Talk:Wikiproject:Antispam: Difference between revisions
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::::Following up [[:fr:Discussion Projet:Antipub#Faux sites d'info liés à Avisa Partners, Nativiz, etc.]] led to {{xdiff|807274414|802024283|this edit that seemed worth checking|w:en}} on a Kazakh dissident article, which showed that user {{userxwiki|TerryClarke|en}} was blocked in a [[:en:Wikipedia:Sockpuppet investigations/Nestor 8998/Archive|major sockpuppet investigation]] on en-wiki exactly a year ago. Could be a coincidence, but people involved in that investigation might have useful experience for the current investigation. [[User:Boud|Boud]] ([[User talk:Boud|talk]]) 00:07, 4 August 2022 (UTC) |
::::Following up [[:fr:Discussion Projet:Antipub#Faux sites d'info liés à Avisa Partners, Nativiz, etc.]] led to {{xdiff|807274414|802024283|this edit that seemed worth checking|w:en}} on a Kazakh dissident article, which showed that user {{userxwiki|TerryClarke|en}} was blocked in a [[:en:Wikipedia:Sockpuppet investigations/Nestor 8998/Archive|major sockpuppet investigation]] on en-wiki exactly a year ago. Could be a coincidence, but people involved in that investigation might have useful experience for the current investigation. [[User:Boud|Boud]] ([[User talk:Boud|talk]]) 00:07, 4 August 2022 (UTC) |
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::::{{pb}}The [https://web.archive.org/web/20220804202121/https://www.lobbyfacts.eu/datacard/avisa-partners?rid=54210841652-13&sid=116546 EU Transparency Register] has a list of links to old versions (like 'history' in mediawiki), from 2012 to 2022, at the top: probably ''rid''=organisation_ID; ''sid''=date_ID. This link I gave here is for 2 April 2020 and lists about 50 or so of Avisa Partners' clients, like Airbus, Aquafil, Atlantia, ..., Vesuvius. If someone wanted to do heavy-duty searches for past abuses of xx.Wikipedia, these lists could serve as a basis for systematic analysis.{{pb}}Here's just one tiny-scale random check by me: {{userxwiki|Cruiser2015|en}}'s {{xdiff|657460689|639476460|only contributions were these|w:en}} in 2015 on [[:en:Lanxess]] (client paid 300-399,000 EUR to Avisa for EU lobbying in 2019) and {{xdiff|786449291|786437430|were cleaned up|w:en}} by {{userxwiki|Jytdog|en}} in 2017 (the advertising remained in place for two years); again, could be a coincidence: we don't have a match in years, and the one-purpose-editor hasn't come back to do any new editing. Jytdog him/herself, who ''cleaned up'' the advocacy, is indefinitely blocked, with an explanation on his/her talk page: ''"So... I made a very bad error in judgement, and called a person who had added raw advocacy content to WP, who is clearly deeply passionate about the topic. ... In the past, I violated the OUTING policy by posting off-WP information here. That was also a terrible error in judgement."'' From browsing the talk page, it sounds like Jytdog's contributions were overwhelmingly positive, especially against COI advocacy, whether or not it's all Avisa related. I'm not contesting the decision; my point is that if someone wants to (and knows how to) do a really heavy duty systematic search, it might be worth it for helping to retain Wikipedians to feel comfortable in remaining active (e.g. make people like Jytdog feel better, e.g. return to active editing, since the 12 month moratorium to request lifting the block has passed). [[User:Boud|Boud]] ([[User talk:Boud|talk]]) 21:13, 4 August 2022 (UTC) ''(clarified [[User:Boud|Boud]] ([[User talk:Boud|talk]]) 11:41, 5 August 2022 (UTC))'' |
::::{{pb}}The [https://web.archive.org/web/20220804202121/https://www.lobbyfacts.eu/datacard/avisa-partners?rid=54210841652-13&sid=116546 EU Transparency Register] has a list of links to old versions (like 'history' in mediawiki), from 2012 to 2022, at the top: probably ''rid''=organisation_ID; ''sid''=date_ID. This link I gave here is for 2 April 2020 and lists about 50 or so of Avisa Partners' clients, like Airbus, Aquafil, Atlantia, ..., Vesuvius. If someone wanted to do heavy-duty searches for past abuses of xx.Wikipedia, these lists could serve as a basis for systematic analysis.{{pb}}Here's just one tiny-scale random check by me: {{userxwiki|Cruiser2015|en}}'s {{xdiff|657460689|639476460|only contributions were these|w:en}} in 2015 on [[:en:Lanxess]] (client paid 300-399,000 EUR to Avisa for EU lobbying in 2019) and {{xdiff|786449291|786437430|were cleaned up|w:en}} by {{userxwiki|Jytdog|en}} in 2017 (the advertising remained in place for two years); again, could be a coincidence: we don't have a match in years, and the one-purpose-editor hasn't come back to do any new editing. Jytdog him/herself, who ''cleaned up'' the advocacy, is indefinitely blocked, with an explanation on his/her talk page: ''"So... I made a very bad error in judgement, and called a person who had added raw advocacy content to WP, who is clearly deeply passionate about the topic. ... In the past, I violated the OUTING policy by posting off-WP information here. That was also a terrible error in judgement."'' From browsing the talk page, it sounds like Jytdog's contributions were overwhelmingly positive, especially against COI advocacy, whether or not it's all Avisa related. I'm not contesting the decision; my point is that if someone wants to (and knows how to) do a really heavy duty systematic search, it might be worth it for helping to retain Wikipedians to feel comfortable in remaining active (e.g. make people like Jytdog feel better, e.g. return to active editing, since the 12 month moratorium to request lifting the block has passed). [[User:Boud|Boud]] ([[User talk:Boud|talk]]) 21:13, 4 August 2022 (UTC) ''(clarified [[User:Boud|Boud]] ([[User talk:Boud|talk]]) 11:41, 5 August 2022 (UTC))'' |
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Hi {{ping|Blablubbs|MER-C|Mathglot|Boud}}. Still on Avisa Partners/Nativiz, a lot of edits on en-wp from (about) 2010 to 2015: '''[[:fr:Discussion Projet:Antipub#Michazzi, etc.]]''' |
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Starting point of investigation [[:fr:Discussion Projet:Antipub#Divers sites|is]] {{userxwiki|Michazzi|en|fr}}, who created [[:fr:New York Forum]] with 3 links from false websites used by Nativiz/Avisa (lenergiedavancer.com, metropolitaine.fr, sharknews.fr) + [http://archives.lesechos.fr/archives/cercle/2012/04/16/cercle_45735.htm a "fake" blog paper]. |
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UPE users found from there: |
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* {{userxwiki|Laslo2191|en|fr}} |
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* {{userxwiki|Polerie5|en|fr}} |
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* {{userxwiki|2eduarda2|en|fr}} |
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* {{userxwiki|Hul8tin|en|fr}} |
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I also found several SPA (such as {{userxwiki|Office98}}) I let you check. And I didn't dug into all en-wp articles (for ex. I didn't check [[:en:Vivendi]]). |
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Best, — '''[[User:Jules*|<font color="#fc3">Ju</font><font color="#FF9D33">le</font><font color="#FF5333">s*</font>]]''' <sup><small style="border-bottom:1px solid #72777d;">[[User talk:Jules*|<span style="color:#72777d">talk</span>]]</small></sup> 20:19, 6 August 2022 (UTC) |
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== Sofia Talouni == |
== Sofia Talouni == |
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Revision as of 20:19, 6 August 2022
Hi, welcome to the talk page of the antispam project!
Information we need to investigate promotional spam:
- a list of the accounts involved in cross-wiki spam
- the reasons you think there's cross-wiki spam, e.g. single-purpose accounts coordinating on closely related topics which don't meet notability guidelines and/or contain highly promotional content
- have there been past community discussions on local projects? Have sockpuppet investigations been conducted?
We can investigate on other wikis, find new sockpuppets or suspicious edits and find new data to get the bigger picture. When a case is solved, we can inform local communities to ask for help with cleanup (e.g. by deleting pages or systematically removing promotional material).
We also keep an archive of past cases to keep track of and minor cases and internal matters.
Welcome
Hi, welcome everyone to the antispam project. Native English speakers, I am guilty for the terrible style. ;) Feel free to rephrase as you see fit. Best, Bédévore (talk) 15:30, 30 July 2021 (UTC)
- For the record, this project is born after this discussion (permalink) on en-wp. Best, — Jules* Talk 15:36, 30 July 2021 (UTC)
- @Bédévore and Jules*: How come all things frwiki-related just look so beautiful? This is great work, thank you so much for taking the time. I've given the landing page a major copyedit. Blablubbs (talk) 17:07, 30 July 2021 (UTC)
- Thank you @Blablubbs (twice)! — Jules* Talk 17:10, 30 July 2021 (UTC)
- Thanks Blablubbs! Bédévore (talk) 21:59, 30 July 2021 (UTC)
- Thank you @Blablubbs (twice)! — Jules* Talk 17:10, 30 July 2021 (UTC)
- @Bédévore and Jules*: How come all things frwiki-related just look so beautiful? This is great work, thank you so much for taking the time. I've given the landing page a major copyedit. Blablubbs (talk) 17:07, 30 July 2021 (UTC)
Looking for contacts on Wikimedia projects
Hello,
As discussed before, this wikiproject would be very useful to identify volunteers of other Wikimedia projects willing to help on cross-wiki promotion cases.
Bédévore and I will soon start contacting other wikis (using embassies or other means) to identify such volunteers, so they can join this project and list their names on Wikiproject:Antispam/Contacts. I suggest we list below which projects each of us did contact, in order to avoid any redundancy.
