Archives

2020: I II 2021: I II III 2022: I II III 2023: I

News and updates for administrators from the past month (April 2023).

Guideline and policy news

• A request for comment about removing administrative privileges in specified situations is open for feedback.

Technical news

• Progress has started on the Page Triage improvement project. This is to address the concerns raised by the community in their 2022 WMF letter that requested improvements be made to the tool.

Arbitration

• The proposed decision in the World War II and the history of Jews in Poland case is expected 11 May 2023.

Miscellaneous

• The Wikimedia Foundation annual plan 2023-2024 draft is open for comment and input through May 19. The final plan will be published in July 2023.

---

Hi Blablubbs,

Could I get some additional background on your block of ZillennialWriter - issued without a warning for an editor with appreciable productive edits, I didn't know if it was a belief that they were also an undisclosed paid editor or if there was a recurring serious issue I've missed in my initial glance at their edits. Obviously I'm aware of the red flags that led to GN's question route, but the formal block didn't appear to really fall on that basis afaict. Nosebagbear (talk) 01:29, 6 May 2023 (UTC)[reply]

@Nosebagbear: Yes; there was/is an underlying UPE concern; see Cornelis Melief, Draft:ISA Pharmaceuticals B.V., Special:PageHistory/Andrea Orcel, Special:PageHistory/John C. Mack, Special:PageHistory/Javad Marandi. There's are also some BEANSy elements here; I can email you if you needed, though I'm currently pretty busy irl and it's been a while since I've looked at this, so it might be a few days before I can get to it. --Blablubbs (talk) 09:35, 6 May 2023 (UTC)[reply]

Hi Blablubbs, you recently blocked Thesixserra for sockpuppetry. They nominated an article for deletion at Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Roshni Kapoor. Per WP:SK#4, the deletion debate can be speedy kept if the nominator is a sockpuppet of a blocked user, but I can't tell if that's the case because the userpage was not tagged to indicate whether Thesixserra was evading the block of a previous account. Could you please clarify? ✗plicit 05:14, 20 May 2023 (UTC)[reply]

@Explicit: They are  Likely to Sulshanamoodhi – SK4 should be fine. --Blablubbs (talk) 10:09, 20 May 2023 (UTC)[reply]

News and updates for administrators from the past month (May 2023).

Guideline and policy news

• Following an RfC, editors indefinitely site-banned by community consensus will now have all rights, including sysop, removed.
• As a part of the Wikimedia Foundation's IP Masking project, a new policy has been created that governs the access to temporary account IP addresses. An associated FAQ has been created and individual communities can increase the requirements to view temporary account IP addresses.

Technical news

• Bot operators and tool maintainers should schedule time in the coming months to test and update their tools for the effects of IP masking. IP masking will not be deployed to any content wiki until at least October 2023 and is unlikely to be deployed to the English Wikipedia until some time in 2024.

Arbitration

• The arbitration case World War II and the history of Jews in Poland has been closed. The topic area of Polish history during World War II (1933-1945) and the history of Jews in Poland is subject to a "reliable source consensus-required" contentious topic restriction.

Miscellaneous

• Following a community referendum, the arbitration policy has been modified to remove the ability for users to appeal remedies to Jimbo Wales.

---

Hi, looks like you were the last CU to run a check at SPI. What do you think of 21lf1Md315HfEOS3312 (now there's a mouthful)? There are an awful lot of similarities, that mixture of Filipino stuff and California stuff. OTOH, although there are an awful lot of socks to plow through, the username seems an unusual choice for this master.--Bbb23 (talk) 18:53, 5 June 2023 (UTC)[reply]

@Bbb23: Sorry, I looked at this yesterday but forgot to hit enter on my response here.  Confirmed to the three Justins. Blocked. Feel free to tag as you see fit. --Blablubbs (talk) 16:30, 6 June 2023 (UTC)[reply]

I tagged the account as suspected just now (like the Justins). Thanks a lot.--Bbb23 (talk) 16:40, 6 June 2023 (UTC)[reply]

Somehow with all the work you did (thanks), the Winbytedemo doesn't have the usual notice on it pointing to Nestofbirdnests.--Bbb23 (talk) 23:50, 14 June 2023 (UTC)[reply]

Good catch, thanks – I forgot to retarget after the section move. Should be fixed now. --Blablubbs (talk) 23:57, 14 June 2023 (UTC)[reply]

Yup. :-) --Bbb23 (talk) 00:09, 15 June 2023 (UTC)[reply]

Hello, Blablubbs,

Hey, I have a general CUer question. I just noticed that you recently blocked Riverbend21 who had been active in patrolling. Is there a reason why no sockmaster was identified in their block notice and on the User page? It can be helpful for other editors to recognize future sockpuppets should they be created and I'm not sure why this information would not be disclosed. I don't see it as DENY, I see it as useful data for others working on the project. Thanks for any perspective you can provide. Liz ^{Read! Talk!} 02:22, 18 June 2023 (UTC)[reply]

Hi @Liz, I hope all is well. I did weigh whether or not to publicly provide additional details (including tags) concerning this block, and ultimately decided against it. The primary reason for not doing so is that any tag I could place would only be useful to non-CU onlookers if accompanied by an extensive explanation since the CU finding and the facts of the case are more complicated than "account A is confirmed to account B", though that is part of it. Providing that explanation publicly may hamper our future ability to tackle related abuse. I did however compile fairly comprehensive documentation on the checkuser wiki. My apologies for the vagueness; I hope this helps regardless. --Blablubbs (talk) 22:31, 18 June 2023 (UTC)[reply]

No, this explanation helps a lot. I guessed that not supplying an identity had to do with some information that should be held back for privacy and BEANS' sake. I must admit that years ago I used to be a CU-skeptic and questioned a lot of decisions made my checkusers that were what I judged to be non-transparent. For regular editors, so much relies on trust in the honesty, competency and capability of the SPI team. But the more reports I made to SPI and the more familiarity I gained with sockpuppet activity, the more I came to implicitly trust the judgement of checkusers. This incident was unusual, to me, in that Riverbend21 was so active and had a lot of interaction with other editors so that's what prompted my curiosity about whether I had ever crossed paths with them with a different account. As an aside, I seem to be seeing more and more sockpuppet accounts who are active for a long time (months and even years) before being spotted but maybe this has always been going on but in the past they abandoned the accounts before being identified and so are just stale.

I still have a question about checkuser activity but I think I will send that as a message rather than post it here. I really appreciate you taking my query seriously and not defensively and explaining things as best as you can. I realize in SPI cases and on talk pages you all are constantly being asked to reveal more information which you can't do by the nature of your position and so I tried to ask this as a procedural question and not a "Can't you tell me who?" type question. Thanks again for your patience. Liz ^{Read! Talk!} 00:09, 19 June 2023 (UTC)[reply]

Hi can you remove rollback and Pending changes reviewers rights right from Riverbend21 because they are blocked. DarkHorseMayhem (talk) 00:50, 19 June 2023 (UTC)[reply]

@DarkHorseMayhem: That's not something we generally do; see WP:INDEFRIGHTS. --Blablubbs (talk) 14:11, 21 June 2023 (UTC)[reply]

Good afternoon. How are you? --Cusslouchy (talk) 19:36, 22 June 2023 (UTC)[reply]

Sent by Zippybonzo using MediaWiki message delivery at 06:58, 1 July 2023 (UTC)[reply]

Thanks for removing that template. I totally forgot .

