Wikipedia:Sockpuppet investigations/NadirAli/Archive

Add links
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia


NadirAli

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

28 November 2017[edit]

Suspected sockpuppets[edit]

I'm fairly certain that NadirAli (talk+ · tag · contribs · deleted contribs · logs · filter log · block user · spi block · block log · CA · CheckUser(log) · investigate · cuwiki), besides proxy editing for Towns Hill (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · nuke contribs · logs · filter log · block user · block log), (see evidence at Wikipedia:Arbitration/Requests/Enforcement#NadirAli) is also socking. I believe that Xinjao (talk+ · tag · contribs · deleted contribs · logs · filter log · block user · spi block · block log · CA · CheckUser(log) · investigate · cuwiki) is his sock. Here's the evidence:

Both have the same writing style, same signature style (--~~~~), share the same POV, same edit-warring tendencies, and so on.

  • On 20 September 2017, after almost half a month of inactivity Xinjao showed up out of nowhere to vote "keep" at Wikipedia:Files for discussion/2017 September 19#File:1965_War_the_Australian_Newspaper.jpg (which I nominated for deletion).[1] Then, some nine hours later,[2] NadirAli too mysteriously showed up to vote "keep"[3] Worth noting here is that NadirAli voted "keep" just a few minutes after Kautilya3 voted "delete"[4] This obviously means that Nadirali had that Ffd page on his watchlist prior to that time. I had only mentioned about the nomination on my talk page,[5] and up until then I had never interacted with Xinjao so it's very unlikely that he could have my talk page on his watchlist. Which makes it highly suspicious. How on earth did they both showed up at the Ffd page?
  • Edit-warring on Hindustan; Nadirali was edit-warring with Fundamental metric tensor to remove content which he didn't like.[6][7] Kautilya3 intervened and reverted Nadirali, telling him to cease his disruptive edit-warring and come to talk.[8] Then, some time later, Xinjao show up out of nowhere to revert back to Nadirali's preferred version of the article, saying: Same goes to you. Use talk page and stop adding unsourced statements (It looks as though Nadirali used his sock account to escape a trip to WP:AN3) Then a couple days later, Xinjao shows up again to "agree with NadirAli" on the article's talk page, echoing Nadirali's arguments.[9][10][11] Xinjao then disappears and Nadirali continues edit-warring[12]
  • Xinjao account created on 30 September 2007, just ten days after Distell (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · nuke contribs · logs · filter log · block user · block log) (CU confirmed sock of Nadirali) was blocked. This fits the modus operandi of NadirAli's confirmed socks such as Vmrgrsergr (created soon after Nadirali was banned for a year), Distell (created a month after Vmrgrsergr was blocked), Shotty707 (created one and a half month after previous sock was blocked).
  • A thorough glance at the contribution history of Nadirali and Xinjao shows that they both are obsessed with replacing the terms like "Ancient India", "Greater India", "Indian subcontinent" "Iron age India", etc, with "ancient pakistan", "south asia"... Xinjao's very first edit,[13] which he made on Talk:Chinese civilization just a minute after registering an account, was to ask for removing "the reference to India" from the "opening paragraph of the history section" (.. the others being Mesopotamia, Ancient India (Indus Valley Civilization)).
More WP:DUCK Evidence
  • Both NadirAli and Xinjao edited Unre4L's userpage (who, along with Nadirali and a few other accounts, was sanctioned by the ARBCOM in 2007[14]); Nadirali added a template ({{User Pakistani}}) on Unre4L's userpage. Xinjao restored an earlier version of Unre4L's userpage[15] which had a barnstar given by Nadirali and also the Pakistani template.
  • [16][17][18][19][20][21][22][23][24][25][26] – Quack! Quack!
  • On Pāṇini; Both readily edit-warred by repeateadly removing: "was an [[Iron Age India|ancient Indian]]" and replacing it by "was a [[South Asian]]"/"was an [[History of Pakistan|ancient Pakistani]]".[27]-[28]-[29]-[30]-[31], [32]-[33]
  • Both accounts made similar POV-pushing edits on Alexander the Great; showing same obsession to replace word "India" with "Pakistan"/"South Asia", etc using similar edit summaries:
  • NadirAli: Pakistan was never part of india
  • Xinjao: Since when did Multan become part of India????????? (Note the excessive use of question marks)
  • NadirAli: what the hell makes him an "anicent Indian"????? (Note the excessive use of question marks)
  • Xinjao: Seriously, what is the "Ancient Indian" period??? next person to vandalise this article will be reported (ditto)
  • Xinjao: DO NOT REMOVE SOURCED INFORMATION..
  • Nadirali's sock Vmrgrsergr: Do not remove sourced information please
  • Nadirali: Do not remove the date
  • Nadirali: wrong section, my apologies
  • Xinjao: wrong category, mistake corrected
  • Nadirali: wrong person
  • Xinjao: undoing. wrong page
  • Xinjao: Undid Vandalism
  • Xinjao: Reverting vandalism done 2 weeks ago
  • Nadirali's sock Vmrgrsergr: reverting vandalism
  • Nadirali: reverting vandalism
  • Like Nadirali[55] and his socks[56][57] Xinjao too has a Pakistani userbox on his userpage.[58]
  • I think it's worth mentioning that although Xinjao is an old account, he has just 334 edits in total,[59] majority of which he made during the later part of the last decade — when NadirAli was blocked and socking actively.[60] —MBL Talk 14:50, 28 November 2017 (UTC)[reply]

