Wikipedia:Sockpuppet investigations/Sandro78/Archive

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Sandro78

Sandro78 (talk+ · tag · contribs · deleted contribs · logs · filter log · block user · spi block · block log · CA · CheckUser(log) · investigate · cuwiki)
09 October 2012[edit]
Suspected sockpuppets

Long-term warring at Pendulum and Pendulum (mathematics) by an editor who may be trying to promote his own formula for the period of the pendulum. This first came to my attention in a 3RR report from October 2.

See Pendulum (edit | talk | history | links | watch | logs). The editor who has reverted the most is the IP. During the IP's 48 hour block for 3RR violation, the account User:Syrmath was created in an apparent effort to continue the war. I blocked him for a month as an obvious sock. Sandro78 has been around since 2005 so I have hesitated to block, but his edit comments are in the same style. SupremeFormula is another brand-new apparent sock.

The IP is static and is registered to the Computing Centre of Russian Academy of Sciences. It would not require deep analysis to guess that a staff member of that institute is promoting his own mathematical work and insisting it be placed alongside the classic pendulum formulas. He is not likely making much effort to keep his identity private when he is warring to re-add a specific paper to the article. Of course this might also be a PR person who is editing unwisely.

Bringing this to SPI because I suspect that the guy will keep going indefnitely, and I would like some review of my actions. See also a discussion at User talk:EdJohnston#Another sockpuppet on Pendulum. A hardblock of the IP is something to consider. A long-term anonblock of the IP with account creation disabled is another option. EdJohnston (talk) 16:12, 9 October 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Comments by other users[edit]

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

I concur with everything said above. Syrmath and SupremeFormula (note the name) are obvious sockpuppets of the user at 193.233.212.18 per WP:DUCK. Each account was created right after the previous account was blocked, their only action has been to revert Pendulum to include the mathematical formula that 193.233.212.18 alone was pushing, and the edit comments 1 show some of the same words ("vandalism"), pattern of minor grammatical errors, and personal attacks as 193.233.212.18's comments 2, 3, 4, and betray previous emotional involvement with the issue that would not be characteristic of a new user. --ChetvornoTALK 09:02, 10 October 2012 (UTC)[reply]

I notified the editor(s)/IP involved so they could comment here, and agree with the above. Just to point out - apparently Syrmath is French and claims he will not edit WP again. Maschen (talk) 13:58, 10 October 2012 (UTC)[reply]
Syrmath appears to have admitted sockpuppetry, see user talk:Syrmath. Given that he is an academic he could be a potentially valuable editor - shame his previous behaviour did not show it. Maschen (talk) 17:29, 10 October 2012 (UTC)[reply]
I don't see where he has admitted sockpuppetry; he claims to be a French editor throughout, although his charade is pretty transparent. I agree he could make a valuable editor; glad you reached out to him on his Talk page. I tried to engage him on his original 193.233.212.18 Talk page. Anyway he seems to have stopped editwarring. --ChetvornoTALK 20:45, 14 October 2012 (UTC)[reply]
He's still at it. SupremeFormula just left a long rambling satirical comment 6 on Talk:Pendulum pushing his formula. He still pretends to be another editor but it is pretty clear from wording and his emotional style that it is 193.233.212.18. --ChetvornoTALK 18:57, 15 October 2012 (UTC)[reply]
Seconded, starting to get creepy. a13ean (talk) 20:22, 15 October 2012 (UTC)[reply]
Clerk, CheckUser, and/or patrolling admin comments[edit]

I've blocked SupremeFormula and changed the block on Syrmath to indefinite. Hardblocked the IP as well, because that usually flushes out something interesting.
Sandro78 is the odd one out due to its age, so I'm holding off blocking that for now. Probably the same person, could just be a hapless colleague. We'll see what happens. – Steel 19:07, 17 October 2012 (UTC)[reply]

11 October 2019[edit]

Suspected sockpuppets[edit]

All single purpose accounts dedicated to promoting mathemetician Semjon Adlaj. See example diffs: from Sandro78, Expresser, Cocorrector. Sockmaster Sandro78 went unblocked last time and has also become active again in this latest burst of editing. Note there is a second SPI that deals with Adlaj accounts at Wikipedia:Sockpuppet investigations/FeelUs/Archive, I imagine that one ought to be merged with this one. CU to check for more sleepers. MrOllie (talk) 12:16, 11 October 2019 (UTC)[reply]

The ANI piling-on by SPAs should be more than sufficient evidence for adding Markioffe here. Continuation revert at Galois axis for good measure. — MarkH21 (talk) 14:23, 11 October 2019 (UTC)[reply]
@Ivanvector: There’s also an older SPI, in which the master wasn’t blocked but the socks were: Wikipedia:Sockpuppet investigations/Sandro78/Archive. — MarkH21 (talk) 15:28, 11 October 2019 (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]