Fylindfotberserk (talk) 09:52, 1 July 2023 (UTC)[reply]

News and updates for administrators from the past month (June 2023).

Administrator changes

Novem Linguae

• Deckiller
• Electionworld
• MBisanz
• Penwhale
• Raul654
• Roadrunner
• Viridae
• Yannismarou

Bureaucrat changes

MBisanz

Guideline and policy news

• Contributions to the English Wikipedia are now released under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 International License (CC BY-SA 4.0) license instead of CC BY-SA 3.0. Contributions are still also released under the GFDL license.

Technical news

• Discussion is open regarding a proposed global policy regarding third-party resources. Third-party resources are computer resources that reside outside of Wikimedia production websites.

Arbitration

• Two arbitration cases are currently open. Proposed decisions are expected 5 July 2023 for the Scottywong case and 9 July 2023 for the AlisonW case.

---

Thank you for blocking User:Bateros, everything about the account screamed sock but I had no basis for opening an SPI. Mztourist (talk) 05:31, 10 July 2023 (UTC)[reply]

I reverted the Bateros edits and an IP 37.245.41.140 from Sharjah, UAE (source of many of Orchomen's socks) immediately reverted them, see: [1], [2], [3] and [4], so I would request that you block the IP also. regards Mztourist (talk) 06:46, 10 July 2023 (UTC)[reply]

Acknowledgement they're Orchomen here: [5] Mztourist (talk) 07:03, 10 July 2023 (UTC)[reply]

Blablubbs, can you identify the sockmaster of أسامة بن عبد الله وليد ? Would help detect future socks and also determine whether a couple of articles they created are G5 elegible. Cheers. Abecedare (talk) 17:36, 19 July 2023 (UTC)[reply]

Ignore that. Saw that you already did and it's the one I suspected. Abecedare (talk) 17:41, 19 July 2023 (UTC)[reply]

Hello, Blablubbs,

I was wondering if User:AngelicDevil29 was also a sockpuppet as I'm finding that they both edited some of the same pages on Sindhi culture. They were blocked for disuptive editing but now I'm wondering if these accounts are connected. I'm just taking care of some pages that أسامة بن عبد الله وليد created and wondered about AngelicDevil29 at the same time in terms of rolling back some edits. Thanks! I hope you had a good weekend. Liz ^{Read! Talk!} 19:29, 24 July 2023 (UTC)[reply]

Hi @Liz! I haven't looked too closely, so take this with a grain of salt, but I'm going to go with "probably not" – if AngelicDevil29 was Bensebgli, I would've expected them to show up in the checks I ran on أسامة بن عبد الله وليد and others; this would also seem like a strange (and pointless) exercise if they were the same person. Hope that helps. --Blablubbs (talk) 20:03, 24 July 2023 (UTC)[reply]

No, this comment helps. Checkuser activity is kind of a black box to the rest of us, I understand it isn't pixiedust, but we really don't know how much work is involved, how time-consuming it might be for you all, it's a complete mystery. So, I post queries to checkusers not knowing if it's a matter of a minute or two after inputting a username in a database or it takes 20=30 minutes of deciphering IP data and looking at editing overlaps. So, it's fine to tell me that it's not worth your time to go any further into this. Liz ^{Read! Talk!} 03:19, 25 July 2023 (UTC)[reply]

News and updates for administrators from the past month (July 2023).

Administrator changes

Firefangledfeathers

• AlisonW
• Amberrock
• Closedmouth
• Scottywong

Interface administrator changes

Novem Linguae

Technical news

• The tag filter on Special:NewPages and revision history pages can now be inverted. This allows hiding edits made by automated tools. (T334338)
• Special:BlockedExternalDomains is a new tool that allows easier blocking of plain domains (and their subdomains). This is more easily searchable and is faster for the software to use than the existing MediaWiki:Spam-blacklist. It does not support regex (for complex cases), URL path-matching, or the MediaWiki:Spam-whitelist. (T337431)

Arbitration

• The arbitration cases named Scottywong and AlisonW closed 10 July and 16 July respectively.
• The SmallCat dispute arbitration case is in the workshop phase.

---

News and updates for administrators from the past month (August 2023).

Guideline and policy news

• Following an RfC, TFAs will be automatically semi-protected the day before it is on the main page and through the day after.
• A discussion at WP:VPP about revision deletion and oversight for dead names found that [s]ysops can choose to use revdel if, in their view, it's the right tool for this situation, and they need not default to oversight. But oversight could well be right where there's a particularly high risk to the person. Use your judgment.

Technical news

• Special:Contributions now shows the user's local edit count and the account's creation date. (T324166)

Arbitration

• The SmallCat dispute case has closed. As part of the final decision, editors participating in XfD have been reminded to be careful about forming local consensus which may or may not reflect the broader community consensus. Regular closers of XfD forums were also encouraged to note when broader community discussion, or changes to policies and guidelines, would be helpful.

Miscellaneous

• Tech tip: The "Browse history interactively" banner shown at the top of Special:Diff can be used to easily look through a history, assemble composite diffs, or find out what archive something wound up in.

---

Hi Blablubbs, sorry to bother but I have a question I'm hoping you could help me with; I don't want to take it to ANI or SPI at least not yet. I found your name on the recently-active admins list, and I know you're also do SPI work, hence why I'm here. Hope that's okay. :)

There are two new user accounts, both registered today within 10 mins of each other, both user names almost identical (one letter difference), and both are editing the same draft. I figured there must be an innocent explanation, they probably just accidentally registered two without even realising it... but the user insists they only have one account, and know nothing about the other, which is strange.

What should I do – report this somewhere, leave it with you, or just drop it and mind my own business? TIA, -- DoubleGrazing (talk) 14:08, 7 September 2023 (UTC)[reply]

Hi DoubleGrazing – I see what you're talking about, and I suspect there's a fairly innocent explanation here. I'll leave a note. --Blablubbs (talk) 14:17, 7 September 2023 (UTC)[reply]

Thanks! -- DoubleGrazing (talk) 14:21, 7 September 2023 (UTC)[reply]

New Page Patrol | October 2023 Backlog Drive
On 1 October, a one-month backlog drive for New Page Patrol will begin. Barnstars will be awarded based on the number of articles and redirects patrolled. Barnstars will also be granted for re-reviewing articles previously reviewed by other patrollers during the drive. Articles will earn 3x as many points compared to redirects. Interested in taking part? Sign up here.
You're receiving this message because you are a new page patroller. To opt-out of future mailings, please remove yourself here.

