentence at the end of the second paragraph states "and supporting monkey pricing and settlement conditions." Is it possible that this is one of those jokes. You will see that the article has a few other edits including some by the blocked IP 188.31.0.219 (talk · contribs). I marked it for a speedy deletion since it was created by a sock of MP. If that was incorrect then please feel free to remove the tag. OTOH I did want someone familiar with MP to check that sentence as well as the rest of the article. Thanks for your time. MarnetteD|Talk 23:06, 18 July 2015 (UTC)

Deleted, thanks.--Bbb23 (talk) 23:09, 18 July 2015 (UTC)

You are welcome. MP is one that I had not seen before but all the posts by everyone will help me to keep an eye out for them in the future. MarnetteD|Talk 02:15, 19 July 2015 (UTC)

Just as an FYI, I seem to have picked up a sock of his this morning (my morning, anyway) while dealing with another block evader (a serial copyright infringer who copy-pastes both content from Wikipedia pages and external sources). I checked his contribs to see if he was related to the guy I'm dealing with and found that, though he clearly isn't, he had recreated that now-deleted article under a different name. I blocked him for quacking, and his response to the block pretty much cemented it. I don't know the history here, so I don't know if a sock-drawer check is warranted, but thought I'd pass it along. :) --Moonriddengirl ^(talk) 16:22, 19 July 2015 (UTC)

Thanks, Moonriddengirl, that is, unfortunately, not an atypical response by this person. I've deleted the offensive edits. It's gotten to the point that I often revoke Talk page access at the same time as I block.--Bbb23 (talk) 16:30, 19 July 2015 (UTC)

Thanks. :) I'll do that if I run into another. --Moonriddengirl ^(talk) 16:41, 19 July 2015 (UTC)

A Max Pumpkin sock welcomed User:Professor K Ratnam who has not made any edits yet, but needs to be watched. Doug Weller (talk) 08:47, 20 July 2015 (UTC)

I've put the page on my unmanageable watchlist, but I know of no way to watch contributions, something I've bitched about since forever.--Bbb23 (talk) 15:14, 20 July 2015 (UTC)

Having seen a ton of these "welcomes for a non-existent editor" I have wondered if a new classification of WP:CSD might be in order? OTOH I don't know if that is a bigger hassle that it is worth. MarnetteD|Talk 15:39, 20 July 2015 (UTC)

Compgun

The Compgun Page was deleted as it lacked references that describe the organization's significance. New information is available. Cool to recreate?

Tester1679 (talk) 23:56, 20 July 2015 (UTC)

Gadasahi

You seem to have misspelled the target of this move. I re-moved it.

Thanks. You wouldn't like to sign your post, would you? Helps for archiving.--Bbb23 (talk) 21:57, 21 July 2015 (UTC)

NotAnOmbudsman RFC/N

Hey Bbb23, I noticed you blocked NotAnOmbudsman as a sock. Would you mind closing the WP:RFC/N? I wasn't sure if it would be acceptable for me to do it. Thanks. — JJMC89 (T·E·C) 02:11, 22 July 2015 (UTC)

Zurich00swiss

Good morning I'm zurich00swiss, a stupid and naive user, a user who has done something that is like destroying his dream: flying. I'm really young and I know I made a mistake, I know that you aren't probably interested in what I'm writing because I'll probably remain blocked. I created many sockpuppets because I wanted to continue editing my favourite airports, airlines but specially my dreams. I'm apologize for everything I've done; I want to became a pilot in Swiss International air Lines, this is the reason of my nicknames... If you give me the last chance I will surely be better, if I could go back to the past I'd never made this mistake, this stupid mistake of being a person without a hart with a part of my life! Without Wikipedia I'm empty, so I would like to ask you to give me the last chance. Best regards. THANK YOU ZURICH00SWISS.

