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Removing sock investigation request

Why did you remove my sock investigation request? I spent a lot of time putting that together. Hardly seems reasonable. You didn't even address everything I said. Surely it's not crazy to ask for more opinions. Or to have someone look into it more than "try harder next time". Desertambition (talk) 11:24, 30 April 2022 (UTC)

@Desertambition: I removed it because that case has no chance of going anywhere. I've seen my fair share of socking; this is not that. Your evidence boils down to people with tens of thousands of cumulative edits agreeing with each other on a few occasions. That is not actionable evidence. If you truly think I'm in the wrong about that, I'm happy to ping some other SPI regulars for third opinions, or you can raise the matter at WT:SPI, but my earnest recommendation is to drop it before it spirals. --Blablubbs (talk) 11:39, 30 April 2022 (UTC)
Surely you can understand my frustration when a report I spent hours writing gets deleted in five minutes. There is evidence beyond "people with tens of thousands of cumulative edits agreeing with each other on a few occasions" and talking to me like I'm stupid isn't helpful. I wrote that in good faith. Did you even check what I linked or did you just dismiss it? I believe you think I'm crying wolf and making stuff up.
WP:SIGNS and WP:SOCK both talk about how looking at the timecard is insufficient to prove someone is not a sockpuppet.
"While it may not always be so easy to determine sockpuppetry based on the times of day one edits, as this can be tricky based on common habits of society and different time zone, a better indicator could be the actual days when one edits, or does not."
I highlighted the months they became active and you did not address that.
WP:SIM they all write pretty similarly from what I can see.
WP:SOCKERR They tend to edit their comments after posting and make single word typos in edit summaries.
WP:IPSOCK I don't know their IPs but I'd bet they all come back as VPNs.
Concerns you have not addressed:
1. Accounts becoming active in the same months with the same focus.
BilledMammal, Ale3353, and HTGS all became active at the same time and have focused on English exonyms. Spekkios became active later.
2. Almost perfect understanding of Wikipedia's guidelines and policies despite being new accounts.
Ale3353, Spekkios, have almost exclusively focused on arguing move requests in favor of old English exonyms, often alongside the other accounts.
3. Laser focus on old English exonyms.
4. Universal agreement/fence sitting on every discussion post.
If you don't want to reopen the request because there is an absolute 0% there could be socking involved then yes it would be helpful to have other administrators also say there is an absolute 0% chance socking is going on. It's frustrating that you unilaterally decided what I wrote was worthless and not worth a second look. Desertambition (talk) 12:14, 30 April 2022 (UTC)
@Desertambition, point by point:
  • WP:SIGNS and WP:SOCK both talk about how looking at the timecard is insufficient to prove someone is not a sockpuppet.
    • I didn't do that, I just pointed it out. And timecards are fairly good at determining rough timezones for high-activity users.
  • I highlighted the months they became active and you did not address that.
    • See below.
  • WP:SIM they all write pretty similarly from what I can see.
    • I'd need evidence of that; it is not my responsibility to look for it on your behalf. I have read my fair share of posts by BM, JPL and FOARP, and they very much read like the writings of distinct individuals to me.
  • WP:SOCKERR They tend to edit their comments after posting and make single word typos in edit summaries.
    • So do I. Making the same, unique typos may be another matter, but no evidence to that effect was presented.
  • 1. Accounts becoming active in the same months with the same focus.
    • BM became active 2021-05 with an upwards spike in January.
    • Ale3353 became active 2021-07 with activity dropping over the last few months.
    • FOARP has had strongly fluctuating activity levels, with the last spike being 2021-11.
    • JPL's activity has been fairly consistent since mid-2020
    • Ficaia edited sporadically until November 2021 and has had a constant increase since then
    • Spekkios began actively editing 2021-09
  • 2. Almost perfect understanding of Wikipedia's guidelines and policies despite being new accounts.
    • Even if I assume that this applies to the two accounts you mention, it doesn't link them to each other or to any of the others that you list. It's not even evidence of illegitimate socking by itself.
  • 3. Laser focus on old English exonyms.
    • No evidence of such a "laser focus" was presented, and even from a cursory look, I see substantial differences in editing patterns.
  • 4. Universal agreement/fence sitting on every discussion post.
    • You made very few examples of agreement and stipulated that more evidence could be found. It is not the SPI team's responsibility to verify your assertions on your behalf.
Socking allegations are a very serious matter, especially when you make them against tenured users in good standing, some of whom you have had prior disputes with; I did not feel that the evidence rose to the standard of justifying the allegation. Since you have requested that others review my closure, I'll ping some SPI regulars. @Tamzin, Spicy, Bbb23, GeneralNotability, and Girth Summit: Apologies for the mass-ping, but if one or more of you could weigh in on whether or not my closure and removal was appropriate, that would be much appreciated. --Blablubbs (talk) 12:37, 30 April 2022 (UTC)
  • Desertambition, you were fortunate that it was Blablubbs who reviewed your report because if it had been I, I would not have been so kind. A retaliatory report from a user who has been blocked 3x, the first indefinitely, would certainly trigger consideration of a final - and indefinite - block, if not an actual block. Then, to come to Blablubbs's Talk page and double down ... The fact that you spent so much time preparing the report is further evidence that your judgment as to how to spend your time at Wikipedia is very poor. Be very careful in the future because a repeat of this kind of behavior may result in sanctions.--Bbb23 (talk) 13:25, 30 April 2022 (UTC)
  • I likewise think you've gotten off easy here, Desertambition. Not necessarily regarding blocking, but from your original comment I assumed Blablubbs had deleted your filing, and by the time I'd read through his response I thought that he was right to. But I see that the permalink is still there; none of your work has been lost. I'm trying to articulate the issue with an SPI against such active users... Let's put it this way: As a a general rule of thumb, I would say that an SPI needs at least one hard similarity-based diff per thousand edits by each highlight active account. Again, rule of thumb. But I know that when I've filed SPIs against people with "just" 1,000 or 2,000 edits, I've put much much more evidence into it than you did here. Furthermore, I identify two logical issues with your assessment: One is a Texas sharpshooter fallacy. It looks like you're aggregating data about months of activity and then picking details that imply a higher level of correlation than there is. I'm not saying you're doing that in bad faith. It's an easy trap to fall into when deep down an SPI rabbit hole. But it's still something that eeds to be flagged. The other issue is one of correlation versus causation. At SPI we need to always think about other explanations for similarities. Basically all of the similarities you've identified can be explained by A) being active in the same topic areas and/or projectspace venues, B) being acquainted on-wiki, and C) having been around long enough to pick up certain common strategies for swaying discussions on Wikipedia (the well-placed "comment" or "neutral" is a classic). I'd really encourage you to walk away from this line of thinking. -- Tamzin[cetacean needed] (she/they) 15:42, 30 April 2022 (UTC)
    @Bbb23, Tamzin, and Blablubbs: I appreciate the comments. It looks like the filing was deleted so I don't get what you mean by saying it wasn't deleted. It's also frustrating to bring good faith concerns and just get bombarded with block threats (inb4 "it's not actually a block threat"). It is maddening to have such hostile responses every time I bring concerns. I doubt I would be believed even if I brought more compelling evidence. The original look through by Blablubbs took less than five minutes. I don't believe this has been looked into throughly enough but clearly you all think I'm making this up.
    I believe you see me as a "problem user" and are more inclined to dismiss reports I bring because you think I'm witch hunting.
    On WP:SOCK there is no rule about SPI needing at least one hard similarity-based diff per thousand edits by each highlight active account. You say rule of thumb but I don't see that written anywhere in the guidelines unless I'm missing it. How am I supposed to know a rule that is not actually written?
    I looked at previous SPI requests and they are generally much shorter than what I wrote. What would be compelling evidence for a sockpuppet investigation?
    If the sock puppeteer isn't an idiot, they can get around some of the issues (like timetables) easily. What would it look like if a user was actively trying to evade WP:SOCK detection and do you believe you have foolproof ways of detecting it? I thought behavioral evidence was necessary to prove sockpuppets.
    Why did the two previous reports on JohnPackLambert get archived but mine didn't?