MediaWiki message delivery (talk) 09:13, 9 September 2023 (UTC)[reply]

You've got (non-urgent) mail. Extraordinary Writ (talk) 07:11, 15 September 2023 (UTC)[reply]

@Extraordinary Writ: Thanks, replied. --Blablubbs (talk) 11:09, 17 September 2023 (UTC)[reply]

Hi, you closed this as No Consensus. Looking at the arguments, for me at least, it appears the consensus was to Draftify (including Delete here). The arguments for Keep didn't show any sources that meet GNG/NCORP criteria nor overcame the criticism of individual sources. Many Keep !voters completely misinterpreted GNG/NCORP or used arguments not based on our criteria. Thank you. HighKing⁺⁺ 20:26, 19 September 2023 (UTC)[reply]

@HighKing: I didn't close anything, and I'm not sure what AfD you're referring to. LTA impersonation, maybe? --Blablubbs (talk) 20:27, 19 September 2023 (UTC)[reply]

Ok, found it (took me a second to parse "Beond" as a page title, sorry). This wasn't me. Note the history. --Blablubbs (talk) 20:30, 19 September 2023 (UTC)[reply]

Interesting. Especially given the number of anon ip editors at the page. Sorry, should have checked the history first! Thanks for the swift response. HighKing⁺⁺ 20:38, 19 September 2023 (UTC)[reply]

Is another CLC sock. Could you block? 47.227.95.73 (talk) 11:12, 20 September 2023 (UTC)[reply]

Thanks; block applied, although it might be too late by now. --Blablubbs (talk) 19:48, 21 September 2023 (UTC)[reply]

No consensus? There isn't a single person who has supported the OP and the OP has failed to make a policy based argument. Reexamine your close. Horse Eye's Back (talk) 16:23, 22 September 2023 (UTC)[reply]

@Horse Eye's Back: I haven't closed anything. See User talk:Blablubbs#AFD Beond. --Blablubbs (talk) 16:24, 22 September 2023 (UTC)[reply]

Fascinating, never seen that sort of active operations style of disinformation before. Apologies for flying off the handle at you, it seems I am the useful idiot in whatever plot was perpetrated here. Horse Eye's Back (talk) 16:26, 22 September 2023 (UTC)[reply]

I had something similar at my talkpage once: User_talk:Gråbergs_Gråa_Sång/Archive_8#February_2023 Gråbergs Gråa Sång (talk) 16:31, 22 September 2023 (UTC)[reply]

Also at Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Fanery. Gråbergs Gråa Sång (talk) 16:27, 22 September 2023 (UTC)[reply]

Oh now thats extra tricky because it is technically the right call so nobody is going to challenge that unless they notice the history... Insidious. Horse Eye's Back (talk) 16:29, 22 September 2023 (UTC)[reply]

@Horse Eye's Back and Blablubbs, FYI [6] and Wikipedia:Administrators'_noticeboard/Incidents#Disruptive_edits_by_174.244.129.71. Gråbergs Gråa Sång (talk) 14:32, 27 September 2023 (UTC)[reply]

MediaWiki message delivery (talk) 16:45, 22 September 2023 (UTC)[reply]

I think you were able to remove information from User talk:YouAreGoingToSweden so can you do the same for this edit where someone posted what appears to be a phone number? ThaddeusSholto (talk) 20:42, 25 September 2023 (UTC)[reply]

@ThaddeusSholto: Sorry for the late response. As an admin, I do have access to revision deletion, but that is generally not sufficient for removing highly sensitive information. I contacted an oversighter about your post at the time, and they've suppressed the material. Could I ask that you use WP:RFO in case you stumble across something like this again? Talk pages (and especially admin talk pages) tend to be fairly visible (for reference, about 120 people have mine watchlisted), and so making requests like these in public can lead to a Streisand effect. --Blablubbs (talk) 14:35, 28 September 2023 (UTC)[reply]

Thank you for pointing me to WP:RFO. I'm sorry for the potential Streisand effect by posting here. ThaddeusSholto (talk) 14:41, 28 September 2023 (UTC)[reply]

Someone asked me about User:Chiefofswatis, suspecting them as part of the Sekk-47 farm. You know that one better than I do... --jpgordon^{𝄢𝄆𝄐𝄇} 16:41, 3 October 2023 (UTC)[reply]

@Jpgordon: Acknowledging that I've seen this; if memory serves, the case is a tad complex so I will need some time to look into it; will do my best to get back to you by tomorrow. --Blablubbs (talk) 09:25, 4 October 2023 (UTC)[reply]

@Jpgordon: Turned out to be more straightforward than I expected – that's definitely them (specifically Group 1 from the SPI). Blocked and tagged. --Blablubbs (talk) 21:40, 4 October 2023 (UTC)[reply]

News and updates for administrators from the past month (September 2023).

Guideline and policy news

• An RfC is open regarding amending the paid-contribution disclosure policy to add the following text: Any administrator soliciting clients for paid Wikipedia-related consulting or advising services not covered by other paid-contribution rules must disclose all clients on their userpage.

Technical news

• Administrators can now choose to add the user's user page to their watchlist when changing the usergroups for a user. This works both via Special:UserRights and via the API. (T272294)

Arbitration

• Remedy 9 ("MarioProtIV topic ban") of the WikiProject Tropical Cyclones case has been rescinded.

Miscellaneous

• The 2023 CheckUser and Oversight appointments process has concluded with the appointment of one new CheckUser.
• Self-nominations for the electoral commission for the 2023 Arbitration Committee elections opens on 2 October and closes on 8 October.

---

Hello, I was wondering what cleanup is needed to remove the "paid content" tag from the article https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ofinno. Eaa83 (talk) 14:23, 11 October 2023 (UTC)[reply]

It should be looked over by an unaffiliated editor to ensure that the sources are reliable and sufficient to establish notability, and that the article adheres to a neutral point of view. --Blablubbs (talk) 10:08, 15 October 2023 (UTC)[reply]

News and updates for administrators from the past month (October 2023).

Administrator changes

0xDeadbeef

Tamzin

Dennis Brown

Interface administrator changes

Pppery

• Ragesoss
• TheresNoTime

Guideline and policy news

Technical news

• The WMF is working on making it possible for administrators to edit MediaWiki configuration directly. This is similar to previous work on Special:EditGrowthConfig. A technical RfC is running until November 08, where you can provide feedback.
• There is a proposed plan for re-enabling the Graph Extension. Feedback on this proposal is requested.

Arbitration

• Eligible editors are invited to self-nominate themselves from 12 November 2023 until 21 November 2023 to stand in the 2023 Arbitration Committee elections.
• Xaosflux, RoySmith and Cyberpower678 have been appointed to the Electoral Commission for the 2023 Arbitration Committee Elections. BusterD is the reserve commissioner.
• Following a motion, the contentious topic designation of Prem Rawat has been struck. Actions previously taken using this contentious topic designation are still in force.
• Following several motions, multiple topic areas are no longer designated as a contentious topic. These contentious topic designations were from the Editor conduct in e-cigs articles, Liancourt Rocks, Longevity, Medicine, September 11 conspiracy theories, and Shakespeare authorship question cases.
• Following a motion, remedies 3.1 (All related articles under 1RR whenever the dispute over naming is concerned), 6 (Stalemate resolution) and 30 (Administrative supervision) of the Macedonia 2 case have been rescinded.
• Following a motion, remedy 6 (One-revert rule) of the The Troubles case has been amended.
• An arbitration case named Industrial agriculture has been opened. Evidence submissions in this case close 8 November.

Miscellaneous

• The Articles for Creation backlog drive is happening in November 2023, with 700+ drafts pending reviews for in the last 4 months or so. In addition to the AfC participants, all administrators and New Page Patrollers can conduct reviews using the helper script, Yet Another AFC Helper Script, which can be enabled in the Gadgets settings. Sign up here to participate!

