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User:Vivisel/cohen cruse ruse

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I've created this page to track what I'm calling (because why not give it a name) the "Cohen-Cruse Ruse".

A little background: a number of apparent sock puppets seem to be creating an elaborate set of fake pages around a few members of a "Cohen" and a "Cruse" family. It involves a number of completely (very carefully) faked biographies, other faked things (like synagogues) and a lot of associated edits to real pages that attempt to justify and contextualize those fake people. It seems to me very carefully done and will take some serious attention to figure out what's real and what's not, which is why I'm creating this page. Contributions welcome.

Modus operandi

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Many accounts and IPs are involved, which take turns in editing, making the edit histories of the fake or compromised articles look respectable. Many of the involved accounts also make apparently serious and productive edits, and have even created valuable articles, but interspersed this with edits adding fake information. Some seem even to have made only good edits, but can still be identified as being involved.

The perpetrator is careful in selecting fake information that appears entirely plausible and is rich in equally plausible detail. Most edits would never have raised suspicion by themselves; it is only as part of a pattern that they appear dubious. Also, the fake information is consistently applied across articles: if the article on a fake person A states he is the son of an existing person B, then the article on B will have been edited (probably by what looks like another editor) to state that B is the father of A.

The refutation of some of the fake information is confounded by the fact that some of the dates given for some events are older and harder to research (of course, if it is not cited, it should most likely be tagged and deleted anyway). If any citations are given, they may be offline citations that make it difficult for many editors to deny (or even confirm). This lets the info stay longer than it would usually as in the case of Debrett's being used as a reference (which didn't actually have the info cited).

Some fake pictures have also been uploaded to the Commons and been used to illustrate the fake articles.

The named accounts are almost all throw-away accounts: they edit for one day on one article and are not used again. The anonymous IPs mostly appear on several days and work on several articles.

A curiosity is the recurring use of the title "Overview" in refs inserted by the perpetrator, as seen here:

  • <ref>{{cite web| title = Overview| work = Forbes.com | publisher = Forbes Magazine| url = http://www.forbes.com/2006/02/21/cx_0221wine2.html | date =2006-02-21}}</ref>
  • <ref>{{cite web | title = Overview | work = templeisraelnc.com | publisher = www.templeisraelnc.com | year = 2009 | url = http://www.templeisraelnc.com}}</ref>

Not only do these cites share a meaningless title, they also typically use {{cite web}} where {{cite news}} would be appropriate, and have a pair "work = ... | publisher = ..." that is largely duplicative.

Another propensity of the hoaxer is the unjustified removal of tags such as {{unreferenced}}, as exemplified here.

A tell-tale sign is vacillation on details: information on a temple supposedly located in Charlotte is added, next thing you know it has been teleported to Salisbury. Or see this succession of changes for a good example: (1872–1926) → (1872–1946) → (1898–1946) → (1813-1884).

The perpetrator is obviously well informed about traditional Judaism, particularly in the United States. There is also a side interest in winemaking (which seems to go beyond the Cruse family), podiatry, and specifically the Alpha Gamma Kappa Fraternity.

Thoughts on motivation: This is definitely more than a bit speculative, and doesn't really bear on the investigation or actions taken, but I keep thinking about it, so why not share: my theory on all of this is that someone in the Cohen family basically wanted to engineer noble heritage for him or herself. That's what I can't help but think it all comes down to. The creation of a robust, community-minded family in NC, installation of the progenitors in the French and English nobility - it just is so directed and single-minded! Plus, the Temple Emanu-el coincidences described in the below section are intriguing on this front... Vivisel (talk) 21:10, 27 October 2011 (UTC)

To be investigated

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Pages that may be compromised, but the status is unclear:

  • Congregation Gemiluth Chassodim - Created by Nola jew with same issues as others in this hoax. Need to check article, but believe this is entirely made up. Uses the same Jonathan Cohen, etc. -- JoannaSerah (talk) 08:32, 1 January 2012 (UTC)
    • This actually appears to be legit - [1]. - The Bushranger One ping only 11:10, 1 January 2012 (UTC)
      • Good find. It's just that the edits and the subjects had so many similarities to the other hoax articles. Could they really be editing something real now? Possibly. Will have to keep watch. We knew Jonathan Cohen to be a real person, but he kept appearing in so many different places uncited. Hopefully these edits stay correct. Thank you. -- JoannaSerah (talk) 14:26, 1 January 2012 (UTC)
    • Yes, the Synagogue is real. The Synagogue's Wikipedia page was edited by its president on 12-14-12 to reflect that Jonathan Lester Cohen/Cruse was terminated as Rabbi on 12-12-12.
I've reverted these edits as lacking evidence. The IP geolocates to Alexandria, LA but there's no sign of this on the congregation's website. I'll check back some time later, but this message was posted by the same IP and I see no particular reason to beleive that this message was posted by Ms. Wellan. Mangoe (talk) 13:38, 16 December 2012 (UTC)
Mangoe, our congregation's webmaster has been asked to remove the JLC bio page, but it has not been done yet. I assure you, Jonathan Lester Cohen / Jonathan Lester Cruse is no longer with the Congregation, terminated as of 12-12-12. I am not a regular user/editor, but found this dialogue (Vivisel/cohen cruse ruse) while investigating our "rabbi's" history.
I edited the article with an actual citation to remove Cohen as current rabbi. Discussion about info on that article should really take place on that article's talk page unless it really has something to do with the broader hoax of this discussion page. Thank you. -- JoannaSerah (talk) 00:22, 19 December 2012 (UTC)
  • Shaare Shalom Synagogue - see [2]. The article is suspect because it was created by a suspect editor and apparently fake information was inserted by another suspect (and removed by yet another suspect IP). However, I ( --Lambiam) see no disinformation on the current page.
  • The synagogue is real, and I found a historical page on their website [3] agianst which claims can be checked. Mangoe (talk) 01:48, 25 October 2011 (UTC)
  • The info in the article is almost entirely taken from the temple website. The sourcing stinks but there's no sign of hoax in the current text. Mangoe (talk) 16:45, 26 October 2011 (UTC)

Entirely fake

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Pages that are known to be fake and should be deleted:

Currently empty.

Resolved

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Articles deleted:

Articles that were compromised as part of the ruse, but have been cleaned up:

Usernames involved

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That sounds very likely to me; also these Commons discussions may very well be of interest...!

All articles touched

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The following is a list of all extant articles edited by any of the editors on the preceding list, regardless of status. For articles that have been edited using several accounts (including IPs), the number of accounts involved is given in parenthesis.

Other relevant pages

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Wikipedians involved in fixing this

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2017 update: possible additional hoax material

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Mirroring this content I posted on Lambiam's page here as well.

I monitor the Cruse family page and happened to notice an edit (subsequently reverted) that changed "protestant family" to "Jewish family". Naturally, given past events, my ears perked up.

And what do you know, the user who made the original edit is from Florida, and has edited pages for NC synagogues: Special:Contributions/66.64.215.170. A brief review of the user's edits led me to think that most of them are OK, but I found one that is suspect: see this one, the unsourced addition of a Cohen banking family and a Cohen Count. Further poking around reveals that a different user, Special:Contributions/71.68.11.108 has added this same new Monegasque Count Cohen to the Court Jew page. (Diff here.) That same user has a number of edits that seem to attempt to link this Cohen to the Rothschilds. Moreover, the user also made this troubling edit, removing sourced material about the same Jonathan Cohen who was tied up in the ruse the first time.

So I fear we're back in business. I don't have time to deal with this right now, but I should in the next week or so. I am not deleting any of this just yet because it will be easier for me to track, but I figured I'd write it down, and writing you a note about it is a good way to record my thoughts. Luckily, I don't think our hoaxer is nearly as active or aggressive this time around. But - heads up.

--Vivisel (talk) 22:09, 17 January 2017 (UTC)

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