Regards, — Jules* Talk 16:35, 30 July 2021 (UTC)
Done wp-de: de:Wikipedia_Diskussion:WikiProjekt_Vandalismusbekämpfung#Wiki-übergreifende_Vandalismusbekämpfung_:_Vorschlag by user:Sijysuis + de:Wikipedia_Diskussion:WikiProjekt_Umgang_mit_bezahltem_Schreiben#Meta_Wikiproject:Antispam by me — Jules* Talk 18:22, 30 July 2021 (UTC)- Done WD in Fr & Eng. https://www.wikidata.org/wiki/Topic:Wdpwdyaftk490tvl and [1]. I'll also hit one or two Italian-speaking fellow wikipedians (my Italian writing skill is so rusty!). Bédévore (talk) 21:43, 30 July 2021 (UTC)
- @Bédévore: for it-wp, we could send a message on it:Discussioni_progetto:Coordinamento/AntiSpam. (I can do it, but in English, not in Italian!) — Jules* Talk 13:46, 31 July 2021 (UTC)
- Done Message sur la itwiki [[2]], j'ai aussi contacté un admin pour lui demander de faire suivre s'il y a une page plus appropriée.--Msbbb (talk) 18:05, 1 August 2021 (UTC)
- @Bédévore: for it-wp, we could send a message on it:Discussioni_progetto:Coordinamento/AntiSpam. (I can do it, but in English, not in Italian!) — Jules* Talk 13:46, 31 July 2021 (UTC)
- Done eswiki: es:Wikipedia:Café/Archivo/Noticias/Actual#Nuevo proyecto en meta contra el spam. MarioGom (talk) 23:09, 30 July 2021 (UTC)
- Off the top of my head, we have some cross-wiki UPEs working in Ukrainian, Russian and Turkish too. Hopefully we can contact someone on these communities? MarioGom (talk) 23:13, 30 July 2021 (UTC)
- @MarioGom: Yes, it would be nice too (I didn't list all wikis on Wikiproject:Antispam/Contacts, but anyone can ad it's own wiki, obviously), but I don't have much contacts on these communities. Maybe we should use the embassies. — Jules* Talk 08:41, 31 July 2021 (UTC)
- Off the top of my head, we have some cross-wiki UPEs working in Ukrainian, Russian and Turkish too. Hopefully we can contact someone on these communities? MarioGom (talk) 23:13, 30 July 2021 (UTC)
- Done wp-ro: ro:Discuție_Utilizator:Jules*#Undeclared_CdI / ro:Discuție_Wikipedia:Ambasadă#Metawiki_Project:Antispam / ro:Wikipedia:Cafenea#Proiect_antispam. — Jules* Talk 08:24, 2 August 2021 (UTC)
- Done wp-pt: pt:Wikipédia:Esplanada/geral#Meta_Wikiproject:Antispam. — Jules* Talk 08:52, 1 August 2021 (UTC)
- Done tr-wp tr:Vikipedi:Köy_çeşmesi_(ilginize)#Çapraz_viki_spam_ile_mücadele--Jean-Mahmood (talk) 18:48, 5 August 2021 (UTC)
- @Jules, could you also leave the invitation for volunteers among uk.wikipedia admins? Village pump (administration) page. Thanks. --Anntinomy (talk) 16:27, 6 September 2021 (UTC)
- Done simple-wp: simple:Wikipedia:Administrators'_noticeboard#New_clearing_house_for_cross-wiki_spam. MER-C 19:18, 11 September 2021 (UTC)
About Pierre Malinowski
Hi,
On fr-wiki we identified problematic spam on closely related topics:
- fr:Pierre Malinowski
- fr:Tunnel de Winterberg
- fr:Fondation pour le développement des initiatives historiques franco-russes
SPI showed that: fr:Wikipédia:Vérificateur d'adresses IP/Requêtes/juillet 2021#Svetlana090, Foundation-french, Marija1st, BKTeaman, Yasinkovski, Jean-Dumoulin1, Jehanne-Sylvie - 24 juillet = 31.28.224.0/19 is proxy and sockpuppets are:
- Svetlana090 [stalktoy] – [cross-wiki edits]
- Foundation-french [stalktoy] – [cross-wiki edits]
- Marija1st [stalktoy] – [cross-wiki edits]
I also blocked other SPAs:
- BKTeaman [stalktoy] – [cross-wiki edits]
- Yasinkovski [stalktoy] – [cross-wiki edits]
- Jehanne-Sylvie [stalktoy] – [cross-wiki edits]
- Jean-Dumoulin1 [stalktoy] – [cross-wiki edits]
The pages are also under extended protection (2 yrs)-see request to admins: [3] Affected wikis are:
- commons++++
- en-WP+++++
- fr-WP++++++
- ru-WP++++++
- de-WP++
- WD+++
I can't speak German or Russian to warn them about this spam by a bunch of SPAs. Best regards, Bédévore (talk) 14:40, 31 July 2021 (UTC)
- Done en-wp: https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Talk:Pierre_Malinowski&diff=prev&oldid=1036490082
- Done de-wp: https://de.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Wikipedia:Administratoren/Anfragen&diff=prev&oldid=214388756 & https://de.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Diskussion:Winterberg-Tunnel&diff=prev&oldid=214388830
- Done ru-wp [4] & [5] Bédévore (talk) 22:03, 31 July 2021 (UTC)
- Done reported to stewards 2021-07-24 https://meta.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?title=Steward_requests/Global&diff=prev&oldid=21784791
- Done reported to stewards again 2021-08-01 https://meta.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?title=Steward_requests/Global&diff=prev&oldid=21814476
created the page on en.wp. I blocked them for spamming back in April, for creating w:Roman Bekmuradov. MER-C (talk) 12:29, 1 August 2021 (UTC)
Self-promotion: Badr Rafiki
(Q107171297) (b. 1998), Moroccan singer. Articles in different languages (mostly deleted) and repeatedly uploads in Commons (commons:Category:Badr Rafiki). --Kolja21 (talk) 01:45, 2 August 2021 (UTC)
- On fr-wp, I extended the creation protection for one year, as it was about to expire. — Jules* Talk 06:55, 2 August 2021 (UTC)
- Still active as user "Rafiki Eoax" and as IP. New articles: si:බද්ර් රෆිකි, zh:巴德尔·拉菲基 etc. --Kolja21 (talk) 23:32, 18 October 2021 (UTC)
- All articles have been deleted, see d:Wikidata:Requests for deletions#Q107171297. --Kolja21 (talk) 16:58, 14 February 2022 (UTC)
- Still active as user "Rafiki Eoax" and as IP. New articles: si:බද්ර් රෆිකි, zh:巴德尔·拉菲基 etc. --Kolja21 (talk) 23:32, 18 October 2021 (UTC)
- Done --Kolja21 (talk) 16:21, 16 February 2022 (UTC)
Hebert Neri
Deleted two times in German Wikipedia (de:Hebert Neri) as repeated posting of advertisements. See (Q58008050), (Q79463761) and (Q97778798) (Requests for deletions). --Kolja21 (talk) 22:05, 10 August 2021 (UTC)
- This appears to be a more complex case which focuses on Hebert Neri on multiple wikis but not exclusively. Following accounts are associated with it:
- Mark1340 (CA · xwiki · sc · COIBot report) created article de:Hebert Neri on 7 August 2021 with another edit on 10 August, no other contributions
- Monicanunez13 (CA · xwiki · sc · COIBot report) uploaded File:Hebert Felipe Neri.jpg (6 May 2021) and File:Kiarablay.jpg (12 May 2021), account was locked by steward Stanglavine on 1 August 2021
- Jsmithn22 (CA · xwiki · sc · COIBot report) uploaded File:Hebertneri.jpg on 2 November 2018 (same picture as File:Hebert Felipe Neri.jpg which was later uploaded by Monicanunez13)
- More sockets of Jsmithn22 are documented at Wikipedia:Sockpuppet investigations/Jsmithn22/Archive. This account created en:Hebert Neri on 22 October 2018 (see log) which was subsequently moved to en:Draft:Hebert Neri on 5 November 2018 and finally deleted on 30 March 2020. In addition (see log), Jsmithn22 created also an article for en:Jennifer Lobo on 8 October 2018 and uploaded pictures of Herbert Neri, Jennifer Lobo, and Fabiano de Abreu. The other confirmed sockets are:
- Paulojunior34 (CA · xwiki · sc · COIBot report) created pt:Hebert Neri on 19 April 2019 (see log)
- Marcospontes73 (CA · xwiki · sc · COIBot report)
- ImperadorPalpatine99 (CA · xwiki · sc · COIBot report) created es:Hebert Neri on 4 July 2019. Later, pt:Hebert Neri was created on 21 September and 7 December 2019 and pt:Hebert Felipe Neri on 10 April 2020 (see log)
- From es:wp we come to the next sockpuppet:
- JuanRojas22 (CA · xwiki · sc · COIBot report) re-created es:Hebert Neri on 7 October 2020 and pt:Hebert Neri on 14 October 2020. I addition, this account created an article for pt:Rabino Avraham Franco on 19 October 2020 which was subsequently deleted.
- --AFBorchert (talk) 13:53, 15 August 2021 (UTC)
- I found more related wikidata links: Q58099779 (Q58099779), Q31847105 (Q31847105). --AFBorchert (talk) 14:11, 15 August 2021 (UTC)
Wiki PR, Status Labs
- https://www.wsj.com/articles/how-the-1-scrubs-its-image-online-11576233000
- en:Wiki-PR editing of Wikipedia
- en:Status Labs
- en:Wikipedia:Sockpuppet investigations/Kendy2020/Archive
- en:Wikipedia:Sockpuppet investigations/Musbaunow/Archive
- en:Wikipedia:Sockpuppet investigations/Japanelemu/Archive
- en:Wikipedia:Conflict of interest/Noticeboard/Archive_143#Sophisticated_AFC_subversion
- en:Wikipedia:Conflict_of_interest/Noticeboard/Archive_153#"How_the_1%_Scrubs_Its_Image_Online"_from_The_Wall_Street_Journal
- en:Wikipedia:Conflict_of_interest/Noticeboard/Archive_156#Olive_Writing_Hub
Notable - literally, because they have articles written about them - spammers with a lengthy history. There's a lot of residual cross-wiki cleanup that needs to be performed, plus some of the spam seems to have returned in the intervening years since this case was investigated. MER-C (talk) 17:17, 17 August 2021 (UTC)
- List of articles pasted at User:MER-C/Spam/WikiPR. @Jules*: there's a couple for you to nuke. MER-C (talk) 16:38, 21 August 2021 (UTC)
- Done @MER-C: maybe it would be useful to open an archive subpage (with the links above)? best, — Jules* Talk 09:49, 22 August 2021 (UTC)
- P.-S. : if it can help to discover other socks, @MER-C:, MonsieurJohannes (who created fr:Freshworks listed on your subpage):
- also created still alive pages: fr:Bitit and fr:Benjamin Heine (the en-wp page has been created in 2006, so it's unrelated);
- also created already deleted (not by me) pages: fr:SnatchBot, fr: Ramzan Miah, fr:Thierry Charles Dubois, fr:Somdip Dey, fr:Eli Wehbe.