---

Not sure how you feel about being accused of "revenge" editing here, but to me that feels like the last straw. I think this editor needs a rest from Wikipedia for a while to consider their options. For what little it is worth, suggestions have been made that theyare using a ChatBot. I suspect not. This sounds very much like young teenage indian speak.  Velella  ^{Velella Talk}   13:47, 13 November 2023 (UTC)[reply]

@Velella: I can take a look later. For what it's worth, I don't think all of their participation is via LLM, but there is an extremely stark contrast between the language in their recent posts and e.g. their opening statement at ANI. --Blablubbs (talk) 14:20, 13 November 2023 (UTC)[reply]

Hi there. user:James W. Reader, whom you indef blocked 3 hours ago, is now user:James w. Reeder and posting on my talkpage. --Rosiestep (talk) 16:41, 14 November 2023 (UTC)[reply]

@Rosiestep (talk page watcher) handled. firefly ( t · c ) 16:55, 14 November 2023 (UTC)[reply]

Thanks, Firefly. --Rosiestep (talk) 17:06, 14 November 2023 (UTC)[reply]

Firefly, And now they've returned to my talkpage as User:Jess Wade's dwindling interest in the wiki. --Rosiestep (talk) 22:55, 14 November 2023 (UTC)[reply]

@Rosiestep: Blocked, thanks. (Also thanks Firefly :) --Blablubbs (talk) 22:59, 14 November 2023 (UTC)[reply]

Hi! I'm not sure if it's appropriate to ask for this here, but can you look into this? Thanks. Đại Việt quốc (talk) 23:36, 14 November 2023 (UTC)[reply]

@Blablubbs: Not sure if you saw this. It has been 10 days but I didn’t hear back from you, neither here nor in the investigation page. I’m not asking you to resolve it. Just some feedback on whether more evidence is needed. Thanks! Đại Việt quốc (talk) 18:42, 25 November 2023 (UTC)[reply]

@Đại Việt quốc: Sorry, SPI is a bit backlogged as usual and I'm only semi-around right now and haven't had a chance to take a look at this one. As a general statement, more evidence is usually a good thing and can make cases move more quickly, so if you have more diffs, feel free to tack them on. --Blablubbs (talk) 19:09, 25 November 2023 (UTC)[reply]

I'm looking at a block of yours and I noticed that there appears to be a subnet (/23) that appears to be assigned to a legitimate ISP named Squirrel that provides static IP addresses to users ([7]) rather than being an open proxy. Is there a technical way to unblock a particular suballocation of a range that's otherwise included as a part of a wider rangeblock, or is this sort of carveout not yet supported by MediaWiki software? — Red-tailed hawk _(nest) 04:23, 17 November 2023 (UTC)[reply]

Nope, unfortunately impossible. It requires math and manual reblocking on subranges "around" the thing you want to carve out – in this case:

23.230.0.0/19 (= 23.230.0.0-23.230.31.255)

23.230.32.0/20 (= 23.230.32.0-23.230.47.255)

23.230.48.0/22 (= 23.230.48.0-23.230.51.255)

23.230.52.0/23 (= 23.230.52.0-23.230.53.255)

23.230.56.0/21 (= 23.230.56.0-23.230.63.255)

23.230.64.0/18 (= 23.230.64.0-23.230.127.255)

23.230.128.0/17 (= 23.230.128.0-23.230.255.255)

I've done that now, thanks. CC @AntiCompositeNumber in case you want to mirror that for the global block. --Blablubbs (talk) 11:59, 17 November 2023 (UTC)[reply]

Awesome! Thank you so much. I'll follow up with ACN. — Red-tailed hawk _(nest) 13:54, 17 November 2023 (UTC)[reply]

I am writing to ask for help in dealing with a new sockpuppeteer who is creating new accounts very fast. The accounts I have seen are Dunny1117, Dunny1117a, Dunny1117b, AppleG1117, Apple1117a, Greene1117, & AGreene1117. Their main activity is inappropriately closing AfDs. They are all ducks, and blocked, but because they create new accounts quickly after each block, I think the only hope for making a significant impact on their activity might be a range block. taking this to SPI would be pointless, because of the time it would take, so I wonder if you will be willing to do a CU. Naturally I don't expect you to tell me the outcome if you do so. JBW (talk) 11:15, 17 November 2023 (UTC)[reply]

@JBW, FYI I just reported an account impersonating you, which I'm presuming has something to do with this. Giraffer ^{(talk·contribs)} 12:11, 17 November 2023 (UTC)[reply]

(talk page watcher) I took a look at these, and unfortunately the nature of the IPs involved make rangeblocks impractical (which I realise is annoying...) firefly ( t · c ) 12:37, 17 November 2023 (UTC)[reply]

Thanks, Firefly. That's what I rather expected, but hoped not. JBW (talk) 12:50, 17 November 2023 (UTC)[reply]

This time with this IP. A block should be needed. Thanks, 47.227.95.73 (talk) 13:45, 22 November 2023 (UTC)[reply]

Reblocked, thanks. --Blablubbs (talk) 15:02, 22 November 2023 (UTC)[reply]

The page Category:Wikipedia sockpuppets of Farhan Rana Rajpoot Artist has been speedily deleted from Wikipedia. This was done under section C1 of the criteria for speedy deletion, because the category had been empty for seven days or more and was not a disambiguation category, a category redirect, a featured topics category, under discussion at Categories for discussion, or a project category that by its nature may have become empty on occasion.

Please do not recreate the material without addressing these concerns, but do not hesitate to add information in line with Wikipedia's policies and guidelines. If you think this page should not have been deleted for this reason, you may contact the deleting administrator, or if you have already done so, you may open a discussion at Wikipedia:Deletion review. Vanjagenije (talk) 22:54, 27 November 2023 (UTC)[reply]

Blablubbs can you close the SPI already given verdict from Drmies? Aman Kumar Goel ^(Talk) 18:18, 2 December 2023 (UTC)[reply]

Hi Blablubbs :) I'm looking to interview people here. Feel free to pass if you're not interested. Clovermoss🍀 (talk) 21:44, 3 December 2023 (UTC)[reply]

Hi, Blablubbs! Thank you for your contributions to Wikipedia.

I need IP block exemption. My blocked IP from which I am usually editing is 85.202.228.121. I was editing from my dormitory Wi-Fi, and I want to continue my Wikipedia contributions. Sadly, it shows that I can't edit due IP block, because it is 'open or anonymizing proxy'.