    The condescension is completely unnecessary (mostly from Bbb23 and Blablubbs). None of us are perfect and I am engaging in good faith. Please stop randomly threatening to block me and talking to me like a child. Desertambition (talk) 20:11, 30 April 2022 (UTC)
    @Bbb23, Tamzin, and Blablubbs: Is it not also suspicious that HTGS has "photography" and "goat cheeses" in their lsit of pseudo-projects but has barely edited any articles about those subjects? Or that Ale3353 has barely any edits with the majority being pages moves or voicing support for old English exonyms in contentious discussions (WP:XS)? Desertambition (talk) 20:18, 30 April 2022 (UTC)
    @Desertambition: Just the one ping is enough. Blablubbs linked to an oldid of the case above. This. As to the amount of time he spent on it, I can't speak for him, but it does not take a lot of time to look at an SPI and tell that it has nowhere near the amount of evidence required to make the case. It also doesn't take a lot of time to tell that a set of allegations are incredibly unlikely. You are alleging one of the greatest, most elaborate acts of sockpuppetry in Wikipedia history. Yes, the rule of thumb I gave (and to be clear, that's just my rule of thumb) isn't written down anywhere, but it should be common sense that extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence. When such extreme cases of sockpuppetry are made, the filings often run to thousands of words, hundreds of diffs, and advanced analyses of timing and edit summaries. Lacking that, a filing like this comes across as a case of xkcd 2217. -- Tamzin[cetacean needed] (she/they) 20:21, 30 April 2022 (UTC)
    Ok thank you. I'll make sure to come with more detailed evidence next time. I appreciate you responding without threatening to block me. I hope that if I make a much more detailed post, it will not be deleted instantly like this one was. I spent a few hours writing the last post so it's not like I pulled it out of nowhere.
    Can you please link what behavioral evidence is indicative of sockpuppetry? I don't want to mistakenly follow guidance that is not approved by admins.
    I also do not see the relevancy of the XKCD comic and I think that's its a misplaced reference. The implication that I am a "crank" who is basically creating jumbled "equations" is pretty dismissive when it's pretty clear you didn't even read through my post... What evidence would you need to see, assuming that the suspected sock puppet is not an idiot and actively avoiding detection?
    & how is linking to a diff not deleting the report? If I deleted your comment and then added a diff to what I deleted, does that not count as deleting it? I'm confused about that. Desertambition (talk) 20:33, 30 April 2022 (UTC)
    Answering in reverse order:
    3. "Delete" on Wikipedia usually means "make visible only to administrators". This was removed, but not deleted.
    2. I'm not trying to call you a crank. I'm saying that there are certain claims that, when someone makes them, you can tell basically have to be false. "These experienced editors are all sox of the same user and I can prove it in this filing that's very light on diffs" is one of them. The only way that could be possible is if you had diffs of confessions or inadvertent account mixup.
    1. Courtesy of this conversation's host, please see User:Blablubbs/How to file a good SPI. If you want to see an example of a successful SPI against experienced users, I'm particularly proud of Wikipedia:Sockpuppet investigations/Moksha88/Archive § 28 May 2021; note that that was still against significantly less experienced users than some of the ones involved here.
    For some added context, I have on the back burner right now an SPI against someone with a five-figure edit count, one that, if I can prove it, would definitely go down as one of the most elaborate acts of sockpuppetry yet caught. I fully anticipate that the eventual filing there will run several thousand words with references to hundreds of diffs, timecard comparisons, known locations, known travel histories, small quirks in writing style, you name it. It's not an easy thing to do. And I really really don't think you're going to manage it here. Not because I don't think you're up to the task, but because I really doubt you are right about this. Sometimes a bunch of people just disagree with you. Especially on a topic of national or ethnic sensitivity, where people are often drawn to more similar positions than on other topics. -- Tamzin[cetacean needed] (she/they) 20:49, 30 April 2022 (UTC)
    Thank you for providing examples and a guide. I will make sure my next filing is much heavier on "references to hundreds of diffs, timecard comparisons, known locations, known travel histories, small quirks in writing style, you name it."
    The link to a previous SPI investigations and the guide to file a good SPI are both appreciated and will be read. Desertambition (talk) 21:00, 30 April 2022 (UTC)
    Desertambition I've taken a look at your filing, and agree with the others' assessment - you haven't presented any real evidence that would persuade me that these accounts are connected to one another. Any pair of prolific editors is likely to overlap with each other, more-or-less at random; a pair of prolific editors with similar interests will often have a great deal of overlap. Allow me to try to convince you that a certain pair of accounts are connected, based on the type of evidence you presented; please compare Girth Summit with Gog the Mild:
    • Girth Summit's account was registered in 2008, but it hardly edited until 2018 (Girth's contribs); Gog the Mild's account was created in 2014, but it too only became really active in 2018 (Gog's contribs). Two sleepers of an older master, perhaps?
    • Here are their time cards: Girth, Gog. They're not an exact match, but they're obviously in the same time zone, and it might be that the master does more editing with Girth's account in the afternoon, then logs into Gog's in the evenings.
    • Look at their editing overlap - it's massive! How could two separate editors just happen to bump into each other that often?
    • If you click on any of the talk pages in that interaction list, you will see them frequently backing each other up in conversations - one of them will make a proposal, and the other will support it. They have reviewed one another's articles too, and supported one another at FAC. They're clearly two accounts being operated by the same person, or at the very least they are coordinating their editing.
    Obviously, I'm not in earnest here: I know that I am not the same person as Gog, and since we have both attended the same Wikimeetups a couple of times, I could probably get witnesses to attest to us being different people. Furthermore, if you look into our editing closely, you'll see that we actually write quite differently: amongst other things, Gog has always been very scornful of my view that it is correct to use a comma after a fronted adverbial phrase, and I would be the first to admit that I am generally more verbose, whereas Gog writes much more concisely. We have several areas of divergent interests, alongside a few areas where our editing converges, and we have very different skillsets in different parts of the project. But you need to scratch the surface to see that clearly - superficially, we look similar, perhaps even suspicious. The simple fact of the matter is that it is a complete coincidence that we started editing intensively in the same year, and we both happen to have an interest in history - but again, if you look closely, you'll see that I'm more into architectural history, whereas Gog generally leans more towards military history - we 'met' when he reviewed a GA nom of mine for a castle, which interested both of us. We have become friends after just bumping into each other around the project a lot; we don't coordinate our editing in any improper way, but we have collaborated several times to write content, and have co-authored a number of articles, so we naturally crop up on similar article talk pages and project pages, and often agree with each other in discussions.
    Referring back to the accounts that you listed in your filing, some of them I am not familiar with, but some of them I have seen around the place for a while. JPL, BilledMammal and FOARP are all people I have had conversations with, and their writing styles and modes of interacting with people have never struck me as being similar - quite the reverse actually. You would need some very specific evidence to persuade me to spend any of my volunteer time in investigating a connection between them; waving towards a few overlaps in editing interests, particular months when they were more/less active and that sort of thing is simply not enough to go on. Best Girth Summit (blether) 09:15, 1 May 2022 (UTC)
    Thank you. I understand why my filing was incorrect and the evidence I provided was not compelling. The examples of prior sock puppet investigations with similar allegations helped me understand the kind of evidence necessary to prove such an WP:EXTRAORDINARY claim. The examples I provided weren't very strong. Desertambition (talk) 01:49, 2 May 2022 (UTC)
    Thanks GS, Tamzin and Bbb23 for weighing in – your time is much appreciated :). @Desertambition: It wasn't my intention to be condescending, just to be firm and clear. I'm sorry if I came across that way. I take clerking seriously, and I do my best to give all cases a fair shake, but as Tamzin has said above, sometimes one can just tell from experience that a filing has essentially no chance of going anywhere. Whenever established users and preexisting tensions are involved, I try to get such filings out of the queue as soon as possible, before they devolve into an extensive shouting match that leads to me waking up to 15 ANI pings. Anyway: Thank you for being understanding. Best, --Blablubbs (talk) 09:39, 2 May 2022 (UTC)

Can I have a your thoughts on this account?