- — Jules* Talk 09:58, 22 August 2021 (UTC)
- Okay, so, some other articles to delete not on your list:
- wikidata:Q61045218
- es:SnatchBot (by Babiem (CA · xwiki · sc · COIBot report))
- (to review, maybe not to delete) es:eDreams.es (by Babiem)
- it:SnatchBot (by Ljulka (CA · xwiki · sc · COIBot report))
- de:SnatchBot (by Donmorgan200 (CA · xwiki · sc · COIBot report))
- de:PM-International (by Donmorgan200)
- (a lot of other interwikis of SnatchBot, see wikidata:Q47458384)
- Ping @Itti and MarioGom:. (We have no contact for it-wp.) — Jules* Talk 11:09, 22 August 2021 (UTC)
- Yay, untagged socks. The CU data was too cloudy, but there is little doubt these accounts are affiliated. Sigh. See en:Wikipedia:Sockpuppet investigations/Japanelemu/Archive for the untagged accounts. I also created Wikiproject:Antispam/Archives/2021/Wiki PR but someone needs to complete the research. There are a lot more discussions than this. MER-C (talk) 14:27, 22 August 2021 (UTC)
- There is also:
- es:Ben Heine (by Moldovando (CA · xwiki · sc · COIBot report))
- it:Ben Heine (by Russiagitaa (CA · xwiki · sc · COIBot report), who also edited it:SnatchBot, see above)
- ro:Ben Heine (by Albanusu (CA · xwiki · sc · COIBot report)) @Victor Blacus:
- and so on, in 11 languages.
- — Jules* Talk 15:51, 22 August 2021 (UTC)
- @MER-C: en:Wikipedia:Sockpuppet investigations/Boskit190/Archive may also be Wiki PR/Status Labs: Keke1970 (CA · xwiki · sc · COIBot report · ja · en), who created ja:SnatchBot and ja:PMインターナショナル, has been blocked on en-wp as a sock of Boskit190.
- I also found out new and more recent (2020-2021) accounts, not blocked nor locked, via ja:チェーザレ・カターニア (found with ja:利用者:Keke1970/sandbox), which led me to wikidata:Q56141864:
- (Russian) SaibTsaoii (CA · xwiki · sc · COIBot report · ru)
- (Spanish) VhuroMu2 (CA · xwiki · sc · COIBot report · es)
- (French) NgiVicaxx (CA · xwiki · sc · COIBot report · fr)
- (Japanese) Kan Hm11 (CA · xwiki · sc · COIBot report · ja)
- (Portuguese) DmārṭExt (CA · xwiki · sc · COIBot report · pt)
- (tl) HenriGOO (CA · xwiki · sc · COIBot report · tl)
- (Vietnamese) Net5050 (CA · xwiki · sc · COIBot report · vi)
- — Jules* Talk 16:36, 22 August 2021 (UTC)
- There is also:
- Yay, untagged socks. The CU data was too cloudy, but there is little doubt these accounts are affiliated. Sigh. See en:Wikipedia:Sockpuppet investigations/Japanelemu/Archive for the untagged accounts. I also created Wikiproject:Antispam/Archives/2021/Wiki PR but someone needs to complete the research. There are a lot more discussions than this. MER-C (talk) 14:27, 22 August 2021 (UTC)
- Okay, so, some other articles to delete not on your list:
- P.-S. : if it can help to discover other socks, @MER-C:, MonsieurJohannes (who created fr:Freshworks listed on your subpage):
- Found another SPI: en:Wikipedia:Sockpuppet investigations/Fatima 77/Archive. New articles added to User:MER-C/Spam/WikiPR. MER-C (talk) 18:12, 22 August 2021 (UTC)
- Tagged es:SnatchBot and es:Ben Heine for deletion. es:eDreams.es is notable and someone already did some clean up. It might need further review though. Action still pending for VhuroMu2 (CA · xwiki · sc · COIBot report · es). MarioGom (talk) 20:21, 22 August 2021 (UTC)
- Found another SPI: en:Wikipedia:Sockpuppet investigations/Fatima 77/Archive. New articles added to User:MER-C/Spam/WikiPR. MER-C (talk) 18:12, 22 August 2021 (UTC)
About KapitalBrand (frwp, commons, enwp)
Hello,
KapitalBrand is an e-reputation company based in Morroco and they hire freelance editors to write on wikis. They use a lot of sockpuppets to edit articles about their clients (to get the "upper hand" in debates and to publish articles, sometimes cheating on typo to bypass protections). They never declare their conflicts of interest or their sockpuppets. They are banned on fr-wp. Typically, a freelance writes a draft and another dude publishes the draft.
Sockpuppets page is here: fr:Wikipédia:Faux-nez/KapitalBrand. They operate mainly on fr-wp and commons however a few of them are on en-wp.
- Pape120 [stalktoy] – [cross-wiki edits]
- Felix6284 [stalktoy] – [cross-wiki edits]
- Theodorendiaye [stalktoy] – [cross-wiki edits]
- Marocainwiker [stalktoy] – [cross-wiki edits]
- Achouwak Jammar [stalktoy] – [cross-wiki edits]
Best, Bédévore (talk) 08:52, 23 August 2021 (UTC)
Olga Vaganova
Olga Vaganova [stalktoy] – [cross-wiki edits] (Ольга Ваганова in Russian) is a founder of ukrainian PR agency (article in russian about starting agency). Edits in uk, ru, en concern clients mainly, ignoring paid editing template. --Anntinomy (talk) 08:36, 4 September 2021 (UTC)
- Thanks for the information, @Anntinomy. On fr-wp, I only found one old (2011) creation: fr:PrivatBank. It used a promotional style, but it has been edited by an experienced user since. — Jules* Talk 20:38, 5 September 2021 (UTC)
- She has disclosure on English Wikipedia. So there is no issue here so far. MarioGom (talk) 07:48, 29 October 2021 (UTC)
Unknown multilingual UPE sockfarm
I found en:Mikhail Valerievich Lifshitz in my fortnightly suspicious article list. This was created by Straycatgirl (CA · xwiki · sc · COIBot report) who has 13k edits on uk.wp but their creations on en.wp are spewing red flags for UPE. Barvenkov (CA · xwiki · sc · COIBot report) created uk:Лифшиц, Михаил Валерьевич.
The obvious publicity photo File:Mikhail Lifshitz.jpg in this article was uploaded by Jackrosse (CA · xwiki · sc · COIBot report) and sourced to this Flickr profile hxxps://flickr.com/photos/187794352@N07/ engaged in obvious license laundering. The Flickr profile contains three images, the second File:Dr Amine Issa.jpg also being uploaded by Jackrosse for d:Q106809433 (Mobalytics).
The third image File:Michael Baczor.jpg was uploaded by Vladmedv (CA · xwiki · sc · COIBot report). They substantially edited d:Q89453053 (Michael Baczor).
This Wikidata item was created by Momarfish (CA · xwiki · sc · COIBot report). They uploaded File:Netskope Headquarters.jpg, sourced from another license laundering profile on Flickr hxxps://flickr.com/photos/187387549@N06/ (one image only), made en:Netskope a lot more spammy and created en:Nexthink, en:Lily Jay (both spam) and en:Martin Devergie.
Momarfish also substantially contributed to d:Q23672838 (Roobee). This yields three articles:
- en:Roobee, created by Hissamelriys (CA · xwiki · sc · COIBot report).
- ko:Roobee, created by 앤준 (CA · xwiki · sc · COIBot report). en:User:앤준/sandbox and ko:사용자:앤준/연습장 are Roobee.
- zh:Roobee, created by Lengjaimatt (CA · xwiki · sc · COIBot report). No further edits.
And this is where it starts to get complicated. MER-C (talk) 12:16, 4 September 2021 (UTC)
- 앤준 created ko:디마켓 and ko:사용자:앤준/연습장 i.e. d:Q42290487 (DMarket), which has a significant history of cross-wiki spam.
- Hissamelriys is a cross-wiki spammer. They created en:FAXPLUS, en:JSDelivr, en:Mobirise, de:Mobirise, es:Mobirise, es:DosFarma, es:Jonathan Foley, de:Phil Sokowicz, fr:Mobirise, en:Pocketbook (application), en:Kevin Leyes, en:FileZigZag, fr:Docage, it:Mobirise, it:David Michigan, ja:Mobirise, nl:Mobirise, nl:David Michigan, ru:Mobirise.
- Mobirise is a dead end. en:David Michigan has three creation attempts: en:Wikipedia:Sockpuppet investigations/Jimmysonoma, Japanelemu (Wiki-PR), and en:Wikipedia:Sockpuppet investigations/Raju Adhikari/Archive. en:Dmarket has three creation attempts: Cirefo (CA · xwiki · sc · COIBot report), Aviatchan (CA · xwiki · sc · COIBot report) and en:Wikipedia:Sockpuppet investigations/Liborbital/Archive (also on ru:DMarket). Dnnsdndzk (CA · xwiki · sc · COIBot report) created de:DMarket.
- Dnnsdndzk also created de:Julian Bashore.