I don't ask for permission for every user to edit from that IP, but at least give me such opportunity. Thank you! MarcusTraianus (talk) 12:19, 4 December 2023 (UTC)[reply]

@MarcusTraianus:  Done for a year. Let me know if you still run into issues after that. --Blablubbs (talk) 14:18, 4 December 2023 (UTC)[reply]

@Blablubbs: Thank you! That time period is sufficient. MarcusTraianus (talk) 08:38, 5 December 2023 (UTC)[reply]

Hi, what does this mean? (I tried to edit the Otaku article, and I managed to do it only once)

Error, edit not published. [668a66e7-af73-4a2e-b748-130156a21f12] Caught exception of type Wikimedia\Rdbms\DBQueryError @[66796a80-6bf7-4ef2-b38e-4cbb56530e37] Caught exception of type Wikimedia\Rdbms\DBQueryError Fleyzk (talk) 13:46, 4 December 2023 (UTC)[reply]

@Fleyzk: I'm not very well-versed in our technical infrastructure, but that sounds like a server-side error; those occur from time to time, albeit rarely. I'd recommend simply trying to resubmit the edit and seeing if it works now. --Blablubbs (talk) 14:04, 4 December 2023 (UTC)[reply]

Nope, it still doesn't work. Can I ask you to try to do it? I'm just trying to edit the introduction, adding a comma after "documentaries" and writing "Internet" instead of "internet" Fleyzk (talk) 14:20, 4 December 2023 (UTC)[reply]

@Fleyzk: I haven't tried making the edit, but having poked around a bit, this seems to be the issue described at Wikipedia:Village pump (technical)#Wikimedia\Rdbms\DBQueryError (permalink) and phab:T352628. It looks like staff is on it, and it hopefully won't be too long until it's resolved; I'd recommend just waiting a few hours or so and then making the edit yourself. --Blablubbs (talk) 14:32, 4 December 2023 (UTC)[reply]

Thank you Fleyzk (talk) 15:06, 4 December 2023 (UTC)[reply]

Hello, Blablubbs. Remember how you blocked User:AbiquiúBoy for being a sockpuppet of User:Becausewhynothuh?? Apparently this IP's contributions are roughly similar to both of them. It changed the image order of certain city pages such as Houston, Miami, and others as I was looking on my watchlist this morning (and I thankfully reverted those changes back to normal). When I saw this IP's information, it comes from the United Arab Emirates, the same area which BWNH's other IPs have come from. I've started another investigation on the Becausewhynothuh? casepage, and I'm waiting for a response that you may have. Thanks. NoobThreePointOh (talk) 14:27, 7 December 2023 (UTC)[reply]

News and updates for administrators from the past month (November 2023).

Guideline and policy news

• Following a talk page discussion, the Administrators' accountability policy has been updated to note that while it is considered best practice for administrators to have notifications (pings) enabled, this is not mandatory. Administrators who do not use notifications are now strongly encouraged to indicate this on their user page.

Arbitration

• Following a motion, the Extended Confirmed Restriction has been amended, removing the allowance for non-extended-confirmed editors to post constructive comments on the "Talk:" namespace. Now, non-extended-confirmed editors may use the "Talk:" namespace solely to make edit requests related to articles within the topic area, provided that their actions are not disruptive.
• The Arbitration Committee has announced a call for Checkusers and Oversighters, stating that it will currently be accepting applications for CheckUser and/or Oversight permissions at any point in the year.
• Eligible users are invited to vote on candidates for the Arbitration Committee until 23:59 December 11, 2023 (UTC). Candidate statements can be seen here.

---

New Page Patrol | January 2024 Articles Backlog Drive
On 1 January 2024, a one-month backlog drive for New Page Patrol will begin. Barnstars will be awarded based on the number of articles patrolled. Barnstars will also be granted for re-reviewing articles previously reviewed by other patrollers during the drive. Each review will earn 1 point. Interested in taking part? Sign up here.
You're receiving this message because you are a new page patroller. To opt-out of future mailings, please remove yourself here.

MediaWiki message delivery (talk) 02:09, 20 December 2023 (UTC)[reply]

Thanks, I love it. Frohe Weihnachten, Würzig. --Blablubbs (talk) 15:44, 24 December 2023 (UTC)[reply]

Blablubbs and Spicy (with their new super powers), couldn't resist, two for the price of one: see WP:ANI#TS Made.--Bbb23 (talk) 15:48, 24 December 2023 (UTC)[reply]

Bbb23, those two look very much like each other, and so does Showstopper Mark (talk⁺ · tag · contribs · deleted contribs · logs · filter log · block user · block log · CA · CheckUser(log) · investigate · cuwiki). I think they might be Evlekis, although I'm not entirely sure. Blablubbs is more familiar with that case, so perhaps he can provide a 2O. P.S. I would have left you a Christmas greeting, but I somehow felt like it wasn't your style. If you do want one, let me know and I'll take a pick from my selection of the finest templates. Spicy (talk) 16:09, 24 December 2023 (UTC)[reply]

I noticed Evlekis in all this. Blablubbs blocked Jack Developer a couple of weeks ago as an Evlekis sock, and Jack, like TS Made, edited Bastille (band). Thanks for the comment about Xmas (smiling). You don't have to leave a template on my Talk page. I sorta celebrate Xmas and sorta don't. Very long story that includes way too much famiily history.--Bbb23 (talk) 16:15, 24 December 2023 (UTC)[reply]

I have to get back to festivities so can't sweep for other sleepers properly but from a quick check I'd say yep, that's most likely Evlekis. Blocked. Happy holidays, Bbb! --Blablubbs (talk) 16:19, 24 December 2023 (UTC)[reply]

Enjoy! --Bbb23 (talk) 16:23, 24 December 2023 (UTC)[reply]

Wishing you a great festive season Ü. Thanks for all the invaluable work you do, and here's to a successful 2024! Cheers, Giraffer ^{(talk·contribs)} 15:55, 24 December 2023 (UTC)[reply]

Thank you for the nice words, Giraffer. Merry Christmas to you too! Ü --Blablubbs (talk) 18:49, 25 December 2023 (UTC)[reply]

Hi Blablubbs, I'm a bit torn as to what to do with Eauho and Jonatanar. I'm vacillating between blocking on my own based on behavior, starting an SPI, or asking you if you're willing to check the accounts. As you can see from the editing history at Guillermo Lasso, Eauho edit-warred about the image, and after they were reported to WP:ANEW, Jonatanar restored Eauho's edit. More than that, although Eauho has edited only that article at en.wiki, they have also edited Lenín Moreno at pt.wiki, which Jonatanar has edited here. Both accounts are relatively new globally and seem to be doing the same stuff, although the edits at pt.wiki are much harder for me to follow, even with machine translation. I might also mention that Jonatanar made a similar image edit to Moreno at en.wiki. They also both use the visual editor, FWIW. I'd appreciate your input on the matter. Thanks.--Bbb23 (talk) 15:58, 31 December 2023 (UTC)[reply]

@Bbb23:

 Confirmed:

• Eauho (talk⁺ · tag · contribs · deleted contribs · logs · filter log · block user · block log · CA · CheckUser(log) · investigate · cuwiki)
• Jonatanar (talk⁺ · tag · contribs · deleted contribs · logs · filter log · block user · block log · CA · CheckUser(log) · investigate · cuwiki)
• Sadavid320 (talk⁺ · tag · contribs · deleted contribs · logs · filter log · block user · block log · CA · CheckUser(log) · investigate · cuwiki)
• MarceloLanda6 (talk⁺ · tag · contribs · deleted contribs · logs · filter log · block user · block log · CA · CheckUser(log) · investigate · cuwiki)
• MarlizaToa (talk⁺ · tag · contribs · deleted contribs · logs · filter log · block user · block log · CA · CheckUser(log) · investigate · cuwiki)
• Hugo-iza146 (talk⁺ · tag · contribs · deleted contribs · logs · filter log · block user · block log · CA · CheckUser(log) · investigate · cuwiki)

Would you mind doing the honours? I'm about to head out for NYE. Cheers, --Blablubbs (talk) 16:07, 31 December 2023 (UTC)[reply]

I saw a few of those at pt.wiki. All blocked and tagged. Thanks and Happy New Year! --Bbb23 (talk) 16:15, 31 December 2023 (UTC)[reply]

News and updates for administrators from the past month (December 2023).