I have found an account, made about 5 minutes after Oldhedge got indef. blocked, who has a very similar behaviour (i.e. goes to other language wikis, google translates a section with minor changes, adds that to the english article and sometimes adds random references (definitely ones that weren't in the other version at any rate)).

Thing is, different language this time, and focused on movies rather than gardens and a lot less German. How would I go about checking if it's the same person?

This is the account in question: <link>
And this is some of the - likely hoax references, since they aren't in the version they are translating from: 1, 2, 3 and 4
I've started to notice with both accounts, that the pages that have a random reference are the ones that don't have a reference in the language that they google translated from, in this case the majority (I didn't quote those, easier to find, just look at their last edit for each page) actually have a fake imdb(or other movie info aggregator) reference that doesn't support their google translation...

On a different vein, I really wanted to ask:
- Is this sort of question about the plausibility of a user being a sock? I posted my thoughts both in the admin who blocked for 31 hours' talk page and linked it in this one, and I didn't get a response in either - which I kinda expected as the situation solved itself without my message anyways, but at the same time, something in my head just makes me question if I am maybe doing something wrong by openly questioning if a user is a sock and/or a bot like this. (Also on the mention of bot, here's some more specific bot/script-like behaviour, besides the random link adding that is: <link>)

At any rate, that's all, thanks for you time. – 2804:F14:C060:8A01:21D9:DCEA:CAAC:2DF6 (talk) 10:36, 2 May 2022 (UTC)

(talk page watcher) IP 2804, without responding directly to your question, I'll just add that in the four days KatBet (talk · contribs) [noping] has been active, they have added plot summaries which have been translated from de-wiki and it-wiki to dozens of film articles, without the attribution required by our licensing. I've left them a couple of messages about this. Mathglot (talk) 04:16, 3 May 2022 (UTC)
@Mathglot thanks for that, although now I really really really think this is an automated account (and likely won't go back to being active), although I guess it could have an operator.
The reason I am now more on the side of thinking it's unlikely that they are a human is due to observing more of that last diff that I linked (<this one>), because the title that they filled in for that citation - after whatever it is they did that broke the url - is the error message that website gives when it doesn't find a page 🤦‍♀️
And for a while I thought I was being unreasonably conspiracy, it's refreshing to finally have a really solid sample of robotic quacking.
That said, I haven't managed to find another account after this one went dormant, so maybe it will come back. – 2804:F14:C060:8A01:F9EA:408A:8E9C:7EBC (talk) 07:44, 3 May 2022 (UTC)
Hi Mathglot and 2804. I haven't looked into this too closely (yet), but it does seem similar to Oldhedge's editing pattern ([1] in particular), and I also note some parallels to Wikipedia:Sockpuppet investigations/New Elmin/Archive – if they are indeed connected to that group, CU won't be much help here. If there was unauthorised bot operation going on, then I'd be somewhat baffled by the fact that the edits are all tagged as having been made with VE. A misguided editathon of some sort, perhaps? --Blablubbs (talk) 11:52, 3 May 2022 (UTC)
Note that a CCI has now been opened at Wikipedia:Contributor copyright investigations/KatBet... Moneytrees🏝️(Talk) 02:53, 9 May 2022 (UTC)

Any impact on this?

Hi @Blablubbs:, Recently I know that this user has been blocked as a sockpuppet, where as this user has nominated this article for AFD. Is this block affect the AFD? In addition you can see here. Thank you! Fade258 (talk) 13:59, 3 May 2022 (UTC)

Hi @Fade258. It affects the AfD in the sense that the closer will likely disregard the nominators' opinion, but it is not eligible for speedy closure on socking grounds since others have already made substantive comments (see WP:CSK#4). Best, --Blablubbs (talk) 17:09, 4 May 2022 (UTC)

Sock IP

Hi Blablubbs, hope you're doing well. User Ungitow (talk · contribs) that you blocked recently has been edit-warring and removing sourced content with a sock IP address, please see 176.219.153.24 (talk · contribs), 176.219.155.220 (talk · contribs). The master was blocked 2 days ago, and today a one-day-old IP is doing the same content removals, see Stanford J. Shaw. The master and IP also remove content about Turkey and the holocaust, see [2], [3]. Perhaps a range block is needed since they used 2 IPs. ZaniGiovanni (talk) 11:11, 4 May 2022 (UTC)

ZaniGiovanni, if you are going to accuse some of doing something wrong, you should do it with evidence. The account Ungitow does not belong to me.
Such baseless claims risk damaging reputation of other editors.
Please understand what you are doing is wrong.
Best regards. 176.219.155.220 (talk) 11:14, 4 May 2022 (UTC)
So you're the same hounding IP? This is what happens when WP:TENDENTIOUS denialists who remove sourced content, edit-war and cause disruption go unnoticed. ZaniGiovanni (talk) 11:33, 4 May 2022 (UTC)
I am not a "denier" of anything. The fact that we are interested in a similar set of article does not constitute a "hounding" situation.
I have already twice warned you on your talk page for making unsubstantial accusations against me. Please do not make it a thrice.
Thank you.--176.219.215.34 (talk) 11:56, 4 May 2022 (UTC)

A barnstar for you!

The Barnstar of Diligence
Hi Blablubbs. I feel truly distinguished to have been along for the ride at times while you've grown as a maintainer of this project and a mentor and leader to so many others. As I said at clerktalk, we are so lucky to have you. I know that working on Wikipedia, especially in maintenance and anti-abuse, can often be discouraging and frustrating even in the best of times, and I admire your fortitude and persistence through it all. With somewhat-alarming changes to the project's governance structures seemingly on the horizon, it's the dedication of folks like you that inspires me and gives me the confidence that we'll all get through this OK. KevinL (aka L235 · t · c) 22:23, 7 May 2022 (UTC)
Second time I've blushed today. Thank you, Kevin. It's deeply appreciated, as is all your support and mentorship along the way. I find that the best recipe against frustration is to remind myself what the talk pages of high-traffic articles in DS areas look like; makes dealing with socks feel downright quaint by contrast . --Blablubbs (talk) 23:37, 7 May 2022 (UTC)

Administrators' newsletter – May 2022

News and updates for administrators from the past month (April 2022).

Guideline and policy news

Technical news

Arbitration

Sent by MediaWiki message delivery (talk) 23:33, 9 May 2022 (UTC)

Does this editor ring a bell?

Supra75521 claims to have been blocked by you. This user's only activity so far has been at Carl von Bismarck—a page that has had sock problems, but nothing in the logs jumps out where you've been involved. Does this sound familiar to you? —C.Fred (talk) 02:57, 10 May 2022 (UTC)

Special:Contributions/217.29.19.226, but I couldn't find the named account Mikro...--Bbb23 (talk) 03:35, 10 May 2022 (UTC)
Yup, they're almost certainly that IP, though the harassment of Jonathan A Jones goes further back if I recall correctly, so there's probably a previous named account somewhere. "MikroTik Zombie" isn't an editor, but a router manufacturer whose products frequently get compromised and then abused as Zombie proxies. --Blablubbs (talk) 07:18, 10 May 2022 (UTC)
Stupid me, I'm actually familiar with MikroTik.--Bbb23 (talk) 12:58, 10 May 2022 (UTC)

topicon

Hi!