This is getting old for this sock farm, so I will stop here. @DarwIn: please delete the images on Commons. MER-C 09:41, 5 September 2021 (UTC)
PR Olaf Kosinsky
Olaf_Kosinsky (CA · xwiki · sc · COIBot report) Subteno (CA · xwiki · sc · COIBot report)
A German TV show showed a PE connection between user Olaf Kosinsky and Subteno a disposable sock. This was confirmed by CU. Olaf Kosinsky was involved in many projects. It is reasonable to assume that he also enriched many articles there with advertising. --Itti (talk) 12:28, 4 September 2021 (UTC)
- en:Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Articles for creation notified. MER-C (talk) 16:35, 4 September 2021 (UTC)
- Filed en:Wikipedia:Sockpuppet investigations/Olaf Kosinsky. MER-C 08:53, 5 September 2021 (UTC)
- frwiki: @Jules*: frwiki is also involved, for example: fr:Bianca Arndt, fr:Günter Henle, fr:Patrick Sensburg and more
- Done for fr-wp. I'm sad I don't know german, to understand the TV show and how it revealed the UPE. — Jules* Talk 15:33, 5 September 2021 (UTC)
- @Itti: Sorry to bother you with that, but I'm trying to understand the whole case in order to report about it on fr-wp. I'm reading de:Wikipedia Diskussion:WikiProjekt Umgang mit bezahltem Schreiben/Verdachtsfälle/Olaf Kosinsky with machine translation and there is something I don't get: was the de-wp community aware of paid edits of this experienced user? It seems he had a PR website under his own name, but I don't see any disclosure of PE on his de-wp user page. — Jules* Talk 15:57, 5 September 2021 (UTC)
- @Jules*: here a short list de:Wikipedia:WikiProjekt Umgang mit bezahltem Schreiben/Verdachtsfälle/Olaf Kosinsky. I did not know. It may be that someone had seen it before, but in principle it was not known. Olaf Kosinsky was active, he organized and carried out the state parliament projects where MPs were photographed. Also in the EU Parliament. He must have used this contact and probably the idea with the PE has grown over time. It became obvious when Jan Böhmermann (quite popular in de), after doing some research, tried to get in touch with the PR agency of Kosinsky and then commissioned three rather stupid additions. They did that, he delivered with the sock and on Friday it was broadcast in the evening program. I hope to have explained it clearly. Many greetings --Itti (talk) 17:04, 5 September 2021 (UTC)
- Thank you very much @Itti: Previously, I did not understand that it was the journalist who asked for the three additions made by Subteno; it's very clear now! Best, — Jules* Talk 19:54, 5 September 2021 (UTC)
- @Jules*: here a short list de:Wikipedia:WikiProjekt Umgang mit bezahltem Schreiben/Verdachtsfälle/Olaf Kosinsky. I did not know. It may be that someone had seen it before, but in principle it was not known. Olaf Kosinsky was active, he organized and carried out the state parliament projects where MPs were photographed. Also in the EU Parliament. He must have used this contact and probably the idea with the PE has grown over time. It became obvious when Jan Böhmermann (quite popular in de), after doing some research, tried to get in touch with the PR agency of Kosinsky and then commissioned three rather stupid additions. They did that, he delivered with the sock and on Friday it was broadcast in the evening program. I hope to have explained it clearly. Many greetings --Itti (talk) 17:04, 5 September 2021 (UTC)
- @Itti: Sorry to bother you with that, but I'm trying to understand the whole case in order to report about it on fr-wp. I'm reading de:Wikipedia Diskussion:WikiProjekt Umgang mit bezahltem Schreiben/Verdachtsfälle/Olaf Kosinsky with machine translation and there is something I don't get: was the de-wp community aware of paid edits of this experienced user? It seems he had a PR website under his own name, but I don't see any disclosure of PE on his de-wp user page. — Jules* Talk 15:57, 5 September 2021 (UTC)
- ruwiki: ru:Нордт, Кристина
- cawiki: ca:Patrick Sensburg
- eswiki: @MarioGom: eswiki is also involved, for example: es:Patrick Sensburg
- dawiki: da:HUSUM Wind
Regards --Itti (talk) 09:32, 5 September 2021 (UTC)
- @AFBorchert and DarwIn: c:Commons:Volunteer Response Team/Noticeboard#Tickets verified by Olaf Kosinsky. MER-C 10:10, 5 September 2021 (UTC)
- Reported to eswiki: es:Wikipedia:Tablón de anuncios de los bibliotecarios/Portal/Archivo/Miscelánea/Actual#Olaf Kosinsky. TaronjaSatsuma: could you look at the cawiki side? MarioGom (talk) 11:13, 5 September 2021 (UTC)
- Blocked on Commons: c:Commons:Administrators' noticeboard#Case Olaf Kosinsky. MER-C 13:02, 5 September 2021 (UTC)
- Wikidata checkuser request made: d:Wikidata:Requests for checkuser/Case/Olaf Kosinsky. MER-C 13:10, 5 September 2021 (UTC)
- blocked on wikisource.org -jkb- 14:39, 5 September 2021 (UTC)
- Inevitably there will need to be some sort of cleanup for the UPE here – how do we intend to go about this? Do we treat all of his contributions as UPE, or a select few? If so, how would we determine which? Thanks, Giraffer (talk) 18:08, 5 September 2021 (UTC)
- @Giraffer: Olaf Kosinsky was a very prolific and experienced editor and a significant part of his contributions were apparently not paid for. As far as I can see, Olaf Kosinsky was using sockpuppets for paid editing but used his main account to support these activities by moving articles from draft to main space (at en:wp, example), by reviewing new articles (at de:wp, example), and by processing VRT tickets which were related to his paid activities ([example). The problem is that we just know some of the socks but there are probably more which did not come up in the CU results at de:wp as they weren't used in the last three months. --AFBorchert (talk) 09:49, 6 September 2021 (UTC)
- Nothing extra found in the en.wp sockpuppet investigation. MER-C 17:11, 7 September 2021 (UTC)
- Thanks, AFBorchert. I think I'm just gonna go through the sockpuppets' contributions and then whatever interaction the main account had with them (on enwiki). Thanks for your help. Regards, Giraffer (talk) 21:24, 7 September 2021 (UTC)
- @Giraffer: Olaf Kosinsky was a very prolific and experienced editor and a significant part of his contributions were apparently not paid for. As far as I can see, Olaf Kosinsky was using sockpuppets for paid editing but used his main account to support these activities by moving articles from draft to main space (at en:wp, example), by reviewing new articles (at de:wp, example), and by processing VRT tickets which were related to his paid activities ([example). The problem is that we just know some of the socks but there are probably more which did not come up in the CU results at de:wp as they weren't used in the last three months. --AFBorchert (talk) 09:49, 6 September 2021 (UTC)
Improving tools for monitoring and response
I commented on wikimedia-l that it seemed there's much more that could be done to support this work. Including:
- Monitoring the market for UPE
- Work with groups that are in the market and completely transparent about their work to maintain a sense of rates and volume
- Search general contracting sites, general search engines, and specific reputation brokers for new options; maintain a catalog
- Spot-check and commission work. last week Jan Böhmermann spent under 500 Euros and identified two German UPE networks
- Building better tools for tracking and countering UPE
- Tracking: automated scoring (seems like some of this exists but not everyone uses it?)
- Countering: tools to coordinate work, making it more satisfying + collaborative to tackle organized UPE networks. Especially for often-targeted categories (politicians + companies)
- Both: Focus on tools for detecting large farms/networks over time, and cleaning up the mess they leave. (how automated is this now?)
Thanks @MarioGom: for pointing me here. I am curious how much of this tooling and automation exists already, and how to make it ore visible to editors on individual projects (who might not know about cross-wiki antispam efforts).
And I recognize that we don't have a uniform definition for the heart of the challenge -- Spam, COI, UPE (constituting a kind of hidden COI), and sock- and meat-puppet networks: all are slightly different contexts + scopes. How do you think about those in relation to one another? –SJ talk 20:52, 8 September 2021 (UTC)
- Hi SJ: thank you for bringing this up here. Here's some thoughts:
- Monitoring the market for UPE
- Work with groups that are in the market and completely transparent about their work to maintain a sense of rates and volume
- Disclosed paid editors (DPE) are a tiny fraction of paid editing. Both in terms of number of accounts and edit volume. Some may be collaborative, like Beutler Ink (ping WWB Too), but I'm not sure that would be very useful for tackling UPE. If you refer to groups who are transparent about their work and rates off-wiki but don't disclose on-wiki, that probably only covers some Upwork freelancers, who are also just a small part of the market. Large actors rarely disclose rates, clients, and often not even the fact they offer Wikipedia services.
- Search general contracting sites, general search engines, and specific reputation brokers for new options; maintain a catalog
- We currently do some monitoring on English Wikipedia (see en:Wikipedia:List of paid editing companies), I think French Wikipedia does something similar (ping Jules*). Some editors also monitor sites like Upwork, and some results can be seen at en:WP:COIN. However, public disclosure can be in conflict with harassment policies (en:WP:OUTING), functionaries and some admins have access to more information on evidence discovered this way. A Volunteer Response Team queue exists at paid-en-wp@wikipedia.org, but only functionaries have access, and as far as I know, it is severely understaffed.
- Spot-check and commission work. last week Jan Böhmermann spent under 500 Euros and identified two German UPE networks
- Some people did this on French Wikipedia too, also uncovering some cross-wiki UPE operation in France (see en:Wikipedia:Wikipedia Signpost/2020-05-31/News and notes). There seems to be some disputes about how mystery shopping and our policies interact, especially on English Wikipedia. If we want more of this, we'd need a framework to ensure that mystery shoppers who are members of our community know the do's and dont's to avoid policy issues.
- Work with groups that are in the market and completely transparent about their work to maintain a sense of rates and volume
- Building better tools for tracking and countering UPE
- Unlike ORES, it is usually easier to detect UPE editors than isolated UPE edits. A (insufficient) number of tools exist, for example. MER-C's suspcious new articles report (see en:Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Spam#Suspicious new articles). We usually conceal operational details of such tools (en:WP:BEANS). Publicly disclosing all detection heuristics would be like publishing a manual on how to do UPE and get away with it. Anyway, I'll list here some categories of tooling I'm aware of:
- General discovery: Tools that help finding UPE editors in general (not a specific sockfarm). MER-C's report fall into this category. I use some heuristics that yield around a 20%-35% verifiable true positive rate among the discovered accounts. I don't publish the results of this tool to avoid harm to innocent users, but a number of accounts I report come from these results after manual research.
- Specific discovery: Tools to discover new accounts of known sockfarms. These include things as simple as watching recent changes on articles heavily targeted by specific sockfarms (e.g. en:User:MarioGom/TOPCOI/Bx), as well as more targeted heuristics to detect a known behavioral fingerprint. This works for some big UPE operations (e.g. Yoodaba SPI).