Arbitration

• Following the 2023 Arbitration Committee elections, the following editors have been appointed to the Arbitration Committee: Aoidh, Cabayi, Firefly, HJ Mitchell, Maxim, Sdrqaz, ToBeFree, Z1720.
• Following a motion, the Arbitration Committee rescinded the restrictions on the page name move discussions for the two Ireland pages that were enacted in June 2009.
• The arbitration case Industrial agriculture has been closed.

Miscellaneous

• The New Pages Patrol backlog drive is happening in January 2024 to reduce the backlog of articles in the new pages feed. Currently, there is a backlog of over 13,000 unreviewed articles awaiting review. Sign up here to participate!

---

   Send New Year cheer by adding {{subst:Happy New Year fireworks}} to user talk pages.

Abishe (talk) 15:12, 1 January 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Just in case Spicy is gone for the day, please see User talk:Spicy#Strange stuff at AN. Thanks.--Bbb23 (talk) 01:41, 4 January 2024 (UTC)[reply]

@Bbb23: Looks like CU isn't very helpful there, sorry. A quick look suggests it's probably not MrDavr, though I can't be 100% certain. Also: Belated happy new year! --Blablubbs (talk) 01:52, 4 January 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Thanks for checking. Happy new year to you too.--Bbb23 (talk) 02:25, 4 January 2024 (UTC)[reply]

There's an extremely disruptive religious nationalist editor [8] who has been trolling the encyclopedia for the past 4 years. After one of his accounts, Javerine, was blocked in April, he has been on an aggressive campaign to aggrandize his religion through a combination of sock accounts, IPs and proxies, particularly to edit military history pages with the intent to glorify his side. He has made hundreds of block evading edits in the past few months. Kindly take a look at this-[9]. Southasianhistorian8 (talk) 13:35, 8 January 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Just a minor procedural note, I turned this account's talk page access off. As you said, obvious sock is obvious, and an obvious sock has no need to appeal on their talk page, or indeed edit anywhere on it, in my view. Ritchie333 ^{(talk) (cont)} 15:51, 8 January 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Fine with me – thanks for the note! --Blablubbs (talk) 19:55, 8 January 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Suspected sockpuppets[edit]

• Ghostfishing (talk⁺ · tag · contribs · deleted contribs · logs · filter log · block user · block log · CA · CheckUser(log) · investigate · cuwiki)
• Tools: Editor interaction utility • Interaction Timeline • SPI Tools

His disscussion with Antonio Vinzaretti on the talk page is a fake picture of talk like between 2 unrelated persons. Ghostfishing sockpuppet obviosly. Check his contrib page or IP please. ~~~~ Decrecre (talk) 19:21, 9 January 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Sorry to trouble you here, but on my talk page there's a discussion about an IP you blocked for, quite obvious, block evasion. I have a bit of concern with the editor that is rather strongly defending the IP, and wanted a second set of eyes on this. Something seems fishy. RickinBaltimore (talk) 20:12, 9 January 2024 (UTC)[reply]

I've sent you an email. Best, --Blablubbs (talk) 20:41, 9 January 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Thanks for your edits to Wikipedia:Sockpuppet investigations/Another Wiki User the 2nd.

Wow just a look at the talk page confirms everything. They did attempt an improper fresh start at FF25 YT. Anyway the issue is resolved because it was admitted by the sockmaster. Awesome Aasim 23:03, 9 January 2024 (UTC)[reply]

You recently offered a statement in a request for arbitration. The Arbitration Committee has accepted that request for arbitration and an arbitration case has been opened at Wikipedia:Arbitration/Requests/Case/Administrator Conduct Case 2024-1: Mzajac. Evidence that you wish the arbitrators to consider should be added to the evidence subpage, at Wikipedia:Arbitration/Requests/Case/Administrator Conduct Case 2024-1: Mzajac/Evidence. Please add your evidence by January 30, 2024, which is when the evidence phase closes. You can also contribute to the case workshop subpage, Wikipedia:Arbitration/Requests/Case/Administrator Conduct Case 2024-1: Mzajac/Workshop. For a guide to the arbitration process, see Wikipedia:Arbitration/Guide to arbitration. For the Arbitration Committee, Dreamy Jazz ^{talk to me | my contributions} 17:55, 16 January 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Bishonen | tålk 14:09, 20 January 2024 (UTC).[reply]

Acknowledging that I've seen this – hoping to respond tomorrow. --Blablubbs (talk) 03:09, 21 January 2024 (UTC)[reply]

News and updates for administrators from the past month (January 2024).

Guideline and policy news

• An RfC about increasing the inactivity requirement for Interface administrators is open for feedback.

Technical news

• Pages that use the JSON contentmodel will now use tabs instead of spaces for auto-indentation. This will significantly reduce the page size. (T326065)

Arbitration

• Following a motion, the Arbitration Committee adopted a new enforcement restriction on January 4, 2024, wherein the Committee may apply the 'Reliable source consensus-required restriction' to specified topic areas.
• Community feedback is requested for a draft to replace the "Information for administrators processing requests" section at WP:AE.

Miscellaneous

• Voting in the 2024 Steward elections will begin on 06 February 2024, 14:00 (UTC) and end on 27 February 2024, 14:00 (UTC). The confirmation process of current stewards is being held in parallel. You can automatically check your eligibility to vote.
• A vote to ratify the charter for the Universal Code of Conduct Coordinating Committee (U4C) is open till 2 February 2024, 23:59:59 (UTC) via Secure Poll. All eligible voters within the Wikimedia community have the opportunity to either support or oppose the adoption of the U4C Charter and share their reasons. The details of the voting process and voter eligibility can be found here.
• Community Tech has made some preliminary decisions about the future of the Community Wishlist Survey. In summary, they aim to develop a new, continuous intake system for community technical requests that improves prioritization, resource allocation, and communication regarding wishes. Read more
• The Unreferenced articles backlog drive is happening in February 2024 to reduce the backlog of articles tagged with {{Unreferenced}}. You can help reduce the backlog by adding citations to these articles. Sign up to participate!

---

Dear Blablubbs: I have just recreated this page. I see that you deleted it in 2022. I do not know why specifically it was deleted, but I do not think you will find any major problems with the version I just created. I translated the existing French WP version and added some details. In particular, I added some references—something the French version is deficient in. If there are any questions, please contact me.--Toploftical (talk) 14:54, 21 February 2024 (UTC)[reply]

The page was deleted per WP:CSD#G5 – I have no qualms at all with an unrelated person recreating it. Regards, --Blablubbs (talk) 15:16, 22 February 2024 (UTC)[reply]

News and updates for administrators from the past month (February 2024).

Guideline and policy news

• Phase I of the 2024 RfA review is now open for participation. Editors are invited to review, comment on, and propose improvements to the requests for adminship process.
• Following an RfC, the inactivity requirement for the removal of the interface administrator right increased from 6 months to 12 months.