Comments by other users[edit]

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


Clerk, CheckUser, and/or patrolling admin comments[edit]

  • NadirAli and Xinjao are Red X Unrelated to each other and to Faizan. Closing with no action.--Bbb23 (talk) 02:54, 29 November 2017 (UTC)[reply]

29 June 2018[edit]

Suspected sockpuppets[edit]

NadirAli had been sitebanned and he was unbanned too by Arbcom with a topic ban on South Asia and one account (no IP) restriction,[61] and later on Arbcom vacated the topic ban. But the reality is that NadirAli always evaded his siteban,[62][63][64] topic ban,[65][66] one account restriction while he was at it. He even evaded his 1 month block[67] for violating topic ban.[68] Here's further evidence of abuse:-


Starting with comparison of 69.165.246.181 and NadirAli. For starters, this IP address geolocates to the same geographical area as his other IPs in Central Toronto, Ontario. NadirAli has made 1,598 edits with this IP address and disrupted very controversial articles like Talk:Rape during the Bangladesh Liberation War,[69] engaged in battleground mentality against an editor with more than 100,000 edits in WP:ANI,[70] while his account "NadirAli" was still sitebanned. There is a massive overlap between NadirAli and this IP, including on many obsure articles, as the Editor Interaction Analyser shows. This IP was also blocked for 48 hours for edit warring in 2014.[71]

  • "the definition of space opera" [92][93]

Below edits are comparison between 173.209.159.202 and NadirAli. All before 23 December 2015 when NadirAli's topic ban was removed. Socking from this IP has been carried out mostly to evade topic ban from WP:ARBIPA, and also after it. He made edits with this IP in violation of his topic ban and the details of this IP address concerning ISP (Rogers cable), location (Toronto, Ontario) are all matching with the IPs he used for socking back in 2000s (see SPI from 2007). Here is the evidence of abuse:-

  • Added same non-existing image ("File:Punjab rangers insignia.gif") on Pakistan Rangers with same "150px" size. [101][102]
  • Adding same caption ("A Sindh Rangers commando on duty") for same image.[103][104]
  • Editing caption of same image "Pakistan ranger soldier.jpg" on Pakistan Rangers.[105][106]
  • Tagging video content for citation on above article.[112][113]
  • Adding Urdu/Nastaliq scripts on lead sentence of Pakistan Marines,[116][117][118][119] and NadirAli later added the same to infobox.[120]

Even after getting unbanned from topic ban, he has abused this IP to avoid scrutiny. For example, in July 2017, he restored so much of content that was actually written by a topic ban evading sock puppet[121] and NadirAli used this 173.209 IP when restoring.[122] For starters you can search "Only 15 percent (21,606) of Junagadh’s Muslim population voted", entire text is mostly same. Later, NadirAli defended the content on talk page using his account.[123]