- Attribution/Verification: Tools to check a suspicious account and attribute it to a known sockmaster. This is also quite feasible for some large operations (e.g. Yoodaba SPI, CharmenderDeol SPI, Jaktheladz SPI).
- Investigation: Tools for behavioral sockpuppetry investigation, such as toolforge:spi-tools, toolforge:sigma, toolforge:xtools. Tooling is particularly lacking when it comes to research of cross-wiki UPE operations.
- Unlike ORES, it is usually easier to detect UPE editors than isolated UPE edits. A (insufficient) number of tools exist, for example. MER-C's suspcious new articles report (see en:Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Spam#Suspicious new articles). We usually conceal operational details of such tools (en:WP:BEANS). Publicly disclosing all detection heuristics would be like publishing a manual on how to do UPE and get away with it. Anyway, I'll list here some categories of tooling I'm aware of:
- Other than that, the recent creation of Wikiproject:Antispam has been a good step in terms of cross-wiki coordination.
- About cleaning up the mess, it's a quite lacking area. We have organized some ad hoc clean ups on enwiki (en:User:Blablubbs/Wolfram, en:User:MarioGom/LoboReview, en:User:MarioGom/KazakhReview), but there is still nothing formal or systematic.
- Nosebagbear has a collaborative sandbox for UPE proposals (see en:User:Nosebagbear/UPE Proposals), which is worth the attention of anyone interested in moving some proposal forward. --MarioGom (talk) 10:45, 9 September 2021 (UTC)
- @MarioGom: on fr-wp, we have information on paid editing companies, but disseminated. I took the initiative to create fr:Projet:Antipub/Agences de communication today (we still have to complete it); it will help us to centralize the information. We also intend to trap again some agencies in the future, in order to find socks they use, as we did in May 2020. Best, — Jules* Talk 16:56, 10 September 2021 (UTC)
- Interesting, thanks to you both. @MarioGom: I think the number of larger orgs involved in en:WP:CREWE is enough that we could get a rough estimate of market rates and volume. Even one or two active PR agencies will have a better sense of it than most editors, and comparisons over time will be useful even if they see a biased subset. –SJ talk 16:29, 14 September 2021 (UTC)
- @MarioGom: on fr-wp, we have information on paid editing companies, but disseminated. I took the initiative to create fr:Projet:Antipub/Agences de communication today (we still have to complete it); it will help us to centralize the information. We also intend to trap again some agencies in the future, in order to find socks they use, as we did in May 2020. Best, — Jules* Talk 16:56, 10 September 2021 (UTC)
- Our anti-abuse tools are a pile of garbage and the API is actually worse by virtue of having random missing functionality. Once we have a working CAPTCHA, all anti-abuse tools in MediaWiki and extensions used on WMF sites have dedicated maintainers, the technical debt in the anti-abuse tools is gone, the API has been audited for missing functionality (phab:T192023, phab:T20104, phab:T188672, phab:T261752 are all material impediments) and that functionality provided, the spam blacklist is still public and infinitely scalable, PageTriage is available for all wikis and in a much improved way, ..., then we can discuss improvements. I want to focus on finding spam, not fighting the WMF's bad software and bad management decisions.
- That said, if someone wants to put together a training set that would be great. I know what I am looking for, it's just a matter of weeding out the false positives. The better I can do this, the less I can rely on behavior. MER-C 17:42, 9 September 2021 (UTC)
- MER-C Helpful ideas and links, thank you. I'm not sure what the right way is to bundle these up and push for prioritization; is it helpful to have an umbrella ticket for this that we can all add our +1's to? –SJ talk 16:29, 14 September 2021 (UTC)
- The state of the admin tools is so bad that any improvement to anti-abuse tools in MediaWiki is welcome. Anti-spam is not the only problem we face - a general improvement in anti-abuse tools will make progress against several problems. If I were to pick one for quick wins, it would be the deleted title search in the API and UI improvements for the deleted title search so that they are available in new page patrol and other scripts. There's no escaping the massive pile of work that is phab:T20493 though. MER-C 18:25, 14 September 2021 (UTC)
- MER-C Helpful ideas and links, thank you. I'm not sure what the right way is to bundle these up and push for prioritization; is it helpful to have an umbrella ticket for this that we can all add our +1's to? –SJ talk 16:29, 14 September 2021 (UTC)
- SJ: I have surveyed data from various major UPE companies and they charge $500-$2,500, with median probably around $1,500. With respect to volume, after some back-of-the-envelope estimates, I would say that UPE page creations on English Wikipedia are in the hundreds per year (conservative), possibly in the thousands. It's hard to know for sure, since there's a long tail of UPE editors beyond the few major UPE companies. MarioGom (talk) 12:54, 28 January 2022 (UTC)
- Thank you for looking into it. That's substantive, and good context for improving related tools. –SJ talk 21:01, 29 January 2022 (UTC)
Reduction + diversion of misapplied energy
Another thought: have we looked into ways to reduce or divert demand for paid editing into constructive channels? The demand for run-of-the-mill publicity helps hide malicious manipulation. To limit this, we might create an (off-WP) space for freely-licensed intermediate steps along the path towards an on-WP proposed edit. And make the above even clearer by having all commercial paid editing start in this space instead, w/ its own tools and assumptions and expectations:
- Define (or create) a preferred site for sharing free knowledge about the 80% of this that is non-deceptive but still out of scope: self-curated statements by subjects, possibly-NN summaries, related media (less of an issue, given Commons' policies)
- Build tools to make it easy to create + transfer drafts there, streamlining deletion + migration processes.
- Observe activity there -- likely w/ meaningful correlation to UPE on Wikipedia.
As an example: sharing freely licensed media intended? proposed? for use in a paid article is easy, b/c Commons has fewer steps to follow, and is set up in a way that it doesn't suggest reputation or notability by associationn -- so its pages aren't very good targets for astroturfing; but are a mechanic for releasing media w/ metadata under a free license. An equivalent for nominally-factual statements (or self-reported statements) about verifiable entities could similarly narrow the subset of such edits that hit RC. –SJ talk 16:24, 14 September 2021 (UTC)
- Hammering UPE operations does divert some demand into constructive channels. I have observed a few companies switching to in-house, policy-compliant, disclosed paid editors after the agency they hired was banned, exposed, and their customers appeared connected to it.
- As for other venues, you can look at Wikitia and Everipedia. BLP and companies there are often correlated with UPE on Wikipedia. These are wikis they can use to freely dump all the promotional garbage they want.
- On English Wikipedia we do have drafts, which is where commercial paid editing is supposed to go. For simple, hard facts, Wikidata is friendly to COI and paid editing, disclosed or undisclosed. Commons is also a relatively safe place unless they incur in copyvio (which is often the case). I'm not sure I fully grasp the kind of solution you're proposing here. MarioGom (talk) 16:43, 14 September 2021 (UTC)
- Widely publicise examples of paid editing backfiring.
- Unfortunately I've seen some diversion towards the Simple English Wikipedia. MER-C 18:29, 14 September 2021 (UTC)
- Thanks, good examples.
Wikitiaand Everipedia could perhaps be such a place. [Update: it seems not.] They both still claim to be curated third-party encyclopedic content... even though they have neutrality and balance problems that far exceed our own. What I mean is - 1. identifying a specifically recommended autobio-index -- a channel for a) freely-licensed, b) sourced + verifiable, self- or pr-descriptions of possibly non-notable entities, which explicitly states that it makes no claims of independence, balance, or neutrality, and does not present itself as an "encyclopedia".
- 2. sending commercial-PE (paid or otherwise) to such a channel to update a page there. away from the RC or on-wiki process here.
- 3. while all editors can use Drafts here to develop articles, commercial-PE should just post a link to this other site; from which a page or section could be imported if appropriate.
- 4. building tools to easily transfer pages to that channel and remove them from WP. self-promotions or articles by sock farms (that might one day be WP-suitable, if cleaned up) could be more readily deleted + migrated; and we might impose a higher standard of balance + notability for CPE, or a policy of bulk deletion/migration of articles created by UPE. All of this might be easier / less controversial if we know this isn't removing free knowledge from the web, but rather removing it from the search-engine-visibility and implicit curatorial approval of being on WP.
- Do you think we could do the above w/ a pointer to
Wikitia? Do you see value in trying to move CPE away from using drafts, and adding specific "delete and migrate" tools? @MarioGom: I haven't thought through the implications in detail, but that's roughly what I meant. –SJ talk 17:07, 15 September 2021 (UTC)
- Thanks, good examples.
- Do not ever consider Wikitia (but Everipedia is OK). Wikitia is a shady site documented in the MediaWiki spam blacklist. It is operated by Avoof [6], an Indian SEO company in Udaipur, Rajasthan that is well documented on en:WP:PAIDLIST. Avoof employees are the only users who are allowed to edit Wikitia. The main operators are Himank Seth [7] and Sonali Kavdia, who are highly active spammers on LinkedIn and Upwork and actively spam their own profiles all over the Internet to promote themselves. They regularly scrape articles off Wikipedia and charge clients a few hundred dollars to publish on Wikitia. Probably only 5% of the pages showing up on Wikitia are Avoof's clients.
- They evidently have poor English skills as this confusing jumble of words on Wikitia's main page shows.
The community at Wikitia is limited to only specialized editors who are experts in their fields and can helping in building verified content by the continuous efforts. All articles and pages on Wikitia are protected to provide verified encyclopedic content by controlling the substandard edits by all users, who dont have knowledge in that industry or field.
Unlike Wikipedia, we believe that just negativity or controversial content are not a qualification for a page, which has garnered a lot of attention and mostly hate crime content is highlighted and not the positive work.