Thanks for disabling the topicon, I've removed it now. I'm just curious how you stumbled onto my account :) ~ carpathianflorist 14:08, 10 May 2022 (UTC)

If I recall correctly, I was reading permission requests and came across one by you. --Blablubbs (talk) 09:25, 13 May 2022 (UTC)

Spud the Wikipedian

Hi Blablubbs, fyi I started a sockpuppet investigation on that user but there is not yet a conclusion as to if 'Spud the Wikipedian' is related to Mike Matthews17 or not - see Wikipedia:Sockpuppet investigations/Mike Matthews17. No-one has done a check yet to see if they are related to each other or not. Iggy (Swan) (Contribs) 16:16, 18 May 2022 (UTC)

Hello Blablubbs , Thank for spending your worth time to read

Hello , My name is Distrubioter and i want to became to administartor in wikipedia . I read guides but they dont help me , please help me for became administrator in wikipedia . Thanks Distrubioter (talk) 20:45, 19 May 2022 (UTC)

Hello, Distrubioter, you probably need to spend at least two years editing and accumulate at least 10,000 edits to demonstrate your familiarity with Wikipedia policies. You just started editing Wikipedia so you need to get started improving articles. Liz Read! Talk! 00:15, 20 May 2022 (UTC)
Thanks Liz for your help🙏♥️ Distrubioter (talk) 06:42, 20 May 2022 (UTC)

Another proxy

Special:Contributions/181.129.14.165. Used by an LTA whose IPs always turn out to be proxies. Mako001 (C)  (T)  🇺🇦 08:55, 21 May 2022 (UTC)

Special:Contributions/110.78.143.206 as well. Mako001 (C)  (T)  🇺🇦 09:41, 21 May 2022 (UTC)
@Mako001: Thanks, I hardened the block on the second IP, NRP already got the first one. --Blablubbs (talk) 11:56, 21 May 2022 (UTC)

IP range blocked

Hello Blablubbs, I'm from ckbwiki. We've received messages recently that they can't edit English Wikipedia. It seems that an IP range has been blocked by you until about 2023. This is why User:ShkoDevAct used a number of suckpoppets. Those user who sent us the message fell into that IP range and became infected. Also I was one of those users, but fortunately I was able to access my account only by logging it in normally. But one of those (User:Dyarekamaran0644 , SUL) didn't attach it's account to the English Wikipedia (So, that user is not registered in enwiki yet), and now we don't know how to solve that problem or where to ask for it. There are others, but I would like to hear some quick instructions from you. Thank you very much! ⇒ AramTalk 11:29, 22 May 2022 (UTC)

Hi @Aram. Thanks for reaching out – I am sorry that you are facing issues. I presume that the range you are referring to is 185.106.28.0/23, but I'm having trouble to figure out what exactly the issue is. My enwiki block should not affect Dyarekamaran0644's ability to edit on ckbwiki. Are they trying to attach their account on the English Wikipedia? --Blablubbs (talk) 12:34, 22 May 2022 (UTC)
Thank you for the reply! Yes, that is the range. You are right. That user can edit ckbwiki, but the case is enwiki. He can't edit enwiki due to that IP range block. I think an account entered a project once, the account will be attached to that project, but this is a new account and I don't know if it will be able to attach the account to enwiki or the block prevents that process. The user tried to logging in on enwiki, but he could not access the account. ⇒ AramTalk 13:15, 22 May 2022 (UTC)
@Aram: Could you ask them to email checkuser-en-wp@wikipedia.org and explain the situation? If everything checks out, we can force-attach a local account for them. --Blablubbs (talk) 08:39, 24 May 2022 (UTC)
Yes, we told them, but I think there is no reply yet. ⇒ AramTalk 08:26, 26 May 2022 (UTC)

New Page Patrol newsletter May 2022

New Page Review queue March 2022

Hello Blablubbs,

At the time of the last newsletter (No.26, September 2021), the backlog was 'only' just over 6,000 articles. In the past six months, the backlog has reached nearly 16,000, a staggering level not seen in several years. A very small number of users had been doing the vast majority of the reviews. Due to "burn-out", we have recently lost most of this effort. Furthermore, several reviewers have been stripped of the user right for abuse of privilege and the articles they patrolled were put back in the queue.

Several discussions on the state of the process have taken place on the talk page, but there has been no action to make any changes. The project also lacks coordination since the "position" is vacant.

In the last 30 days, only 100 reviewers have made more than 8 patrols and only 50 have averaged one review a day. There are currently 804 New Page Reviewers, but about a third have not had any activity in the past month. All 847 administrators have this permission, but only about a dozen significantly contribute to NPP.

This means we have an active pool of about 450 to address the backlog. We cannot rely on a few to do most of the work as that inevitably leads to burnout. A fairly experienced reviewer can usually do a review in a few minutes. If every active reviewer would patrol just one article per day, the backlog would very quickly disappear.

If you have noticed a user with a good understanding of Wikipedia notability and deletion, do suggest they help the effort by placing {{subst:NPR invite}} on their talk page.

If you are no longer very active on Wikipedia or you no longer wish to be part of the New Page Reviewer user group, please consider asking any admin to remove you from the list. This will enable NPP to have a better overview of its performance and what improvements need to be made to the process and its software.

To opt-out of future mailings, please remove yourself here.
Sent 05:17, 23 May 2022 (UTC)

Wikipedia:Sockpuppet investigations/Damithmadhusanka

I didn't notice that the oldest account had no contributions. I focused on its staleness and wondering how Mailer Diablo confirmed it. Anyway, if I had noticed, I could have dealt with everything myself as it wouldn't have needed a move. Sorry for making work for you.--Bbb23 (talk) 13:01, 27 May 2022 (UTC)

@Bbb23: No worries, there weren't many buttons to push :). Regarding the CU thing, I'll be somewhat ambiguous given the public forum (BEANS and whatnot – I'm happy to email you if you want a more precise answer), but essentially, recent-ish changes to the way data is collected mean that the last edit + 90 days staleness window does not always hold true anymore. --Blablubbs (talk) 16:07, 27 May 2022 (UTC)
I'd appreciate the e-mail, thanks.--Bbb23 (talk) 16:08, 27 May 2022 (UTC)
Sent! :) --Blablubbs (talk) 16:20, 27 May 2022 (UTC)

Request

Hi Blablubbs! I know SPI is horribly backlogged, but would you mind taking a look at Wikipedia:Sockpuppet investigations/SheryOfficial? It's in the CU requested cue, but there are actually two well-diffed case sections with behavioral only. Note that though I used Cheezhai for comparison in the 22 May section, they're not actually confirmed yet.

I'm asking because not only has SheryOfficial made ~2000 edits in the past half year through various IPs, they're even more active than usual at this time, to the point of using several accounts again. ☿ Apaugasma (talk ☉) 16:15, 27 May 2022 (UTC)

@Apaugasma: I had a look . --Blablubbs (talk) 19:29, 28 May 2022 (UTC)
Thanks so much! I think this will help a lot. There are some other IPs from which they sometimes edit, but these two really were the big ones. ☿ Apaugasma (talk ☉) 19:53, 28 May 2022 (UTC)

Niš

Hi. The Niš article has had much edit warring recently. A considerable number of accounts tried to remove some content currently sourced to 10 academic works. Some of the accounts were blocked by admins, and some others were warned with AE templates. The article was semi-protected and then the protection level was raised to ECP (extended confirmed access) by you. However, even after that there were two removals of the content. The content in question is [4]. This all started after several online fora (such as a Serbian Reddit channel) and several Serbian media outlets published claims that the content is Albanian propaganda against Serbia. Kurir, one the most important Serbian newspapers and well-known for its government links, even claims that the editors of the Niš article are connected with bombing plans against Serbia and that the content is aimed at destabilizing Serbia [5]. Should a temporary full protection or a revert restriction be put on the article? Ktrimi991 (talk) 19:04, 28 May 2022 (UTC)

@Ktrimi991: Thanks for the pointer. People aren't actively reverting right now, so I'm hoping that this was just a flareup and that the talk page discussion will bear fruit. If not, please drop a note here (or at WP:RFPP if I'm not around). --Blablubbs (talk) 19:09, 28 May 2022 (UTC)
OK, thanks. I will notify you since you are already familiar with the edit warring the article had in the past few days. Cheers, Ktrimi991 (talk) 19:11, 28 May 2022 (UTC)


Administrators' newsletter – June 2022

News and updates for administrators from the past month (May 2022).