P.S. I decided to excuse me alter talking about this with my dad, so he also tried to help me with the tramslation —  Preceding unsigned comment added by 151.29.154.74 (talk • contribs) 07:35, 22 July 2015‎

Bbb23, this editor has posted copies of this message to the talk pages of four editors, including two administrators. I have posted an answer to the message at User talk:Zurich00swiss. The editor who uses the pseudonym "JamesBWatson" (talk) 08:57, 22 July 2015 (UTC)

Thanks, JamesBWatson.--Bbb23 (talk) 21:46, 22 July 2015 (UTC)

Just spreading the love around

Hey, I have to write a LTA report for one of our more colorful characters so I'm just spreading the love around. --NeilN ^{talk to me} 23:48, 22 July 2015 (UTC)

You're just way too busy adminning. When you were five years old, you were probably asked what you wanted to be when you grew up, and you said, "I want to be a Wikipedia administrator so I can spread the love around." Whatever happened to "I want to be an astronaut" or "I want to be president of the United States"?--Bbb23 (talk) 23:52, 22 July 2015 (UTC)

Hey, I did want to be Buck Rogers! What should we do with Ammy Virk (singer)? I worked on it a bit before I knew a sock had created it. Delete as a WP:G5 or move to Ammy Virk (which is currently salted)? --NeilN ^{talk to me} 01:26, 23 July 2015 (UTC)

I looked at the article briefly, and it was created by a sock after the master was blocked, right? If so, G5 applies as long as you're comfortable with doing so after reviewing the editing history.--Bbb23 (talk) 01:30, 23 July 2015 (UTC)

Do you think...

...WP:ANI#Disruptive editing during an AfD could be related to Sanjoy64 by any chance? I don't have any background on that group except for a stray action I performed recently. But the "young Indian" afd seems to be a link, and you've done a few of the SPIs. cheers. —SpacemanSpiff 20:40, 23 July 2015 (UTC)

Well, I have a weird one for you (or NeilN since this involves proxies/tor and I'm not familiar with that kind of stuff): There's User:R2d2 ka baap who was short-term blocked but ever since, there's been a load of proxies/tor edits on the user and user talk page. I'm guessing the user was using a proxy/tor as there were some logged out edits earlier (and likely not new as the account creation date suggests) and there's just been a lot of reverts on the talk/user pages. Whether anything is done reg the user or not, I'm guessing those proxy/tor IPs have to be blocked or something. cheers. —SpacemanSpiff 06:29, 24 July 2015 (UTC)

(replying here so as not to clutter the SPI) I didn't exactly mean you on that, there's four people I'd tagged there (the other three hadn't seen the original post yet, so I only retagged you), but I don't do automatic g5 either which is why it takes a really long time to sort these messes out. But yeah, I think posting on AN might be a good idea, I'll do that.—SpacemanSpiff 15:20, 26 July 2015 (UTC)

Sort of Sock?

Hi BBB, got a garden-variety CU issue with slightly different implications. I know you can't confirm IPs to Accounts, so I'm looking for guidance/opinion. It relates to Dao2k. After much interaction with him directly, including some unpleasant ones over at SimpleWiki, I think/hope that JohnCD and I have gotten him to realize that his current pattern is hopeless, and that he should back off. On User talk:Dao2k JCD and I seem to have gotten him to agree to the standard offer, after which he implied that he would cease his socking and self-promo.

Ok, background over, today I see: Draft:Yung Trace which has the same style as the past versions. it was started by an IP which Geo's near him, and edit by another UK IP. So basically I'm wondering your thoughts, and if it seems that I'm wasting my energy on an unrepentant sock? Thanks for any guidance you can offer! Crow^Caw 21:30, 23 July 2015 (UTC)

@Crow: First, an administrator cannot unilaterally unblock a CU-blocked account. He has to consult with an involved checkuser. Second, I don't see any basis for believing what he says, and I wouldn't agree to an unblock at this point.--Bbb23 (talk) 22:43, 23 July 2015 (UTC)

• Well, yes I understand the first part, we actually told him that BASC would be his only hope, and dangled the SO as a way to prove sincerity. I was definitely not suggesting an unblock, but was more wondering if all that agreement was just him wasting our time trying to help him. I've pretty well determined that now as well. Thanks for the sounding board! Crow^Caw 22:47, 23 July 2015 (UTC)