Here is the evidence for 70.54.131.177 as being related to NadirAli:- Just like the above, this IP geolocates to the same area i.e., Toronto, Ontario, is registered to the same ISP (Bell Cananda) as the IP that NadirAli inadvertently revealed in late October 2017.[124] Here are the details concerning postal code (ZIP code) of these two IP addresses: 70.54.131.177 M4S Central Toronto (Davisville) vs 184.145.119.147 M4T Central Toronto (Moore Park / Summerhill East)

  • Just like diffs above[125][126], this IP has also added the same Urdu/Nastaliq scripts on the concerning lead of the article.[127]
  • Like 173.209.159.202 and NadirAli,[128][129] this IP has also edited the same sentence on 2011 Pakistan Rangers shooting incident.[130]

Since removal of topic ban, NadirAli has been subject to indefinite image upload restriction,[131] two indefinite blocks for copyright violations,[132][133] a block for violation of 1RR,[134] multiple reports on WP:ARE[135][136] and ANI thread discussing sanctions[137] and he was topic banned from India-Pakistan conflict last month,[138] surrounding the conflicts within the subject where he played the biggest role in disruption by violating copyrights and rejecting the obvious violation,[139] reverting 4 times on Princely state[140] and more. It is very fair to say that NadirAli is a total net negative and the biggest problem behind the mess that was created in South Asian subject not only in 2006-2007,[141] but also since he has been unbanned by Arbcom.

I had contacted Arbcom about 3 weeks ago but understood that this can be handled on-wiki. I can't think of any other ethnic POV editor of Pakistani articles who can be such a die hard fan of Star Wars, while thinking that " the Russian Federation" is a more common name for "Russia". Sock puppetry is too obvious here. My Lord (talk) 04:12, 29 June 2018 (UTC)[reply]

Comments by other users[edit]

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

The ban evasion regarding both siteban and topic ban is probably more than what has been provided here. NadirAli was evading the siteban with his apparently admitted IP[142] for months[143] even after an indefinite block was imposed after he had been lucky enough to have his block duration modified for four times.[144]

The diffs are convincing. I also note that NadirAli has been long continuing the same misconduct that led to a site ban (WP:AE report) and probably engaged in proxying for a banned editor (WP:AE report). NadirAli is one of those who have commited some of the worst violations on Wikipedia, evaded each type of sanction and unfortunately, he is still allowed to edit. Ping @Future Perfect at Sunrise, Jpgordon, and Ohnoitsjamie: as they dealt with his rigorous policy violations since his return. --RaviC (talk) 10:33, 29 June 2018 (UTC)[reply]

Clerk, CheckUser, and/or patrolling admin comments[edit]

  • We are not going to evaluate alleged topic bans that occured 1-4 years ago. Closing. Bbb23 (talk) 14:08, 29 June 2018 (UTC)[reply]

02 July 2018[edit]

Suspected sockpuppets[edit]

I am not sure how I should exactly describe this but Boxman88 started their editing on 29 June, only 4 hours before I had filed the earlier SPI.[145] Account was not editing for more than 9 months until 29 June.

Account was created in April 2015 for evading topic ban from South Asia on NadirAli, which was lifted during December 2015. Overlap is massive between these two accounts, their editing pattern is same, interests are same. Both make edits mostly without using any edit summary. In previous SPI, I had documented that NadirAli was socking massively ever since he was site banned. His IPs geolocate in Central Toronto, Canada, and Boxman88 also cites "books.google.ca",[146] just like Nadirali,[147] which shows he is in Canada.

