Vandalism reports/Archives/Users/Beleiutz

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Activity and behavioral data on Beleiutz is maintained here.

Introduction by Psychonaut[edit]

For the past few years a user has been using multiple accounts to add promotional language and copyright-violating images to Wikipedia articles on Romanian celebrities. He is active on a large number of Wikimedia projects: most prominently on English Wikipedia, Romanian Wikipedia, and Wikimedia Commons, but also on several other Wikipedias (German, French, Spanish, etc.). He has become particularly persistent over the past six months. Cross-wiki coordination of efforts to curb the disturbance would be useful.

The oldest account we're aware of is en:User:Beleiutz. On the English and Romanian Wikipedias he has repeatedly stated that his name is Vlad Mateescu and that he represents the Walt Disney company, Pinewood Shepperton, the Romanian Copyright Office, and other private and public organizations [1] [2] [3] [4] [5] [6]. Despite this he has refused to provide any evidence that he holds the copyright to the images he uploads (many of which appear to be found on the web or are television stills which Disney or Pinewood Shepperton wouldn't own the rights to anyway). Web searches for this name turn up profiles, interviews, and blog posts where he claims to be a company director, supervisor, or other official representative of many other organizations, including Warner Bros., Pixar, Paramount Pictures, Universal Studios, and even the Wikimedia Foundation! The attempts to impersonate WMF officials offsite were reported to the WMF, and it looks like the sites have now been taken down, though I wouldn't be surprised if they reappear in the future.

Known accounts[edit]

He also edits from a wide range of IPv4 and IPv6 addresses, though lately it's usually been IPv6.

See: Accounts and Articles.

General[edit]

Incident reports and discussions[edit]

An incomplete list of past noticeboard reports and administrators'/bureaucrats' discussions:

2011[edit]

2012[edit]

2013[edit]

2014[edit]

Recent activity[edit]

(Please show dates here, listing here should all be in the last month before report, and not left here, hopefully, more than three months from date of report. All known prior activity should be listed above.) If there is no recent activity, there is no particular cause for global concern.) --Abd (talk) 19:12, 15 September 2014 (UTC)[reply]

Characteristics[edit]

The following characteristics can be used to spot the sockpuppets:

  • They are concerned exclusively with articles on Romanian celebrities and the films and TV shows the appear in.
  • New articles, and textual additions to existing articles, tend to be strongly promotional in tone.
  • They make repeated attempts to upload and link copyright-infringing images, often giving falsified source and licensing information. Sometimes they create license-washing accounts on Flickr or Picasa to evade detection of the copyright infringement.
  • Their edit summaries are usually strings of nonsense characters, or (if in English) brief, vague, and grammatically incorrect (e.g., "improve Delia article").
  • They make extensive use of RefLinks, particularly with the IPv6 accounts.
  • They have the annoying habit of wikilinking common words which shouldn't be wikilinked.
  • Lately the accounts do not communicate. As soon as one sock is discovered, it is abandoned and a new one is created.

—Psychonaut (talk) 15:34, 15 September 2014 (UTC)[reply]

Comments[edit]

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