No fun

You say "it won't be fun". That is what I expected, and I do think the amount of reason for looking for sleepers is slim, so I would fully understand it if you just did a very brief check of a small number of accounts. As for your comments about what some admins start at SPI, I tend to assume that admins know what they are doing, but I probably shouldn't. In areas other than SPI I have from time to time come across actions by admins that make me stop and think "WHAT?" so I suppose I shouldn't be surprised to learn that it happens at SPI. Although over the years I have participated in quite a number of SPIs, it is not one of my main areas of activity, so I suppose I don't really know what is typical. The editor who uses the pseudonym "JamesBWatson" (talk) 20:10, 26 July 2015 (UTC)

Well, thanks for dealing with it anyway. The editor who uses the pseudonym "JamesBWatson" (talk) 12:12, 27 July 2015 (UTC)

Stokesnet unblock request

Can you respond to User:Ritchie333's comments to you at User_talk:Stokesnet#July_2015, either there or at User_talk:Ritchie333#Pending_unblock_request. Thanks.—Bagumba (talk) 08:03, 27 July 2015 (UTC)

I blocked a duck in Mollya4321. Might be worth doing a CU, since it wasn't detected in the last one and might find more sleepers. Thanks.—Bagumba (talk) 09:42, 27 July 2015 (UTC)

I ran a CU and it was surprising. There's no doubt in my mind that behaviorally it's the same. The edit the account did to the Meeks article removing the image and changing the weight was exactly what other accounts were doing. Also, there was another interesting thing that happened. Mwrcwms created an article entitled Jeanette Stokes on July 8 at 13:59. I don't know why it was called that as the subject was a woman named Jill Raitt. Obviously, the Stokes name is a tie-in to Stokesnet. Do you remember Stokesnet mentioning this anywhere? In any event, Mwrcwms blanked the page on July 8 at 14:08, and it was then G7ed. Meanwhile Mollya4321 comes along on July 8 at 14:55 and creates the article Jill Raitt, which was subsequently deleted per A7. Behaviorally, it couldn't be more obvious.

I'm not sure how much you know about CUs and sleepers. If you want to know more, please e-mail me as I prefer not to discuss some of the details on-wiki.

Back to Mollya4321 and my CU. In addition to everything else I described above, there's also the username similarity with Mollyw838. Mollya4321 is editing from the same location as all of the accounts. However, the device used by the account is different from the other accounts, both OS and browser. So, technically, I can't confirm the account. I might go so far as to say it's technically between possible and likely, but speaking strictly technically based on the limited data (only two edits), some checkusers might consider that a stretch. The block, though, is absolutely justified. CU data isn't always the crucial determinator i whether to block for sock puppetry. I am going to change your tag to "proven". It's as strong a tag as we can use without referring to checkuser evidence, and it is clearly warranted here.--Bbb23 (talk) 16:12, 27 July 2015 (UTC)

Hello, Bbb23. Please check your email; you've got mail!
It may take a few minutes from the time the email is sent for it to show up in your inbox. You can at any time by removing the {{You've got mail}} or {{ygm}} template.

—Bagumba (talk) 17:43, 27 July 2015 (UTC)

@Bagumba: Something must've gone awry because I didn't receive it.--Bbb23 (talk) 18:22, 27 July 2015 (UTC)

Another user with yahoo tried sending me something a while back, and now I remember this bug. I've got yahoo as well, but receiving email is OK. I think the other user switched to another provider they already had as a workaround. I was interested in knowing more about CU and sleepers. If you don't mind, you can try to email me (assuming you don't have yahoo also), and I will then have your email address to use outside of WP interface with my own email client. If you prefer I initiate the email chain instead, I can go create a gmail one and update my settings. Sorry for the inconvenience. Let me know.—Bagumba (talk) 18:52, 27 July 2015 (UTC)

@Bagumba: Just sent one to you.--Bbb23 (talk) 19:25, 27 July 2015 (UTC)

Got it. And I responded.—Bagumba (talk) 20:02, 27 July 2015 (UTC)

I have a Yahoo! Mail account and people on Wikipedia who use GMail never receive my messages. If they write me first and I answer them, it's okay. But not when I initiate the email exchange. Liz ^{Read! Talk!} 20:07, 27 July 2015 (UTC)