Guideline and policy news

Technical news

  • Administrators using the mobile web interface can now access Special:Block directly from user pages. (T307341)
  • The IP Info feature has been deployed to all wikis as a Beta Feature. Any autoconfirmed user may enable the feature using the "IP info" checkbox under Preferences → Beta features. Autoconfirmed users will be able to access basic information about an IP address that includes the country and connection method. Those with advanced privileges (admin, bureaucrat, checkuser) will have access to extra information that includes the Internet Service Provider and more specific location.

Arbitration

Sent by MediaWiki message delivery (talk) 17:55, 2 June 2022 (UTC)

The Niš article again

Hey, some days ago you told me to notify you if reverting resumes on Niš. Some editors were blocked for removing well-sourced content and page protections aimed at IPs and new accounts have been applied, but now removal of content and reverts are being made again. IMO a temporary full page protection or revert restriction should be imposed on the article. Can you take a look? Ktrimi991 (talk) 16:43, 4 June 2022 (UTC)

@Ktrimi991: I imposed 1RR. I'm hesitant to impose full protection since it's very restrictive and it would likely have to stay in place for a quite some time. --Blablubbs (talk) 10:19, 6 June 2022 (UTC)
Thank you. I agree that the revert restriction is better than the full protection since it allows editing while reducing the possibility for edit warring. 1RR has been applied on other similar Balkan articles too. Cheers, Ktrimi991 (talk) 10:25, 6 June 2022 (UTC)

Possible sock of Amangpintor

Hello Blablubbs,

Could you please have a look at: a brand new editor User:Meiggedit who immediately started adding spam about the artist Elito Circa (Elito V. Circa) to several articles. Circa's article, which was rife with sockpuppetry, promo and possible COI/UPE, was recently deleted. Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Elito Circa - It seems a new sock may have appeared today, likely a sock of Amangpintor which is the name Elito Circa is known by locally. I’ve cleaned up after this new editor, but was hoping you might check to see if it is indeed a new sock or just a coincidence. SPIs from 2017: Wikipedia:Sockpuppet investigations/Amangpintor/Archive And also: Wikipedia:Sockpuppet investigations/Inangpintor/Archive. Thank you in advance, Netherzone (talk) 17:34, 5 June 2022 (UTC)

Acknowleding that I've seen this, but unfortunately I haven't had time to look yet – apologies for the delay. If you can tie them to a specific master, an SPI filing is probably going to be the quicker option. --Blablubbs (talk) 17:59, 9 June 2022 (UTC)

Regarding Sockpuppet Investigator or being a clerk

Hope you're doing well. Being a member of Wikipedia I have been always interested in learning new things. So as a part of it, I want to learn more about sock puppet investigation as I want to make a Wikipedia safe place and dedicate myself by learning and exploring new things here. I think it's not a bad decision and hopefully one day I will be an SPI clerk like you were before being elected as admin and right now too. So, can you please teach me more about it? or provide me some helpful links and tips to encounter possible socks? regards, DIVINE 📪 20:37, 10 June 2022 (UTC)

Thank you!

For blocking the sock of CLCStudent. I had posted about the IP at WP:ANI but no one had listened. I am glad to see that someone noticed my report (or, at the very least, had done something about it). Thanks again! 162.219.198.189 (talk) 18:09, 12 June 2022 (UTC)

Yeah, it was because of your report – sorry, I meant to close the thread but got pulled away. Good spot :). --Blablubbs (talk) 18:29, 12 June 2022 (UTC)

Socks

Thank you for closing down another Cafe. You may be interested in quarry:query/65440, which catches most of their known socks. It also lists some innocent and valued new editors and a few blocked for other reasons, but may still be useful. I don't see any obvious sleepers. Certes (talk) 11:38, 17 June 2022 (UTC)

Thanks Certes, I'll take a look – though they don't seem to be too intent on staying under the radar. --Blablubbs (talk) 14:51, 17 June 2022 (UTC)
Looks like they're wise to this telltale: the latest sock created User talk:Trisbendo/Archive 1. I already had my eye on that account for other reasons, which I'll not post in public. Certes (talk) 12:07, 19 June 2022 (UTC)

A barnstar for you!

The Original Barnstar
Thank you for your advice over at EFN. NotReallySoroka (talk) 03:34, 20 June 2022 (UTC)

Likely proxy

197.246.171.158 (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · logs · filter log · block user · block log)

Since basically every IP of this LTA has turned out to be a proxy, I figured you may want to take a look. Mako001 (C)  (T)  🇺🇦 11:55, 21 June 2022 (UTC)

Done, thanks. --Blablubbs (talk) 12:06, 21 June 2022 (UTC)

New Page Patrol newsletter June 2022

New Page Review queue June 2022

Hello Blablubbs,

Backlog status

At the time of the last newsletter (No.27, May 2022), the backlog was approaching 16,000, having shot up rapidly from 6,000 over the prior two months. The attention the newsletter brought to the backlog sparked a flurry of activity. There was new discussion on process improvements, efforts to invite new editors to participate in NPP increased and more editors requested the NPP user right so they could help, and most importantly, the number of reviews picked up and the backlog decreased, dipping below 14,000[a] at the end of May.

Since then, the news has not been so good. The backlog is basically flat, hovering around 14,200. I wish I could report the number of reviews done and the number of new articles added to the queue. But the available statistics we have are woefully inadequate. The only real number we have is the net queue size.[b]

In the last 30 days, the top 100 reviewers have all made more than 16 patrols (up from 8 last month), and about 70 have averaged one review a day (up from 50 last month).

While there are more people doing more reviews, many of the ~730 with the NPP right are doing little. Most of the reviews are being done by the top 50 or 100 reviewers. They need your help. We appreciate every review done, but please aim to do one a day (on average, or 30 a month).

Backlog drive

A backlog reduction drive, coordinated by buidhe and Zippybonzo, will be held from July 1 to July 31. Sign up here. Barnstars will be awarded.

TIP – New school articles

Many new articles on schools are being created by new users in developing and/or non-English-speaking countries. The authors are probably not even aware of Wikipedia's projects and policy pages. WP:WPSCH/AG has some excellent advice and resources specifically written for these users. Reviewers could consider providing such first-time article creators with a link to it while also mentioning that not all schools pass the GNG and that elementary schools are almost certainly not notable.

Misc

There is a new template available, {{NPP backlog}}, to show the current backlog. You can place it on your user or talk page as a reminder:

Very high unreviewed pages backlog: 13826 articles, as of 10:00, 4 December 2024 (UTC), according to DatBot

There has been significant discussion at WP:VPP recently on NPP-related matters (Draftification, Deletion, Notability, Verifiability, Burden). Proposals that would somewhat ease the burden on NPP aren't gaining much traction, although there are suggestions that the role of NPP be fundamentally changed to focus only on major CSD-type issues.

Reminders
  • Consider staying informed on project issues by putting the project discussion page on your watchlist.
  • If you have noticed a user with a good understanding of Wikipedia notability and deletion, suggest they help the effort by placing {{subst:NPR invite}} on their talk page.
  • If you are no longer very active on Wikipedia or you no longer wish to be part of the New Page Reviewer user group, please consider asking any admin to remove you from the list. This will enable NPP to have a better overview of its performance and what improvements need to be made to the process and its software.
  • To opt-out of future mailings, please remove yourself here.
Notes
  1. ^ not including another ~6,000 redirects
  2. ^ The number of weekly reviews reported in the NPP feed includes redirects, which are not included in the backlog we primarily track.