  • Asks for "assistance" at Help desk saying:
I need assistance finding sources
I need assistance aligning a barnstar on my userpage
  • Uses similar phrases on talk pages:
"it will give the reader an idea of what is being discussed"[148]
" give readers a proper idea of what is being referred"[149]
  • Prefers changing "British Raj" to "British Indian Empire". [157][158]
  • Same way of creating articles. "I am still editing this"[161], "I'll work more on it later".[162]
  • Says "citeweb" instead of "cite web" in references.[165][166]
  • Spends excessive amount of time on adding external links in further reading section of articles: [169][170][171][172][173] (using same formatting)
Boxman88 adds external link on Human rights abuses in Sindh,[174][175] NadirAli turns up later and makes changes in the title of that same link,[176] then adds more external links himself.[177][178]
Boxman88: Thanks for warning me about the sanctions, I appreciate that. Thank you.
NadirAli: and thank you for warning me about the arbitrary sanctions, that was very useful.
  • Boxman88 adds content on Pakistan–Russia relations and NadirAli turns up the next day on this page and fills in bare references.[186][187]
  • Updates "Notable operations and controversial incidents" section on Pakistan Rangers, adding similar anti-rangers content: [188][189][190] Here, NadirAli used his sock[191] (same IP that I had reported here earlier) to restore content that was added by Boxman88 when it was removed.[192]


I can keep adding but this should be enough for CU and behavioral evaluation as sock puppetry seems to be too obvious here. My Lord (talk) 11:11, 2 July 2018 (UTC)[reply]

  • Thanks everyone here for your work on this, I guess we are almost done. My Lord (talk) 15:00, 12 July 2018 (UTC)[reply]
  • @Ivanvector: NadirAli was supposed to reply here before editing anymore given the importance of concerns raised here. I also don't see if he is going to show up though he has left a number of discussions hanging that would move only after he is blocked or absolved, latter is not possible. As mentioned below, the AE block is no longer a choice and as far as the behavioral issues goes, the final edit of NadirAli lacked the understanding of policies.[193] I believe we can move on now. My Lord (talk) 04:44, 13 July 2018 (UTC)[reply]

Comments by other users[edit]

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

  • The below accounts as well as Boxman88 are all NadirAli. There is no end of similarities with these accounts. Especially Boxman88, that was created on 20 April 2015 because NadirAli was going through a WP:AN report [194] that was started which was about NadirAli's topic ban violation. Boxman88 was created for evading that topic ban and NadirAli has abused many IPs to evade his topic ban. NadirAli and Boxman88 prefers to censor "India" and "Indian subcontinent" given his hatred towards the country and refers to the Indian subcontinent as "the subcontinent".[195][196]
NadirAli has been also engaging in WP:MEAT puppetry for a topic banned sock called Towns Hill, since NadirAli can't himself write a proper sentence in English, no matter how much he tries,[197][198][199][200][201] though he is capable of posting or restoring 10,000 - 32,000 bytes[202][203] of contents on India Pakistan conflict-related articles that he never edited before, all for Towns Hill.[204]
To summarise, NadirAli has always socked and helped others evading their bans. The Arbcom removal of siteban and topic ban was a total mistake and NadirAli is considered as the most disruptive editor of this whole area who has been brought to ARE a number of times [205][206] and even in present version of ARE he is only showing why he needs a CIR block, though now that socking has been confirmed, there should be no reason to wait. Furthermore, NadirAli is also banned from uploading images[207] and the account mentioned below has been abused to violate that restriction.[208] --RaviC (talk) 01:06, 9 July 2018 (UTC)[reply]

Boxman88 and NadirAli are indeed same. See these same edits: [209][210][211], [212][213]

A cursory look into the history of these articles heavily edited by NadirAli show that he has has abused the following IPs:

Lorstaking (talk) 11:51, 9 July 2018 (UTC)[reply]