Technical news

• The mobile site history pages now use the same HTML as the desktop history pages. (T353388)

Miscellaneous

• The 2024 appointees for the Ombuds commission are だ＊ぜ, AGK, Ameisenigel, Bennylin, Daniuu, Doǵu, Emufarmers, Faendalimas, MdsShakil, Minorax, Nehaoua, Renvoy and RoySmith as members, with Vermont serving as steward-observer.
• Following the 2024 Steward Elections, the following editors have been appointed as stewards: Ajraddatz, Albertoleoncio, EPIC, JJMC89, Johannnes89, Melos and Yahya.

---

Precious

Three years!

--Gerda Arendt (talk) 07:17, 16 March 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Being that you are one of the admins involved in this case, thought to let you know they're back here. Cheers Jamiebuba (talk) 07:48, 18 March 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Noticed a newly-created user making pointless template changes and these edits to every letter of the Latin alphabeter. Obviously not a new user. Thoughts? This IP was recently making similar pointless edits to templates, which I noticed when I noticed that they'd broken one of them). OhNoitsJamie ^Talk 12:35, 19 March 2024 (UTC)[reply]

@Ohnoitsjamie: I'm a bit late so this is kind of moot but I did run a quick check and it's certainly not inconsistent with the suspected sockmaster Wikipedia:Sockpuppet investigations/GreatPersonLikeMe. Didn't immediately see any others from a quick check – no comment on the IP. Regards, --Blablubbs (talk) 15:53, 20 March 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Thanks! OhNoitsJamie ^Talk 16:00, 20 March 2024 (UTC)[reply]

You blocked TwoToTwoBecauseWhyNot?, and in the block log you said "{{checkuserblock-account}}: User:RANDOMISEDTOOMU etc." (block log.) However, there is no User:RANDOMISEDTOOMU. Any chance of a clarification? JBW (talk) 22:18, 20 March 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Aha! It must be RANDOMISEDTOOMUCH. Missing ch. JBW (talk) 22:26, 20 March 2024 (UTC)[reply]

@JBW: Bah, I must've messed up while copy-pasting. Yes, that's the one. I've reblocked the socks – thanks for the pointer. --Blablubbs (talk) 23:45, 20 March 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Hi! We're conducting a series of participatory workshops with Wikipedia editors, administrators, researchers, and Wikimedia employees to discuss, and hopefully improve, Wikipedia's structures for online research (see meta research page). In an effort to get the right people in the room to discuss these topics, I'm reaching out here to see if you are interested in participating as an active administrator. We'd work with you to ensure this workshop can fit into your schedule, but are targeting end of April/early May. I'm happy to discuss any of these topics further here or on our talk page. Zentavious (talk) 16:25, 28 March 2024 (UTC)[reply]

I've been blocked from commenting on talk pages. Can I get access to 2409:40E1:A:52B0:8EED:1989:7D74:9C91 (talk) 13:41, 30 March 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Someone needs to block this IP. NoobThreePointOh (talk) 14:35, 30 March 2024 (UTC)[reply]

News and updates for administrators from the past month (March 2024).

Administrator changes

• Kbdank71
• Kosack
• NrDg
• TLSuda

Guideline and policy news

• An RfC is open to convert all current and future community discretionary sanctions to (community designated) contentious topics procedure.

Technical news

• The Toolforge Grid Engine services have been shut down after the final migration process from Grid Engine to Kubernetes. (T313405)

Arbitration

• An arbitration case has been opened to look into "the intersection of managing conflict of interest editing with the harassment (outing) policy".

Miscellaneous

• Editors are invited to sign up for The Core Contest, an initiative running from April 15 to May 31, which aims to improve vital and other core articles on Wikipedia.

---

MediaWiki message delivery (talk) 16:27, 2 April 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Greetings. I am messaging you with a query. I opened an SPI case a while back here [10] and after being checked by a checkuser, a closer behavior investigation seems to be needed. I was thinking you might be authorized to make that judgement? I tried to provide a lot of diffs and information. Was curious if you would perhaps be down to check the case if you have free time? -- Creffel (talk) 16:29, 2 April 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Hey B, is there anything at all that you can tell me about Shewasafairy's block? They were a suspected UPE that I was watching quietly for lack of sufficient evidence. Did your block originate from a similar line of investigation? — Usedtobecool ☎️ 01:15, 7 April 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Ah! I was in the process of building a case against Shewasafairy, Deondernemers, Coookiemonster, User:Comintell, and User:I'm tla, and I see that three of them are already blocked! User:Comintell and User:I'm tla have very few detailed contributions on AfDs. While this may not be much, if you check Comintell's AfD statistics and skim through I'm tla's AfD statistics (not the ones they nominated), you can see that their only in-depth analysis/argument was on Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Justin Jin (entrepreneur). Also, I'm tla was rejected three times at PERM, which according to me is typical sock behavior. Note: I'm tla's account is old, but they have only been editing since January [11]. Jeraxmoira🐉 (talk) 08:00, 7 April 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Jeraxmoira, DIVINE (it's a long story) said the following in an email:
I was just checking one NPR which I accused and maybe you are well aware of User:Iamtla on deletion discussion of Justin Jin. Check this article created by them and the way another editor reviewed that and leave them a review note:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sujin_Kim They are the one who were behind me and they have huge circle on Telegram just to defend afds, review pages etc but i don’t have proof of that for now but i am digging it while Sujin Kim is social media influencer those references are all paid and are in mexican but cannot see any korean rs sources and you can just dig into sheisfairy and most of them who defended justin jin you will get in some point ... Shewasafairy was in my radar from an earlier incident which I had shared with UtherSRG. I do not have anything specific to add about the non-blocked editors you mention. I am not familiar with Comintell; TLA has piqued my interest, however. — Usedtobecool ☎️ 08:43, 7 April 2024 (UTC)[reply]

@Usedtobecool: Suspicions along those lines are what got me looking at this initially. I'd prefer playing my cards close to the chest on this one, but I can say that they are likely (in a slightly complicated way) to Deondernemers and Coookiemonster. They share an interest in perpetual sockfarm favourite Justin Jin (the entrepreneur, not the photographer), with both of these. The former wrote the most recent iteration of the article (and a related draft), the latter BADNAC'd the AfD as no consensus after gaming edit count. --Blablubbs (talk) 08:46, 7 April 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Indeed, it looked like they were guiding every step of the process to make that article legitimate, which is why I am interested in the AFD nom as well, but I haven't looked into it yet. There's stuff happening with the photographer too which I found interesting re: behaviour at least. We'll see, I guess. Thanks! — Usedtobecool ☎️ 08:55, 7 April 2024 (UTC)[reply]

FWIW, TLA was the only one who introduced more and more new sources into the AfD and all of which were published in the same month. The Nation (Nigeria) article was brought by TLA and the GQ article that was deleted from their website was added by Shewasafairy. TLA also knew when the GQ article is back online, which clearly implies TLA is also part of this UPE sock farm. They are just playing the long game. Though I have no experience in participating in Wikipedia:Reliable sources/Noticeboard discussions till now and am not familiar with how they work, I would like to propose that the sources they used in Sujin Kim and the ones they introduced on Justin Jin (entrepreneur)'s AfD should be deemed unreliable to avoid future incidents like these. I believe it will be way more complicated to bring all these incidents into the RfC to deem them unreliable. Jeraxmoira🐉 (talk) 09:44, 7 April 2024 (UTC)[reply]