- Dealing with this requires close monitoring of anything related to Wikitia that shows up on the Internet, such as job ads relating to Wikitia pages. Jwindleberg (talk) 02:28, 11 October 2021 (UTC)
- Thanks @Jwindleberg:, so it sounds like that one is not a good option. Again suggesting we might want to set up our own venue, which rejects spam and abuse, but supports permanent rough drafts and not-yet-notable material. –SJ talk 12:51, 12 October 2021 (UTC)
- Everipedia is a very good venue for "permanent rough drafts and not-yet-notable material." Larry Sanger, one of the co-founders of Wikipedia, was active in founding and managing Everipedia. The site looks well managed and has a very supportive community. On the other hand, there is no way that Wikitia can be viable option since it's completely controlled by shady Indian spammers. Jwindleberg (talk) 17:34, 12 October 2021 (UTC)
Obviously the top priority is to first hunt down the big-time harassers and extortionists. They are the ones causing the biggest damage to WMF projects. All the other small-time spammers who don't do extortion or blackmailing are just annoying but not diabolic. We should get rid of those online gopnik gangs like Wikibusiness.ua first. Jwindleberg (talk) 17:45, 12 October 2021 (UTC)
- ++ That makes sense to me. –SJ talk 16:03, 13 October 2021 (UTC)
Sophisticated (Eastern) European paid editing rings
At Wikiproject:Antispam we see highly sophisticated paid editing syndicates operating mainly from Europe, especially Ukraine and Russia but with a smattering of US, French and German operators. On en-wp, the main actors are low-skilled spammers from India, Pakistan and Bangladesh who usually do not display much sophistication and largely confine their activities to en-wp. Starting off with a list of known sockfarms and their countries of origin listed at meta,
- Çelebicihan - Ukraine
- Wikibusiness - Ukraine
- Serghiy Hrabarook - Ukraine
- Olga Vaganova - Ukraine
- Pierre Malinowski - Russia and France
- Wiki PR, Status Labs - US
- Ross kramerov - US, of Russophone origin
- Olaf Kosinsky - Germany
- Prix Versailles - France
- KapitalBrand - Morocco
- UA85 - Pakistan
- Xenen1970 - Nigeria
Quite a different situation from en-wp which gets overwhelmed with clueless unsophiscated spammers from developing Anglophone countries such as India, Pakistan, Bangladesh, Sri Lanka, Nigeria, Ghana and the likes, as observed at en:WP:SPI. See this observation by Bri on en:Wikipedia:Wikipedia Signpost/2020-05-31/Recent research,
I've been working in this arena for a while, and in fact have a credit in the paper for contributing labeled data that was used to train the model. We aren't sure how sophisticated some of these operations are but my feeling is there's a distinct break between the activities of the outfits catering to well-funded Global North entities (in particular corporations and their executives, entertainers/entertainment companies, and politicians and political groups) – probably what you mean by the "professionals" – and the rest. I wouldn't be surprised if the former are highly aware of the investigative techniques used on-Wiki, and adapt to whatever metrics and techniques we apply, but the latter are unable to, at least quickly. But the greatest volume of stuff that has to be dealt with is due to the less sophisticated group, and it would still be useful to have tools that willow that away so human effort can be focused on the remainder.
This means we may need different strategies and tools to deal with, for instance, sophiscated Ukrainian paid editing rings vs. noob-type Indian freelancers. A pattern emerging now is that sophisticated x-wiki spam tends to come out of Ukraine, Russia and to some extent Western Europe, but the mostly monolingual Americans and British are typically occupied only with en-wp. Jwindleberg (talk) 02:28, 11 October 2021 (UTC)
- For what it's worth, fairly sophisticated UPE operations are run from the US, UK, and Israel too. At least on English Wikipedia. Also some bigger operations are internationalized, e.g. primarily run from the US with additional teams in Philippines or Hong Kong. MarioGom (talk) 21:06, 5 November 2021 (UTC)
Ross kramerov
Upwork freelance spammer (not their real name) that has polluted multiple wikis. Ongoing abuse. Falsely claims authorship of at least two articles on their Upwork profile.
Residual articles:
- ru:Эффект Расёмона
- ru:Малтнома
- ru:Тильбюри (карета)
- en:The Faculty of Useless Knowledge
- en:Age management medicine
- en:Christopher J. Hadnagy
- en:Edward Gordon Perry Jr
- en:The Faculty of Unnecessary Things
- it:Mariela Garriga
Cleanup is mostly complete but there is another sockpuppet investigation pending. MER-C 18:40, 17 September 2021 (UTC)
Linkspam online casinos et. al.
We are currently investigating accounts in dewiki which are involved in cross-wiki spamming, there was an SPI on enwp uncovering lots of socks. The accounts usually make a few edits verifying wayback archive links and then they add valid content with a reference to an unsuitable commercial website (online gambling, hair replacement, etc.).
Completed/ongoing investigations:
- enwp spi: en:Wikipedia:Sockpuppet investigations/Pampelonne/Archive
- dewp investigation: de:Wikipedia:WikiProjekt Umgang mit bezahltem Schreiben/Verdachtsfälle/Online Casino
- dewp spi (done): de:Wikipedia:Checkuser/Anfragen/Pampelonne, Sarahschreibtgern
Other affected wikis:
- eswp: e.g. Link inserted to casinos-online.es (notified)
- itwp: e.g. Link inserted to sitiscommesse.com (notified)
- rowp: e.g. Link inserted to cazinouri.info (notified)
- rowp: Link inserted to baccarat.team/ro/ (notified)
- ...
--Count Count (talk) 10:55, 19 September 2021 (UTC)
cazinouri.info
baccarat.team
casinos-online.es
sitiscommesse.com
Sites spammed on en.wp:
bestbettingsites.co.uk
bestbettingsites.com
bestcasinosites.net
bestcasinositesindia.com
lottotube.tv
online-gambling.com
scams.info
trusted-broker-reviews.com
mejorescasinosonline.net
Unblocked sockpuppets found:
- ReneRace (CA · xwiki · sc · COIBot report)
- LisaAngelaR (CA · xwiki · sc · COIBot report)
- AlexHarrisson (CA · xwiki · sc · COIBot report)
- MikelUzte (CA · xwiki · sc · COIBot report)
- FelixBench (CA · xwiki · sc · COIBot report)
- SophiaRomahn (CA · xwiki · sc · COIBot report)
- RichardSunk (CA · xwiki · sc · COIBot report)
- AlexRighn (CA · xwiki · sc · COIBot report)
- ThomasBinck (CA · xwiki · sc · COIBot report)
- JuliaHounch (CA · xwiki · sc · COIBot report)
- LucianBu (CA · xwiki · sc · COIBot report) Romanian Wikipedia
- RioBeanch (CA · xwiki · sc · COIBot report)
- SaraHammel (CA · xwiki · sc · COIBot report)
- Gameofwurst (CA · xwiki · sc · COIBot report)
- LesciaBuchento (CA · xwiki · sc · COIBot report) Spanish Wikipedia
- RajaSharmana (CA · xwiki · sc · COIBot report) Indonesian Wikipedia
- AbrahamJohny (CA · xwiki · sc · COIBot report) Spanish Wikipedia
- AbrahamMerches (CA · xwiki · sc · COIBot report) Spanish Wikipedia
- AdamSonez (CA · xwiki · sc · COIBot report) Spanish Wikipedia
- Soloholo (CA · xwiki · sc · COIBot report) Spanish Wikipedia
SPI renewed. MER-C 14:18, 19 September 2021 (UTC)
- I endorsed a CU-check for sleepers on enwiki; I'm basically certain that – at least on en – these are all operated by the same person. I also had a go at a (private) abuse filter. Spam blacklist might be something to consider as well(?), though I have little experience with that. Blablubbs (talk) 18:03, 21 September 2021 (UTC)
- No new domains found on en.wp. Someone needs to gather up all of the domains and send them to Talk:Spam blacklist - but that can only be done once the German and Spanish investigations are completed. MER-C 19:11, 21 September 2021 (UTC)
Some more socks that we found on it.wiki and then xwiki:
- AlexandroDucho (CA · xwiki · sc · COIBot report)
- SalomeRega (CA · xwiki · sc · COIBot report)
- DavidBertkel (CA · xwiki · sc · COIBot report)
- RosiMueller (CA · xwiki · sc · COIBot report)
- JohannesBerschtl (CA · xwiki · sc · COIBot report)
- JuliaSvenja (CA · xwiki · sc · COIBot report)
- SebastianHufler (CA · xwiki · sc · COIBot report)
- SilasKrätsch (CA · xwiki · sc · COIBot report)
- DerBummelBär (CA · xwiki · sc · COIBot report)
- AlexandraKoch (CA · xwiki · sc · COIBot report)
- BenniKoch (CA · xwiki · sc · COIBot report)
- AntoniaGia (CA · xwiki · sc · COIBot report)
They're probably related to these old accounts: Marcooo671 (CA · xwiki · sc · COIBot report), Blixa8519berlin (CA · xwiki · sc · COIBot report), and Smith8519berlin (CA · xwiki · sc · COIBot report) which edited w:it:LeoVegas the same way User:AnnaAmiar did. Sites spammed on it.wiki: sitiscommesse.com and migliorisitiscommesse.net--Sakretsu (炸裂) 19:47, 25 September 2021 (UTC)
- Dewiki CU-results are in (w:de:Special:Diff/215891560). I requested locks for the unlocked accounts. Blablubbs (talk) 21:52, 25 September 2021 (UTC)
migliorisitiscommesse.net
autoankauf-wm.de
bartagame-kaufen.de
besteonlinecasinos.co
besteonlinecasinos.com
blockhaus-bauen.info
coinpro.ch
betrugstest.com
digi-tester.de
elithairtransplant.com
fix-text.de
fliegeruhr.info
foresight.gmbh
gardasee-magazin.com
goldrechner24.de
h-engine.de
haarausfallen.de
haartransplantation-ratgeber.net
haartransplantation-tuerkei.net
handletteringlernen.de
immonovia.de
informationsfuhrerblog.blogspot.com
jausenbrettl.at
keyfender.de
love-repair.de
mein-deal.com
onlinecasinosdeutschland.com
onlinecasinosdeutschland.de
ostrich.de
pruefung2go.de
saftland.com
seo-tech.de
seybold.de
staubsauger-berater.com
staubsauger-berater.de
talent2go.de
uhrentakt.de
uhrtipps.com
umzug-karlsruhe-js.de