MediaWiki message delivery (talk) 10:01, 24 June 2022 (UTC)

73.9.112.17

This IP may be a CLC sock. The IP has been reverting vandalism in a similar fashion to CLC, with a precocious knowledge of Wikipedia policy. In addition, their IP traces to Chicago, where CLC lives. Could you check it out? 47.227.95.73 (talk) 21:00, 24 June 2022 (UTC)

Heh, I was just looking at that. I see it, but not quite to the point where I'd be willing to block. I'll keep an eye on it. :) --Blablubbs (talk) 21:08, 24 June 2022 (UTC)
Alright, thank you for your time. 47.227.95.73 (talk) 21:14, 24 June 2022 (UTC)

Page Move Vandalism

You didn't revdelete the edit summaries for the talk page, only the article. This is regarding today's Supreme Court decision. Scorpions13256 (talk) 22:04, 24 June 2022 (UTC)

I take that back. I don't know what the edit summaries for the other 3 pages said. Scorpions13256 (talk) 22:08, 24 June 2022 (UTC)
@Scorpions13256: I'm not sure if you're referring to my revdels here or someone else's – for the article where I did revision-delete, the talk page also looks to be handled. --Blablubbs (talk) 22:09, 24 June 2022 (UTC)
https://wiki.riteme.site/w/index.php?title=Talk:Dobbs_v._Jackson_Women%27s_Health_Organization&diff=1094794154&oldid=1094793538 It was right here. Quite the discussion on IRC apparently. I think we should be consistent. Scorpions13256 (talk) 22:16, 24 June 2022 (UTC)
I have no opinion on whether the original deletions were correct. Scorpions13256 (talk) 22:19, 24 June 2022 (UTC)
I didn't revdel anything there, or on the talk page. I also don't recall any debate of the sort you seem to be implying. --Blablubbs (talk) 22:34, 24 June 2022 (UTC)
I must have misread the discussions on Discord. I apologize as it appears that I am wrong. Scorpions13256 (talk) 22:35, 24 June 2022 (UTC)
People on IRC were unsure as to whether Muboshgu's original decision was correct. Scorpions13256 (talk) 22:37, 24 June 2022 (UTC)

NPP July 2022 backlog drive is on!

New Page Patrol | July 2022 Backlog Drive
  • On 1 July, 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.
  • Redirect patrolling is not part of the drive.
  • 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.

(t · c) buidhe 20:25, 1 July 2022 (UTC)

More proxies

Fire Emblem Warriors: Three Hopes (edit | talk | history | links | watch | logs)

May want to check the vandalising IPs in the page history. They seem to be proxies, with the vandal switching IP ranges and countries at a remarkable speed. Mako001 (C)  (T)  🇺🇦 12:58, 3 July 2022 (UTC)

Thanks. 140.227.64.228 is on a webhost range, so I've hardblocked that. Nothing visible for the others (and indeed some reasonably indicative signs that they aren't proxies). --Blablubbs (talk) 17:55, 3 July 2022 (UTC)

Wikipedia:Sockpuppet investigations/Kkm010

FYI there is a duck IP following your recent block of Mariam57. CMD (talk) 15:04, 4 July 2022 (UTC)

@Chipmunkdavis: Thanks. Looks like I'm too late to do anything about that one, but I did give 115.98.179.41 (talk+ · tag · contribs · filter log · WHOIS · RBLs · proxy check · block user · block log · cross-wiki contribs · CheckUser (log)) some time off. I'll keep an eye on the /16, but based on the country and ISP, I'm not too hopeful regarding the potential for an effective rangeblock. --Blablubbs (talk) 15:58, 5 July 2022 (UTC)
No problem. I didn't know I was being imitated like that. CMD (talk) 16:31, 5 July 2022 (UTC)

Newbie wants to point to his own material

Thank you for your kind welcome! A while back, I wrote a long-form technical article that I think might be of interest to those reading the SBC (codec) Wikipedia page at https://wiki.riteme.site/wiki/SBC_(codec) My article has been reviewed by several experts, including one that is already cited in the SBC (codec) Wikipedia entry. That said, I can imagine that it is "bad form" for me to become a new Wikipedia editor and then start editing to promote my article. Instead, I would prefer to contact the primary contributors to that page, introduce myself, and begin a discussion with them to gauge their level of interest in a pointer to my article. (I am open to your advice on other strategies as well!) When you can, please give me advice on the best way to proceed. Many thanks! --Klaberte (talk) 15:23, 4 July 2022 (UTC)

@Klaberte: Thank you for reaching out. While self-citing isn't prohibited (although it is restricted, see WP:SELFCITE), you're correct that in your situation, it would probably be considered "bad form". Reaching out to other interested editors is a good idea, although from skimming the page history, I'm afraid it seems that the page doesn't get that much editing traffic – though it's certainly worth a shot to post on the the talk page and see if you get any responses. Failing that, things get a little tricky because it's hard to formulate good advice in the abstract (since much depends on the nature of the source). Regardless, the best – albeit likely somewhat unsatisfying – advice I can give you is to just not cite yourself, and instead rely on reliable sources that others have written, perhaps starting with those that you used while researching your own article on the subject. Best, --Blablubbs (talk) 15:53, 5 July 2022 (UTC)

Administrators' newsletter – July 2022

News and updates for administrators from the past month (June 2022).

Technical news

  • user_global_editcount is a new variable that can be used in abuse filters to avoid affecting globally active users. (T130439)

Arbitration

Miscellaneous

  • The New Pages Patrol queue has around 10,000 articles to be reviewed. As all administrators have the patrol right, please consider helping out. The queue is here. For further information on the state of the project, see the latest NPP newsletter.
Sent by MediaWiki message delivery (talk) 13:28, 10 July 2022 (UTC)

SPI case

Hi Blablubbs - hope you are well. For info: Following on from your comment here and your help with a related SPI case, I've added more block evading IPs to this case. Any help with this would be greatly appreciated. Thank you! Lugnuts Fire Walk with Me 19:35, 11 July 2022 (UTC)

UTRS appeal #60849

Dubious. What say ye? --Deepfriedokra (talk) 17:20, 17 July 2022 (UTC)

@Deepfriedokra: I'm not very convinced (the winking emoticons and bullet point number 1 certainly aren't helping). I'm ok with someone unblocking if they feel differently, but I personally don't think it would be the right call. --Blablubbs (talk) 12:15, 18 July 2022 (UTC)
Thanks --Deepfriedokra (talk) 13:29, 18 July 2022 (UTC)

A barnstar for you!

The Anti-Vandalism Barnstar
For all you have done to fight vandalism. Scorpions13256 (talk) 01:58, 19 July 2022 (UTC)

I meant to do this back in 2020, but I never got around to it. Better late than never! Scorpions13256 (talk) 01:59, 19 July 2022 (UTC)

Thank you! --Blablubbs (talk) 14:36, 19 July 2022 (UTC)

User Blocked?

Hi Blablubbs, can you advise if User 193.233.171 and 204.15.72.92 (same person) has been blocked? Sometimes his "User Contributions" template is saying that he has been blocked by yourself, other times it is missing(?). I was in the process of requesting closure of this discussion at Wikipedia:Neutral point of view/Noticeboard#First human spaceflight and if he is no longer around I'll close it myself, rather than trying to find an uninvolved editor. I also note their is an open discussion at Wikipedia talk:Requests for comment#Possible RFC regarding spaceflight chronological timelines that I assume should also be closed. Also interested in the reason he was blocked, if you can say. Ilenart626 (talk) Ilenart626 (talk) 14:02, 22 July 2022 (UTC)

Hi @Ilenart626. I did indeed recently block a range of IP addresses that includes 204.15.72.92. The range has proxies on it, which are usually blocked on sight on Wikipedia because they are frequently abused (see Wikipedia:Open proxies for details). I hadn't blocked anything in the 193.233.171.xxx prefix until just now, but a check showed that those are also webhost IPs, so I've blocked that range too. This block is targeted at the proxy infrastructure itself, and not at the people using it: If they turn off the proxy, they are free to continue editing. --Blablubbs (talk) 14:41, 22 July 2022 (UTC)
ok, thankyou Ilenart626 (talk) 21:47, 22 July 2022 (UTC)

Regarding vanadlism by User:FilmiKeeda420

I wanted to bring to your notice that the above mentioned user vandalized my draft Semmkhor which I created for AfC submission. The user's vandalism is in this diff. (They vandalized by hijacking my draft, which I haven't submitted as I have not finished the draft for submission.).