TLA is now gone too, block looks identical. — Usedtobecool ☎️ 17:02, 7 April 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Lol. Blablubbs I just hit send on an email to you regarding I'm tla and some of the concerns expressed here but I see they are now CU blocked. I still suggest you read it because some of the actions they made has long term consequences that needs to be rectified somehow. I've tried and maybe now they are blocked it might be easier but a helpful hand never hurts. S0091 (talk) 17:02, 7 April 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Re your email, yes, you can share whatever portions you deem necessary with @Novem Linguae. Also, do you think tla's addition of GQ to WP:RSP can be reverted now? I have no doubt articles are being accepted based on them being 'green lit'. S0091 (talk) 17:10, 7 April 2024 (UTC)[reply]

User:Novem Linguae/Essays/Advanced permission holders connected to UPE gets bigger and bigger :( –Novem Linguae (talk) 18:31, 7 April 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Do any of these Shewasafairy NPP patrols need re-reviewing / unreviewing? Should we just mark them all as unreviewed? Same question for I'm tla's AFC accepts. –Novem Linguae (talk) 18:56, 7 April 2024 (UTC)[reply]

They have also reviewed one of my articles(originally started by User:Sj as part of the Sundance Film Festival) and I don't see many problems with their reviews. Rather, the AfC drafts that Shewasafairy accepted should be moved back to draft space to evaluate the sources once again, especially BLPs and org articles. Examples: Rahma Zein, MyDeal, David Dees. These do not show up on the reviews link that you shared, so I am assuming AfC articles are not reviewed automatically when they are moved to mainspace. Likewise for TLA. Jeraxmoira🐉 (talk) 19:39, 7 April 2024 (UTC)[reply]

These conversations need to take place at WT:AFC and WT:NPP rather than here so other reviewers are aware. S0091 (talk) 19:44, 7 April 2024 (UTC)[reply]

I just went through and unpatrolled any suspicious Shewasafairy NPP patrols (NCORP, BLPs). I'm tla was not an NPP. I think this is sufficient to make sure that all of the articles get scrutiny. AFC accepts will get checked again by a random NPP so should be safe to leave alone. –Novem Linguae (talk) 07:34, 11 April 2024 (UTC)[reply]

• @S0091, Novem Linguae, Jeraxmoira, and Usedtobecool: Since this affair seems to have attracted some attention, and I've now done the follow-ups that had been pending when this was first raised here, I'll be slightly more verbose, in case it's useful to have somewhere you can point people during follow-up discussions and cleanup. I'll probably file a pro-forma SPI at some point.
  • From a technical perspective, I'm tla, Shewasafairy, Coookiemonster, and Deondernemers are all very  Likely or better to each other.
  • CU doesn't measure purity of intentions of course, but sometimes it can give us a pretty good idea. There is ample evidence of premeditated abuse of the projects, as opposed someone merely "messing around".
  • All of these accounts share a highly specific interest: Justin Jin, who is, apparently, a teenage entrepreneur:
    • Deondernemers wrote the most recent iteration of a since-deleted article about them, and has at least one other draft about an affiliated entity
    • Shewasafairy accepted the article through AFC, then worked on it. I'm Tla also edited it to add a source.
    • When the article got sent to AfD, Shewasafairy and I'm tla forcefully argued in favour of its retention.
    • Coookiemonster was spun up after the article was sent to AfD. They made a bunch of repetitive edits, then BADNAC'd the AfD as no consensus ([12]). This was later overturned at DRV.
    • Interestingly enough, I'm tla also started an article about a different Justin Jin which they later (unsuccessfully) attempted to draftify.
  • Justin Jin had previously been repeatedly spammed by Wikipedia:Sockpuppet investigations/50mMidas/Archive. I haven't looked closely at that connection yet, but it seems at least very plausible to me that they are operated by the same person as the 50mMidas cluster from the 6 January 2024 filing. It is exceedingly likely that there is, at the very least, coordination between these actors. It also seems evident to me that this isn't the first rodeo of the person operating this current cluster.
  • In keeping with the time-honoured tradition of CUs being annoyingly vague, I'm not going to hold off on commenting on other cases and accounts that I may or may not suspect are connected. If anyone has evidence to that effect that they'd like to share, I'll be happy to take a look, including via e-mail if you prefer.
• Best, --Blablubbs (talk) 11:54, 8 April 2024 (UTC)[reply]

  Thank you for all that you have done, Blablubbs, it is appreciated. I guess only User:Comintell is left out at the moment and it was easy to connect him with the same UPE farm. Interaction Timeline between User:Comintell and Shewasafairy, especially in Undetectable.ai. User:Comintell's first simple wiki edit on 4th Jan, was to vote keep at the AfD of Justin Jin (simple en wiki).

  User:Wikicontributerr is gaming their edit account exactly how Coookiemonster did, by adding irrelevant categories. The blocked 50mMidas sock User:Dotdotcomma has interacted with User:Wikicontributerr in simple wiki and User:Wikicontributerr also voted keep in the same AfD. Jeraxmoira🐉 (talk) 13:19, 8 April 2024 (UTC)[reply]

  Hi Blablubbs. Just dropping a note here to make sure the above message wasn't overlooked. Jeraxmoira🐉 (talk) 12:23, 19 April 2024 (UTC)[reply]

• Hello, Blablubbs, I guess I should have come here first. I just left messages on Firefly's talk page and at AFC about these same issues. I know there is a lot checkusers choose not to reveal but filing a formal SPI case would be helpful. At the least, it would provide a page to report other editors who appear on the scene who have striking similarities to this group. Also, Shewasafairy's account was created 6 years ago and she had a userbox declaring that even though she only apparently started editing in February so age of account can't be taken for granted. But it helps to know the exact nature of these relationships and whether there is a sockmaster in order to know whether or not to strike comments at AFD discussions they participated in or articles that might be CSD G5. If these accounts are just related to each other and not to a block-evading sockmaster, you know that these actions shouldn't be taken. Thanks again for telling us what you can. Liz ^{Read! Talk!} 05:36, 11 April 2024 (UTC)[reply]

  Agreed that we should create a pro forma SPI. There's enough going on here (4 socks, 2 of whom had advanced permissions, possibly tied to the large 50mMidas sockfarm) that we should get this documented. Do you mind Blablubbs? –Novem Linguae (talk) 07:15, 11 April 2024 (UTC)[reply]

  I appreciate the need for an SPI, but I'd like to take a closer look at the relationship to 50mMidas before I file one. I'm hoping to get to that this weekend. --Blablubbs (talk) 10:08, 11 April 2024 (UTC)[reply]

New Page Patrol | May 2024 Articles Backlog Drive
On 1 May 2024, a one-month backlog drive for New Page Patrol will begin. Barnstars will be awarded based on the number of articles patrolled. Barnstars will also be granted for re-reviewing articles previously reviewed by other patrollers during the drive. Each review will earn 1 point. Interested in taking part? Sign up here.
You're receiving this message because you are a new page patroller. To opt-out of future mailings, please remove yourself here.

MediaWiki message delivery (talk) 16:14, 17 April 2024 (UTC)[reply]