umzugsunternehmen-berlin.de
versicherungsriese.de
xpert.digital
Additional accounts found:
- VanessaSeipel (CA · xwiki · sc · COIBot report) German Wikipedia
- AntoniaReifel (CA · xwiki · sc · COIBot report) German Wikipedia
MER-C 09:24, 26 September 2021 (UTC)
cazinoonline.com
trading-fuer-anfaenger.de
ostrich.de
babyphone-tipps.de
betrugstest.com
umzug-berlin.de
bauchredner.de
felsenmeer-zentrum.de
parkplatzvergleich.de
maehroboter-ohne-begrenzungskabel.de
erp-novum.de
- Anduserb21 (CA · xwiki · sc · COIBot report)
- AlejandroSu (CA · xwiki · sc · COIBot report)
- AngeloSuerte (CA · xwiki · sc · COIBot report)
- SamuelHerrmann (CA · xwiki · sc · COIBot report)
- LucasAns (CA · xwiki · sc · COIBot report)
- MonicaBolsonza (CA · xwiki · sc · COIBot report)
- AndréSenguie (CA · xwiki · sc · COIBot report)
- AlexandraImmen (CA · xwiki · sc · COIBot report)
- PatriziaSunij (CA · xwiki · sc · COIBot report)
More. MER-C 15:13, 26 September 2021 (UTC)
- Domains mentioned here nominated for blacklisting. MER-C 10:47, 3 October 2021 (UTC)
- All blacklisted. Dirk Beetstra T C (en: U, T) 12:48, 3 October 2021 (UTC)
- LuchoCR: Some of the accounts listed in this case edit eswiki, maybe you can have a look? Thanks! MarioGom (talk) 07:55, 5 October 2021 (UTC)
- @MarioGom:: None of the accounts have activity in the last 90 days, son can't run a verification. --LuchoCR (talk) 18:51, 5 October 2021 (UTC)
- Next CU on dewiki: de:Wikipedia:Checkuser/Anfragen/Supercars08 --Itti (talk) 13:09, 22 January 2022 (UTC)
becomepro.de
bonsai.org
luxurytrees.com
gesundheitpur.de
menstruationstasse.com
cryptoticker.io
kwag-recht.de
gamblejoe.com
automatenmarkt.de
bonsai.co.at
hausbauberater.de
the-onlyone.com
These links were used by recent sockpuppets related to this spam. --Johannnes89 (talk) 13:56, 22 January 2022 (UTC)
- + enWP [8] --Johannnes89 (talk) 21:31, 22 January 2022 (UTC)
Rohit Mehta
digitalgabbar.com
digitalgabbar.in
- WikiGodBaap (CA · xwiki · sc · COIBot report)
- AlpeshBollywood (CA · xwiki · sc · COIBot report)
- Mehtaassociate (CA · xwiki · sc · COIBot report)
- Bloggermehta (CA · xwiki · sc · COIBot report)
- Theankitdevarpan (CA · xwiki · sc · COIBot report)
- Ankitdevarpan (CA · xwiki · sc · COIBot report)
- Ramsaranmehta (CA · xwiki · sc · COIBot report)
- Awadhbox (CA · xwiki · sc · COIBot report)
Affects en.wp, simple.wp, hi.wp, Commons and Wikidata. Spam for Rohit Mehta and his website. MER-C 08:35, 20 September 2021 (UTC)
COIBot
I have enabled COIBot's tracking capabilities to this page (diff). That means that COIBot will create reports for link additions for links reported in {{LinkSummary}}/{{XWikiSummary}} templates and users reported in {{UserSummary}}/{{IPSummary}} templates, and that COIBot will track the diffs where the links/users were reported here. Overall that makes it easier to trace back evidence to blacklistings if every they get challenged, or future requests to earlier observations. Dirk Beetstra T C (en: U, T) 13:23, 21 September 2021 (UTC)
- Awesome, thank you Beetstra! I was just thinking about that this morning when I queued a bunch of reports via IRC for domains listed on this page. GeneralNotability (talk) 15:04, 21 September 2021 (UTC)
CharmenderDeol
- CharmenderDeol (CA · xwiki · sc · COIBot report · en · simple)
- Bridgerton96 (CA · xwiki · sc · COIBot report · en)
- Yaywoh (CA · xwiki · sc · COIBot report · en · commons · simple)
- Skybluepants24 (CA · xwiki · sc · COIBot report · en · commons)
- TheMinionQueen (CA · xwiki · sc · COIBot report · en · commons)
- MonkeyKong12 (CA · xwiki · sc · COIBot report · en · commons)
- Hokuspokus25 (CA · xwiki · sc · COIBot report · en · simple)
- Noisy Neighbor (CA · xwiki · sc · COIBot report · en · commons · simple)
- ImmaDie (CA · xwiki · sc · COIBot report · en · commons)
- YKZ-m (CA · xwiki · sc · COIBot report · en · commons)
- FMlives4eva (CA · xwiki · sc · COIBot report · en)
- Pinkypanther1234 (CA · xwiki · sc · COIBot report · en · commons)
- Chromestorm (CA · xwiki · sc · COIBot report · en)
- Dupetube12345 (CA · xwiki · sc · COIBot report · en)
- Discologist (CA · xwiki · sc · COIBot report · en)
- PinkedInPumpkin (CA · xwiki · sc · COIBot report · en)
- Iamnumber55 (CA · xwiki · sc · COIBot report · commons · en)
- Alootikki96 (CA · xwiki · sc · COIBot report · en)
- Denverdiscog (CA · xwiki · sc · COIBot report · commons)
- JollyDolly12345 (CA · xwiki · sc · COIBot report · commons · en)
- Nirmaln404 (CA · xwiki · sc · COIBot report · commons)
- Blackiepanther1234 (CA · xwiki · sc · COIBot report · en)
See w:en:Wikipedia:Sockpuppet investigations/CharmenderDeol. A large sockfarm working on simple, Commons and enwiki; accounts are usually either segregated between wikis or have a strong focus on one. Per enwiki CU, there is proxy use involved, so I suspect additional local checks may uncover additional accounts. Any assistance with filing relevant investigations and cleanup would be appreciated. Blablubbs (talk) 09:18, 25 September 2021 (UTC)
- Thanks, at Commons speedy deletions have been initiated for File:DAO Minh Quan.jpg, File:Michael Obeng.jpg and File:Luis Marti.jpg. In addition, a couple of regular DRs were opened: c:Commons:Deletion requests/Files uploaded by ImmaDie, c:Commons:Deletion requests/File:Griffin Lotson.jpg, c:Commons:Deletion requests/File:Richard Bohannon.jpg, c:Commons:Deletion requests/File:AQUILES ESTE.jpg, c:Commons:Deletion requests/Files uploaded by Nirmaln404. --AFBorchert (talk) 23:34, 25 September 2021 (UTC)
- I ran into SabrinaMaze (CA · xwiki · sc · COIBot report · simple · en) while working on the enwiki SPI case. They are stale on en, but based on their creation of simple:Aquiles Este they are probably related to this farm (see en:Draft:Aquiles Este, c:File:AQUILES ESTE.jpg). CU on simplewiki might be helpful. Spicy (talk) 01:30, 26 September 2021 (UTC)
- @Ferien: see above. MER-C 10:00, 26 September 2021 (UTC)
- I've sent that page to requests for deletion.. Eptalon, could you take a look at the sockpuppetry stuff? Thanks, Ferien (talk) 10:12, 26 September 2021 (UTC)
- @Ferien: see above. MER-C 10:00, 26 September 2021 (UTC)
theyouth.com.pk
- w:Wikipedia:Sockpuppet investigations/UA85
- w:Wikipedia:Sockpuppet investigations/MNB9911
- w:Wikipedia:Sockpuppet investigations/Tailares
- w:Wikipedia:Administrators' noticeboard/Archive309#Fake sources
- w:Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Spam/2019 Archive Jul 1#theyouth.com.pk
- w:Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Spam/2020_Archive Mar 5#theyouth.com.pk
- w:MediaWiki talk:Spam-blacklist/archives/August 2021#theyouth.com.pk
- UA85 (CA · xwiki · sc · COIBot report)
- Affected wikis: Wikidata, pnb.wp (Western Punjabi), en.wp, fr.wp, no.wp, hi.wp (Hindi), ur.wp (Urdu), pl.wp, es.wp, bn.wp, Commons.
UA85 claims to be Umair Ahmad. Originally limited to this subject, they have since engaged in both UPE and link spamming. There is also likely a spam company behind all of this. Ongoing abuse. MER-C 20:01, 25 September 2021 (UTC)
- Most of the sockpuppets did not have any contributions at Commons. Most of the uploads are already deleted, File:Jeans Explosion.jpg is one of the surviving files with VRT permission (appears to be genuine). --AFBorchert (talk) 22:36, 25 September 2021 (UTC)
- Pk303 (CA · xwiki · sc · COIBot report)
Needs a flush out on Commons, Urdu and Punjab Wikipedias. MER-C 17:01, 16 April 2022 (UTC)
- @TheAafi: there are at least a few spam pages on the Urdu Wikipedia awaiting elimination. User:MER-C/Spam/UA85 may be helpful. MER-C 17:12, 25 April 2022 (UTC)
- MER-C Been in travel since last night. Gimme sometime and I'll get this done. ─ The Aafī (talk) 03:41, 26 April 2022 (UTC)
- I deleted several articles under UA85 tag, and will check all others once I reach back home. ─ The Aafī on Mobile (talk) 03:54, 26 April 2022 (UTC)
- {@MER-C:, I deleted a bunch of articles and removed the spam links from several others. I'll likely move few of these through AfD because I'm not sure whether to keep these or to delete them, so I'd seek consensus from the local community. Everything else is Done. ─ The Aafī (talk) 14:38, 26 April 2022 (UTC)
- {@MER-C:, I deleted a bunch of articles and removed the spam links from several others. I'll likely move few of these through AfD because I'm not sure whether to keep these or to delete them, so I'd seek consensus from the local community. Everything else is
- I deleted several articles under UA85 tag, and will check all others once I reach back home. ─ The Aafī on Mobile (talk) 03:54, 26 April 2022 (UTC)
- MER-C Been in travel since last night. Gimme sometime and I'll get this done. ─ The Aafī (talk) 03:41, 26 April 2022 (UTC)
Trane007
- Trane007 (CA · xwiki · sc · COIBot report · en · fr)
- Honesty888 (CA · xwiki · sc · COIBot report · en · fr)
- A.S. Browne (CA · xwiki · sc · COIBot report · en)
These accounts have been blocked for socking and spamming on enwiki (see en:Wikipedia:Sockpuppet investigations/Trane007), but the first two are also active on frwiki. Articles that have been created or heavily edited by them include:
- en:Draft:AFRO (cryptocurrency); fr:AFRO (cryptomonnaie)
- fr:David Nataf (cofounder of AFRO)
- fr:Salamandre (entreprise)
- fr:Deutsche Börse Cloud Exchange
- en:Pierre Dadak
Trane007 was previously warned for UPE on frwiki [9]. There also seems to be some related logged-out editing on 2001:8A0:E80A:B200::/64 - see en and fr contribs. This might go back further than this - Barbapapa888 (CA · xwiki · sc · COIBot report · fr), though stale, is likely related based on editing interests and username.