May I request to take action as per AFC rules? - Signed by NeverTry4Me Talk 10:27, 25 July 2022 (UTC)

@NeverTry4Me: I'm afraid not quite sure what you'd like me to do here. I'm not active at AFC, but I'm not aware of anything that would make WP:OWN not apply to drafts; while it would have probably been better to consult with the primary author before submitting, it certainly isn't vandalism, and I'm not seeing how this warrants anything beyond a friendly note. I also don't understand why you left them an edit warring warning? --Blablubbs (talk) 21:03, 25 July 2022 (UTC)
Blablubbs Actually the draft was not ready for submission. I had to provide more information about the film. But the editor submitted which was too bizarre and the article looks ugly now. I guess that was edit conflict. I understand WP:OWN and in most of my AfC pages, editors corrected and added many a things. I always honor constructive edits. As per your advice, I have undid the edit warning. - Signed by NeverTry4Me Talk 01:06, 26 July 2022 (UTC)

Administrators' newsletter – August 2022

News and updates for administrators from the past month (July 2022).

Administrator changes

readded Valereee
removed Anthony Appleyard (deceased) • Capitalistroadster • Samsara

Guideline and policy news

  • An RfC has been closed with consensus to add javascript that will show edit notices for editors editing via a mobile device. This only works for users using a mobile browser, so iOS app editors will still not be able to see edit notices.
  • An RfC has been closed with the consensus that train stations are not inherently notable.

Technical news

  • The Wikimania 2022 Hackathon will take place virtually from 11 August to 14 August.
  • Administrators will now see links on user pages for "Change block" and "Unblock user" instead of just "Block user" if the user is already blocked. (T308570)

Arbitration

  • The arbitration case request Geschichte has been automatically closed after a 3 month suspension of the case.

Miscellaneous

  • You can vote for candidates in the 2022 Board of Trustees elections from 16 August to 30 August. Two community elected seats are up for election.
  • Wikimania 2022 is taking place virtually from 11 August to 14 August. The schedule for wikimania is listed here. There are also a number of in-person events associated with Wikimania around the world.
  • Tech tip: When revision-deleting on desktop, hold ⇧ Shift between clicking two checkboxes to select every box in that range.
Sent by MediaWiki message delivery (talk) 08:44, 5 August 2022 (UTC)

Notice of noticeboard discussion

Information icon There is currently a discussion at Wikipedia:Administrative action review regarding an action which you performed. The thread is Dismissal of AN complaint based on undisclosed reasoning behind the block of the reporter. Thank you. Szmenderowiecki (talk) 10:02, 6 August 2022 (UTC)

New Page Patrol newsletter August 2022

New Page Review queue August 2022

Hello Blablubbs,

Backlog status

After the last newsletter (No.28, June 2022), the backlog declined another 1,000 to 13,000 in the last week of June. Then the July backlog drive began, during which 9,900 articles were reviewed and the backlog fell by 4,500 to just under 8,500 (these numbers illustrate how many new articles regularly flow into the queue). Thanks go to the coordinators Buidhe and Zippybonzo, as well as all the nearly 100 participants. Congratulations to Dr vulpes who led with 880 points. See this page for further details.

Unfortunately, most of the decline happened in the first half of the month, and the backlog has already risen to 9,600. Understandably, it seems many backlog drive participants are taking a break from reviewing and unfortunately, we are not even keeping up with the inflow let alone driving it lower. We need the other 600 reviewers to do more! Please try to do at least one a day.

Coordination
MB and Novem Linguae have taken on some of the coordination tasks. Please let them know if you are interested in helping out. MPGuy2824 will be handling recognition, and will be retroactively awarding the annual barnstars that have not been issued for a few years.
Open letter to the WMF
The Page Curation software needs urgent attention. There are dozens of bug fixes and enhancements that are stalled (listed at Suggested improvements). We have written a letter to be sent to the WMF and we encourage as many patrollers as possible to sign it here. We are also in negotiation with the Board of Trustees to press for assistance. Better software will make the active reviewers we have more productive.
TIP - Reviewing by subject
Reviewers who prefer to patrol new pages by their most familiar subjects can do so from the regularly updated sorted topic list.
New reviewers
The NPP School is being underused. The learning curve for NPP is quite steep, but a detailed and easy-to-read tutorial exists, and the Curation Tool's many features are fully described and illustrated on the updated page here.
Reminders
  • Consider staying informed on project issues by putting the project discussion page on your watchlist.
  • If you have noticed a user with a good understanding of Wikipedia notability and deletion, suggest they help the effort by placing {{subst:NPR invite}} on their talk page.
  • If you are no longer very active on Wikipedia or you no longer wish to be part of the New Page Reviewer user group, please consider asking any admin to remove you from the list. This will enable NPP to have a better overview of its performance and what improvements need to be made to the process and its software.
  • To opt-out of future mailings, please remove yourself here.

Delivered by: MediaWiki message delivery (talk) 21:23, 6 August 2022 (UTC)

Revision delete

Hello. Could I have these two revisions deleted? I'd edited as an IP by mistake – and accidentally exposed my IP address. Thanks. Quandarie03:24, 2022-08-10

Quandarie -  Done; I've suppressed those edits for you. :-) ~Oshwah~(talk) (contribs) 06:45, 10 August 2022 (UTC)
Uh, oh. I made that mistake again – could I have these revisions deleted as well? I'm so sorry..! Quandarie07:17, 2022-08-10
Pinging @Oshwah, since he only just replied to my original message. I'm really, really sorry – hope it's not too much of a bother. Quandarie07:21, 2022-08-10
Quandarie - HAHAHA! Sorry, that made me laugh. No worries -  Done and suppressed! :-) ~Oshwah~(talk) (contribs) 07:26, 10 August 2022 (UTC)

Request to restore two Articles

Last month some articles were deleted by you which were created by Greenarm12 (Talk) which were sockpuppet of User:Ak131001. Arif Mehmood Alam(a Pakistan Army officer and commander who received Sitara-e-Basalat) and Sultan Ul Arfeen Siddiqui (Islamic Scholar who is Chancellor of Mohi-ud-Din Islamic Medical College and Mohi-ud-Din Islamic University) were two of them. These had been reviewed articles but were also deleted. I request to restore them. 119.73.113.36 (talk) 07:42, 11 August 2022 (UTC)

Potential sock?