Added on suggestion by RaviC:
-- Ivanvector (Talk/Edits) 13:48, 10 July 2018 (UTC)[reply]
@Lorstaking: Please also include 99.228.167.208 (talk · contribs · WHOIS) 99.234.72.95 (talk · contribs · WHOIS) 173.35.138.70 (talk · contribs · WHOIS) 99.241.114.251 (talk · contribs · WHOIS) 99.247.7.212 (talk · contribs · WHOIS) 99.247.57.5 (talk · contribs · WHOIS) HistoryPK14 (talk · contribs) HistoryPK15 (talk · contribs)
HistoryPK14 and HistoryPK15 were absolutely the same and were admitted to be operated by 99.247.57.5[216] who has made the same edits as NadirAli, including those outrageous edits where both claimed that Tarek Fateh was born in India. 99.247.57.5 added "PLACE OF BIRTH=[[Delhi]], [[India]]"[217] while NadirAli calls Fateh "an Indian born".[218] These all IPs and accounts match the behavior of NadirAli.
@Zzuuzz: I don't think NadirAli is willing to respond and the sockpuppetry has been so large in scale that it is completely inexcusable. --RaviC (talk) 19:25, 9 July 2018 (UTC)[reply]
I have had a couple of emails from User:NadirAli, which I'm not going to disclose. It'd be better if they respond here if anywhere. All I can say is that I haven't seen any indication of anyone lifting the restriction on logged-out editing. I would add that there's no guarantee that any of the IPs above are NadirAli, and also that some of the IPs listed above edited TEN years ago. -- zzuuzz (talk) 19:50, 9 July 2018 (UTC)[reply]
I see. These IPs match the behavior of NadirAli given the same edits and large volume of overlap. Failure to respond here itself speaks much about the sock puppetry that NadirAli lacks justification for it. --RaviC (talk) 20:10, 9 July 2018 (UTC)[reply]
  • If we are going to have a party, we need to include Towns Hill in it, whose current incarnation is, I suspect, JosephusOfJerusalem. NadirAli has been an amazingly disruptive editor, but he was all the more so due to his meat puppetry for Towns Hill. I filed a full report here, which unfortunately didn't get the attention it deserved. But there was one important clue that I missed there. In this comment, NadirAli claims "in contested pages the best approach according to our senior editor Fowler&fowler is to summarise the higher level histories". After digging, it turns out that Fowler&fowler talked of "higher level histories" to Faizan here, not to NadirAli. The Faizan account was being operated by Towns Hill at that time. NadirAli also claimed and "My main argument is that not all sources are equal, as Fowler&fowler has taught us". The "taught us" part probably referred to discussion at Talk:Kashmir, e.g., [219], where again Towns Hill and I were involved. No sign of NadirAli. So, what does he mean by "taught us"? I believe the comment came from Towns Hill, and NadirAli was simply cut-and-pasting.
There is much more direct evidence available now. An IP, whose identity was suppressed, edit-warred at Islam in Pakistan [220], [221], [222], wanting to remove 19,000 bytes of long-standing text. This same content was removed again [223] by NadirAli. Zzuuzz can confirm to us that this IP is connected to Towns Hill and JosephusOfJerusalem, and then we have a direct connection. When I complained to NadirAli about the removal, Josephus came to support him [224]. The words he used "After all policy is that there is a WP:BURDEN on the one who restores unverifiable content to find the sources for them" are pretty much the same as those of the suppressed IP "if you want unsourced content back its your responsibility to give sources."
At History of Balochistan, NadirAli added some 32,000 bytes of text [225], with excessively long quotations in citations. When it got reverted, again Josephus came to help him out. I am pretty sure that the 32,000 bytes of text came from Towns Hill/Josephus to start with, and NadirAli was merely executing. When a complaint was made at WP:Copyright problems, again Josephus went there to defend it.
There is a very long list of Towns Hill's meatpuppets, but NadirAli tops them all. -- Kautilya3 (talk) 23:08, 9 July 2018 (UTC)[reply]
The list is very long and NadirAli is the biggest one. Defending each other in a content dispute would be one thing but defending gross policy violation would be other. I had reviewed the diffs earlier, especially the copyrights problem report where Samee reached to safeguard NadirAli before JosephusOfJerusalem.[226] After these unnecessary comments were removed,[227] SheriffsInTown resorted to filibustering the talk page of Justlettersandnumbers,[228] to defend NadirAli. I also assume that Towns Hill abused the proxy[229] to defend NadirAli as uninvolved parties were no longer permitted to comment there.
It is difficult to treat the above to be an isolated incident. I recently raised my concern on the talk page of EdJohnston regarding this possible sock puppetry of Towns Hill[230] and guess what? Samee edited after inactivity of 23 days and jumped on to defend Faizan[231] and evidently he lacked any contributions to that talk page ever before.[232] I wonder who notified him of this? Why did he go to defend the severe policy violation of supposedly Towns Hill, just like he defended him on the copyright problem report?
I also remember that NadirAli was deeply offended[233][234][235] that Orientls asked TurboCop (who is probably Towns Hill[236][237]) to stop impersonating others or otherwise admit their identity.[238] RaviC (talk) 08:18, 10 July 2018 (UTC)[reply]
@Ivanvector: NadirAli has given up according to his latest edits[239][240][241], I wonder if he will join this page and contradict himself. A one month ARE block may have been a good decision only when the topic ban violation[242] by NadirAli was reported.[243] However, NadirAli has already rejected any topic ban violation,[244] just like he rejected any copyright violation earlier.[245] NadirAli further alleged other editors of vandalism and made disparaging comments about a good-faith contributor[246] and then filed a bogus AE report against him.[247] After observing enough of this disruption I had to ask Zzuuzz to look into this issue.[248]
There has been a large degree of disruption and clear display of inability to act collegially for more than 12 years now, I believe Arbcom should consider restoring the siteban since it was itself a wrong decision to unban a known ban evader without soliciting views of the community and without running a CheckUser that was always able to detect the rigorous abuse of multiple accounts and IPs. In addition to this, a community ban thread can be opened on WP:AN or WP:ANI. --RaviC (talk) 19:30, 10 July 2018 (UTC)[reply]