@DeltaQuad: apologies, I should have provided diffs. For example, please compare Cocorrector "Undid revision 920617590 by David Eppstein who is a dubious self promoting vandal" with Markioffe "Undid revision 920711017 by MrOllie (talk) - vandalous redirection reverted", both on Galois axis which Cocorrector created. Also, both accounts were long inactive before joining this particular dispute within the past two days. For the master, Sandro78 and Markioffe have a shared history on articles such as j-invariant up to about this time in 2014, before both were completely inactive right up to this week. I mean, I'm about to block them all anyway for personal attacks and meatpuppetry, I'm just looking to establish confirmations and perhaps sweep for sleepers. Appreciate you taking a look if you can, but if they're using proxies then so be it (that would also be evidence IMO). Ivanvector (Talk/Edits) 14:12, 11 October 2019 (UTC)[reply]
  •  Clerk note: everyone is blocked for (at least) disruptive meatpuppetry, except the stale accounts and IPs, and except for the master, for the time being. I'm still thinking about it: the section of j-invariant that has caused much of the edit warring and personal attacks today was added by Sandro78 way back in 2014 during the previous episode of activity by Markioffe, and both users were idle in the intervening five years up to this week. Ivanvector (Talk/Edits) 15:22, 11 October 2019 (UTC)[reply]
  • @Ivanvector: Much to my surprise, it looks like this isn't a proxy situation between the two of them. That said, the best I can give is  Possilikely (a mix between possible and likely) because of the lack of evidence, not because of contradicting evidence. If you feel behavior adds enough to that, then we can call them socks. -- Amanda (aka DQ) 01:10, 13 October 2019 (UTC)[reply]
  •  Clerk note: I'm closing this since nobody here (including me) is confident enough of a connection to block Sandro78. In the absence of clear evidence, we'll WP:AGF that there's no socking. Reaper Eternal (talk) 06:09, 26 October 2019 (UTC)[reply]

11 November 2019[edit]

Suspected sockpuppets[edit]

Added back edit soon after block evasion reverts from IP — MarkH21 (talk) 17:20, 11 November 2019 (UTC)[reply]

@Mz7: Sorry, the history is a bit convoluted. Cocorrector and Markioffe were reported for being socks of Sandro78 and were both blocked as socks on 11 October 2019 (on circumstantial evidence, since a CU check did not provide conclusive evidence). Circumstantial evidence linked both accounts to Sandro78, since all three accounts persistently added the same edits back to the articles j-invariant, MacCullagh ellipsoid, Galois axis, and a few others (some of which have been since deleted, e.g. Semjon Adlaj). After those accounts were banned, IPs continued to edit war by reintroducing the same edits to the same articles.
In this case, we see that Ziwi just added back values to j-invariant here which was originally introduced here in a series of back-and-forth edits with Sandro78 and Expresser (e.g. this) in October 2014. This was reinstated by Markioffe here in October 2019, as well as by the IPs over the last month following the blocks.
Finally, consider the face that Cocorrector and Markioff were blocked on 11 October 2019. Ziwi's last edit was on 1 November 2014 until coming back on 19 October 2019. There are plenty of other timing coincidences, such as Sandro78 not editing for 2 years and Ziwi not editing for 8 months until they both came back on the same day to the same article on 15 October 2014 (Sandro78's first edit in 2 years and Ziwi's first edit in 8 months). Since Sandro78 has not edited for some time, I wouldn't be surprised if the IPs/locations do not match. Nevertheless, circumstantial evidence points to Sandro78, Markioffe, Cocorrector, and Ziwi being related. — MarkH21 (talk) 08:27, 12 November 2019 (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]

  •  Additional information needed: I looked through the archive of this SPI, and I found that it is a bit unclear which accounts are related to each other and which accounts aren't. The only accounts that are non-stale for checkuser in the archive are Sandro78, Cocorrector, and Markioffe. @MarkH21: In order to facilitate a checkuser investigation, do you think you could provide more diffs that show evidence of sock puppetry among these accounts? Note that checkusers cannot publicly connect accounts to IP addresses. Mz7 (talk) 07:46, 12 November 2019 (UTC)[reply]
  •  In progress - Mz7 (talk) 04:39, 13 November 2019 (UTC)[reply]
  • Ziwi is Red X Unrelated from a technical standpoint to Sandro78, Cocorrector, and Markioffe. Mz7 (talk) 05:01, 13 November 2019 (UTC)[reply]
  • Possibly if my math-fu were stronger, something socky would jump out at me, but I'm just not seeing it. Is it odd that Ziwi would awaken from a five year slumber to hack complex math equation markup? Yeah, I guess. But not enough to prove socking. Closing with no action. If IP damage continues, we can stop that with semi-protection. -- RoySmith (talk) 20:16, 13 November 2019 (UTC)[reply]
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