Hey Blablubbs, hope you are well. About a week ago you blocked user Boki for edit warring. Shortly after his block expired he "retired" from editing. Now an IP has appeared revert warring on the same exact articles Boki did, and is continuing to do so despite being warned. He has broken 3RR on the article Pastrovici and is continuing his reverts even after multiple editors have told them to stop. I write this to you since you have somewhat more experience with such users. If a temp block or smth like that can be issued that would be very helpful. Thanks. Alltan (talk) 22:03, 12 August 2022 (UTC)

Another thing, the IP (just after breaching 5rv) "reminded" me Wikipedia is not a forum. The last interaction any non-admin user had with user Boki was [6]me doing the exact same thing. This seems really weird. Alltan (talk) 22:08, 12 August 2022 (UTC)
@Alltan: For what it's worth, Daniel Case was the blocking admin, I just declined the unblock request. Anyway, it does seem very plausible that the IP is them. However, it looks like the logged-out editing started after their block has expired, and policy does not strictly prohibit them from returning as an IP after abandoning a named account. It does obviously pohibit them from edit warring though, I see Favonian beat me to blocking them for that. Please feel free to reach out if they continue. Best, --Blablubbs (talk) 11:46, 14 August 2022 (UTC)
I don't know what block of Favonian's you're talking about, but I did just block 2A01:CB09:E021:A4E0:0:0:0:0/64 (talk · contribs · WHOIS) for two weeks for edit warring and noted that they may be Boki. Daniel Case (talk) 17:02, 14 August 2022 (UTC)
@Daniel Case: Ah, looks like it expired now: I was referring to [7]. --Blablubbs (talk) 20:25, 14 August 2022 (UTC)

CLC sock

24.14.74.159 (talk+ · tag · contribs · filter log · WHOIS · RBLs · proxy check · block user · block log · cross-wiki contribs · CheckUser (log)) is reverting vandalism and their IP address traces to Mundelein, Illinois. Looks like a CLCStudent sock to me. 47.227.95.73 (talk) 13:23, 14 August 2022 (UTC)

Yup, that's him. Tamzin beat me to the block – thank you both . --Blablubbs (talk) 13:36, 14 August 2022 (UTC)

SPI Pending

Blablubbs Please look at it Wikipedia:Sockpuppet investigations/Pritam kumar roni das 117.227.62.94 (talk) 18:27, 16 August 2022 (UTC)

Tban violation

Hi Blablubbs, hope you're doing well. Recently, you've enforced an AA broadly tban on user Zenzyyx. It hasn't been even a week and they already violated it, see their edit in Doctor Nazım. One doesn't have to fully read the article to reazlie that it's directly related to Armenians and Armenian genocide, from the lead:

  • He played a significant role in the Armenian genocide and the expulsion of Greeks in Western Anatolia.

The article even has an entire section dedicated to Nazim's role in the Armenian genocide, Doctor_Nazım#Role_in_the_Armenian_genocide.

Another article which may also be a broadly violation is their edit in Byzantine Empire, an empire to which Armenians had significant relation to. ZaniGiovanni (talk) 12:53, 17 August 2022 (UTC)

@ZaniGiovanni: Thanks, I gave them an (only) warning. --Blablubbs (talk) 13:06, 17 August 2022 (UTC)
So an IP appeared not long after I reverted Zenzyyx sock, 168.8.52.2 (talk · contribs), edit-warring and vandalising one of the articles with "it was vary boring get a life" edit summary; [8] ("L+raito bozo XD"), [9], [10], [11]. Do you think this is another sock or something? ZaniGiovanni (talk) 16:05, 19 August 2022 (UTC)
(talk page watcher) That IP belongs to a school / school district - given the history of unconstructive contributions and the resumption today I've {{schoolblock}}ed it. Unlikely to be in any way related. Wish I knew what "L+raito bozo" was, I feel old... firefly ( t · c ) 16:14, 19 August 2022 (UTC)
Firefly I'm not American but I think it's an American zoomer lingo from Twitter. "L" meaning lose, "ratio" meaning the number of responses to a tweet exceeds the number of retweets and likes (this is considered a bad tweet), and here's bozo from Urban dictionary. I feel ashamed knowing this... ZaniGiovanni (talk) 16:21, 19 August 2022 (UTC)
Thank you for filling me in. I’m not sure whether I feel better or worse with this knowledge in my head… /s firefly ( t · c ) 16:27, 19 August 2022 (UTC)

Assistance with reverting IP vandal

Hello Blablubbs! I came across the IP 82.199.209.50, who appears to have vandalized multiple Samsung Galaxy pages, mainly changing the OS to one that doesn't exist, all with the edit summary of "Good". Could you help me out with reverting them? ― Blaze WolfTalkBlaze Wolf#6545 13:35, 19 August 2022 (UTC)

@Blaze Wolf: Blocked, reverted. Thanks. --Blablubbs (talk) 13:37, 19 August 2022 (UTC)
Yep no problem! ― Blaze WolfTalkBlaze Wolf#6545 15:20, 19 August 2022 (UTC)

Sorry. I beg pardon.

I am sorry for this. After you asked, I went to IRC help and got to know that mine was disruptive. The post was not intended to disrupt, but to leave with a record for all admins so that if I overturn in future, Admins can track my declaration. I posted in good faith. Also, I want to enjoy AFC forever as AFC is not a burden for me, except a little concern about WP:GEO in which I am concentrating. In mine unblock restriction, I was asked to appeal against the restriction at WP:ANI, but I don't want to appeal. Hence, in good faith, I simply posted that I don't need that right. Please pardon me for this time. I admit that the post was disruptive. But I posted in good faith. Again, I beg pardon for this. I admit that I do mistake, but never repeat the same. I promise, I'll stay away from every [[Wikipedia:]] pages. Please forgive me for this last time. I won't disappoint you ever if forgiven. -✍ NeverTry4Me⛅ C♯ 09:24, 20 August 2022 (UTC)

Request to restore Articles

Last month some articles were deleted by you which were created by Greenarm12 (Talk) which were sockpuppet of User:Ak131001. Arif Mehmood Alam(a Pakistan Army officer and commander who received Sitara-e-Basalat) and Sultan Ul Arfeen Siddiqui (Islamic Scholar who is Chancellor of Mohi-ud-Din Islamic Medical College and Mohi-ud-Din Islamic University) were two of them. These had been reviewed articles but were also deleted. I request to restore them. 119.73.118.233 (talk) 12:17, 20 August 2022 (UTC)

NPP message

Hi Blablubbs,

Invitation

For those who may have missed it in our last newsletter, here's a quick reminder to see the letter we have drafted, and if you support it, do please go ahead and sign it. If you already signed, thanks. Also, if you haven't noticed, the backlog has been trending up lately; all reviews are greatly appreciated.

To opt-out of future mailings, please remove yourself here.

MediaWiki message delivery (talk) 23:10, 20 August 2022 (UTC)

Not a barnstar for you

I've looked back over your archives and see you have not been particularly interested in barnstars. I would nevertheless like to record my appreciation for the very understanding way in which you dealt with the case triggered by Dawn Dickson and its creator. While most of the other editors involved in this matter were only too keen to inform me of my ignorance in the procedures, your explanations reconfirmed my confidence in the process despite my earlier concerns. Keep up the good work and let me know if I can be of any assistance in connection with new editors who may be of interest to Women in Red.--Ipigott (talk) 18:41, 22 August 2022 (UTC)

Thank you, Ipigott, for the nice words; they mean a lot (irrespective of whether they are accompanied by a barnstar ). I'm glad if I could help clear things up. Please feel free to reach out if you ever have concerns about an admin action of mine, or if there's anything else that I may be able to help with. Thank you for all your tireless content work! Best, --Blablubbs (talk) 20:09, 22 August 2022 (UTC)

Lazy Maniik

You had filed Wikipedia:Sockpuppet investigations/Vivek ji123/Archive, but it had to be filed under Wikipedia:Sockpuppet investigations/Lazy-restless.

Lazy-restless had created Kalki Avatar and Muhammad (book) which was deleted per Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Kalki Avatar and Muhammad (book) (3rd nomination).

Lazy Maniik created Kalki Avatar Aur Muhammad Saheb,[12] which I have tagged for G5 and G4.

You should delete it.

You can see that this page has been largely edited by 103.230.105.46, 103.230.106.18 who was also blocked as sock of Lazy-restless per Wikipedia:Sockpuppet investigations/Lazy-restless/Archive.

These SPIs should be merged and the page should be deleted again. Aman Kumar Goel (Talk) 13:49, 25 August 2022 (UTC)

Hello to you too. The name similarity and recreation are interesting similarities, but I'm pretty sure they aren't the same person based on substantial differences in editing pattern, so I'm not going to merge the cases. I see Bbb23 has already addressed the speedy deletion requests. --Blablubbs (talk) 12:05, 26 August 2022 (UTC)
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