Clerk, CheckUser, and/or patrolling admin comments[edit]

The first obvious thing to say is that User:NadirAli has clearly been editing while logged out. This is to an extent you couldn't describe as accidental, and includes subjects such as the Kashmir dispute along with the Star Wars stuff. I understand that NadirAli is under a restriction which states that 'Nadirali may not edit from any Wikipedia account other than "Nadirali", nor edit anonymously, without the express prior permission of an arbitrator or a checkuser.'[249] If there is a defence for this result, now would be a good time for Nadirali to mention it.

The checkuser data for Boxman88 is extremely limited and doesn't provide a direct connection to NadirAli. However there are some other things to consider. There are some technical similarities which makes it possible. Additionally the following two accounts are confirmed to each other:

There is a clear overlap with the latter account in the history of Science fantasy. There is also extensive logged-out editing from this set, which again includes Pakistan-India along with the Star Wars stuff. -- zzuuzz (talk) 17:39, 8 July 2018 (UTC)[reply]

  •  Clerk notes: I tried to organize the list of IPs and look for range patterns, but the ranges are extremely broad and not suitable for rangeblocking. One is a /11, more than 2 million addresses. However it also includes one IP which is blocked indefinitely because of NadirAli using it while banned. While none of the IPs listed have edited more recently than August 2017, many of them have been used while NadirAli was banned, and others were used after NadirAli's ban was suspended with conditions including "no anonymous editing". It's clear that NadirAli has edited while logged out, in violation of their ban and then in violation of their unban conditions, with deceptive intent, repeatedly and over a very long period of time. The behavioural evidence that Boxman88 is NadirAli is also quite convincing.
  • Behaviourally, JosephusofJerusalem is not NadirAli, and I see no good evidence that they are Faizan (with convincing evidence that they are not). If you want to discuss other possible Faizan sockpuppets, do it in the Faizan case. Any further comments about other cases on this page will be removed.
  • Unless someone (i.e. NadirAli) gives me a very good reason not to proceed within the next few hours, I am intending to treat this with an indefinite block of all accounts, for which the first month of NadirAli's block will be arbitration enforcement, but I have to think about how to do that. Ivanvector (Talk/Edits) 14:33, 10 July 2018 (UTC)[reply]
Okay, it took me a long time to think this through. I am proceeding with indefinitely blocking the two sock accounts. Since NadirAli used many IPs (though none reported here are recent enough to action on their own) and evidently created sockpuppet accounts in violation of an Arbcom-imposed unblock condition, and it is their second block for violating that condition, NadirAli is blocked for three months as arbitration enforcement. I am not blocking NadirAli indefinitely: it seems to me that the Committee intended their remedy to address NadirAli's sockpuppetry specificially and so it would be unjust of me to impose an additional restriction for the same offence. However, Arbcom's own remedy prescribes a full site ban for a third offence, so let's all try to avoid that three months from now. Ivanvector (Talk/Edits) 14:42, 23 July 2018 (UTC)[reply]
Retrieved from "https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Wikipedia:Sockpuppet_investigations/NadirAli/Archive&oldid=852561732"