Thanks, Spicy (talk) 12:21, 1 October 2021 (UTC)
- Hi @Spicy. Thanks for the info. I blocked accounts on fr-wp, deleted some articles, marked the other for UPE, and asked for a SPI: fr:Wikipédia:Vérificateur d'adresses IP/Requêtes/octobre 2021#Trane007, Honesty888 - 1 octobre. (You can ping me when cases are related to fr-wp.) Best, — Jules* Talk 13:03, 1 October 2021 (UTC)
- That was fast - thanks. Will do in the future re. pings. Spicy (talk) 14:39, 1 October 2021 (UTC)
- Foucault8 (CA · xwiki · sc · COIBot report)
- Barbapapa888 (CA · xwiki · sc · COIBot report)
Locks requested. MER-C 17:09, 9 October 2021 (UTC)
- @Spicy, MER-C, and Jules*: Mardit1 (talk · contribs) has started editing about AFRO on enwp. Blocked locally. Blablubbs (talk) 15:25, 28 October 2021 (UTC)
Split-project UPE for Dave Sidhu among likely others
I got a set of users that are likely socks of one another, with single-project editing largely being limited to one of each account. What follows is the behavioral evidence that links them. I'm already working on making sure the enwiki editor gets blocked since it's pretty blatant.
| User/Link summaries |
|---|
|
User:Raahi Articles User:Raahi Edits User:Davesidhusydney User:Tracktouch Productions User:Kanwaljeetsingh User:Tracktouchrecords thecover.in davesidhu.in |
- R. Edits is linked to R. Articles by the same strong interest in Dharmendra Ahirwar (see this global search)
- Davesidhusydney is a little stale, but is linked to Tracktouch Productions by en:Dave Sidhu (see log of en:Draft:Dave Sidhu) compared to pa:Dave Sidhu being essentially identical
- R. Articles is linked to Davesidhusydney by their substantial modifications to the above linked draft.
- Kanwaljeetsingh is very stale, but had a similar interest with a mainspace creation on Sidhu in 2016, and no other activity.
- Both R. accounts and Tracktouch have added links to thecover.in, and no one else.
- Both R. Articles and Tracktouch have added links to davesidhu.in and no one else.
- Some various other bits point to very likely UPE based from a marketing firm.
Because of the limited amount of single-wiki editing performed, there isn't really any place I can file an SPI. I'm putting this here mainly for documentation purposes, as there may be further cleanup needed: the accounts listed here are mostly very active in editing. I also provided a bit more evidence than probably needed to show that this is a spam ring, but both R. accounts have a decent number of edits (in the hundreds), so I don't want to skip out on any details. Perryprog (talk) 22:19, 5 October 2021 (UTC)
- +Tracktouchrecords, also years stale. GeneralNotability (talk) 22:22, 5 October 2021 (UTC)
Xenen1970
Nigerian based spammer. Ongoing abuse. Focus is Nigerian politics and CEOs but occasionally strays into the West.
- Xenen1970 (CA · xwiki · sc · COIBot report)
- en:Wikipedia:Sockpuppet investigations/Xenen1970
- simple:Wikipedia:Requests for checkuser#Xenen1970
New accounts not mentioned in the en.wp SPI which I just blocked:
- Hududuc (CA · xwiki · sc · COIBot report)
- Gatwicker (CA · xwiki · sc · COIBot report)
- Cinvool.. (CA · xwiki · sc · COIBot report)
Heavy spamming on Simple English and English Wikipedias, and lots of copyvio images on Commons (there's no way File:European Diversity Awards.jpg, File:Gideon Olanrewaju.jpg and File:Scott Lumley11.jpg among many others, is this user's own work). @Celestina007, DarwIn, and AFBorchert:. MER-C 17:05, 9 October 2021 (UTC)
- @Ferien: see above - I've made a few DRs on Simple, but there's too much and new socks keep on being discovered. MER-C 11:59, 10 October 2021 (UTC)
- I've taken the list of accounts from the simplewiki SPI, and every one of their uploads to Commons was copyvio. I've tagged all of those, but the accounts on the enwiki SPI will also need to be gone through. Jack Frost (talk) 13:06, 14 November 2021 (UTC)
Several UPE/socks blocked on fr-wp
We found (and blocked) several accounts on fr-wp which are socks (and probably UPE!), in two separate cases. Articles created should probably reviewed. Some accounts are not blocked yet on en-wp:
- Case #1. Linked to en:Wikipedia:Sockpuppet investigations/Alphonse2/Archive; case summary on fr-wp (Those accounts are old, but we found still active accounts on fr-wp.):
- John2bob (CA · xwiki · sc · COIBot report · en)
- Noelvital (CA · xwiki · sc · COIBot report · en)
- Dambrunet (CA · xwiki · sc · COIBot report · en)
- Pirouettevital (CA · xwiki · sc · COIBot report · en)
- Vini75019 (CA · xwiki · sc · COIBot report · en)
- Amieamy (CA · xwiki · sc · COIBot report · en)
- Crotal16 (CA · xwiki · sc · COIBot report · en)
- GClooney1234 (CA · xwiki · sc · COIBot report · en)
- Alexandre07 (CA · xwiki · sc · COIBot report · en)
- Case #2. Case summary on fr-wp. Only one account (JonathanCostet (CA · xwiki · sc · COIBot report · en)) is already blocked on en-wp.
- Ambroiseca (CA · xwiki · sc · COIBot report · en)
- RachelVanier (CA · xwiki · sc · COIBot report · en)
- ClaireEmilie (CA · xwiki · sc · COIBot report · en)
- Mangehrn (CA · xwiki · sc · COIBot report · en)
I only put the not yet blocked accounts with at least one edit on en-wp; exhaustive lists can be found in the "case summary" links.
Kind regards, — Jules* Talk 22:18, 14 November 2021 (UTC)
USA/India spammers
Here is a link to a portfolio of a Wikipedia PR company: https://www.wikipedialegendsllc.com/portfolio.php. List of articles they claim to be theirs:
- en:Rachel Dratch
- en:Keith Powers
- en:Gentiane Lupi
- en:Graham Little
- en:Feng Timo
- en:James Roe (rower)
- en:Laidback Luke
- en:Rafa Esparza
- en:John Randall Nelson
- en:John Hayden (ice hockey)
--212.91.160.53 10:11, 25 November 2021 (UTC)
- Many of the companies offering paid editing services have false client lists, and this appears to be another one of those. Giraffer (talk) 20:54, 26 November 2021 (UTC)
Changingguardsatbuckinghampalace
Changingguardsatbuckinghampalace is an Israeli UPE operation primarily focused on English Wikipedia. You can see the accounts in the English sockpuppet investigation, but I'll list here the cross-wiki ones:
- Daisydeedle (CA · xwiki · sc · COIBot report · en · fr · de)
- Chickpies123 (CA · xwiki · sc · COIBot report · en · fr)
And articles:
Maybe frwiki and dewiki could run some checkuser checks? Big UPE operations that go cross-wiki rarely do so for a single article.
Pinging fr and de contacts: Bédévore, Jules*, LaMèreVeille, AFBorchert, Itti, MBq, Millbart.
Best, MarioGom (talk) 19:24, 19 December 2021 (UTC)
- thx for the info, on dewiki a CU ist not possible, account was only active 1 June 2020, the edit is to old for CU. But I will have a look. Regards --Itti (talk) 19:29, 19 December 2021 (UTC)
- Thanks Itti! By the way, for any CU, contact GeneralNotability privately if you need some tips to interpret technical evidence for this sockfarm. MarioGom (talk) 19:34, 19 December 2021 (UTC)
- Thanks for the ping, @MarioGom. I deleted the article and blocked the accounts. Sadly, edits are too old for CU as well. Best, — Jules* Talk 17:33, 20 December 2021 (UTC)
- de:Millennium Management now deleted and protected --MBq (talk) 12:42, 12 February 2022 (UTC)
- Thanks Itti! By the way, for any CU, contact GeneralNotability privately if you need some tips to interpret technical evidence for this sockfarm. MarioGom (talk) 19:34, 19 December 2021 (UTC)
Wikipedia:Sockpuppetry
Misuse of spare account. Creating custom pages in all Wikipedia languages. User accounts:
- Global user contributions
- Soldierirani - Blocked indefinitely in de and fa.wikipedia
- SarbazeMahdi - Blocked indefinitely in fa.wikipedia
- Miladtayan - Blocked indefinitely in commons, en and fa.wikipedia
- AriaTess - Blocked indefinitely in en and fa.wikipedia
- MMA Kid - Blocked indefinitely in commons, en and fa.wikipedia
- JRM2018 - Blocked indefinitely in commons, en and fa.wikipedia
- Huyancho
- Aryankhodakaramim
- 223.204.221.41
- 223.204.222.187
- 223.204.222.25
- 223.204.249.134
- 27.55.70.194
- 27.55.70.90
- 27.55.72.222
- 27.55.77.130
- 27.55.79.31
- 27.55.81.161
- 27.55.83.223
- 27.55.93.143
- 49.237.12.178
- 49.237.14.170
- 49.237.21.252
- 49.237.9.29
--Persia ☘ 13:57, 25 December 2021 (UTC)
- History of creating current pages
| wiki | history | by | |
|---|---|---|---|
| ps.wikipedia | 1:35 | 9 November 2021 | AriaTess |
| th.wikipedia | 21:50 | 1 November 2021 | AriaTess |
| tr.wikipedia | 07.16 | 24 November 2021 | Miladtayan |
| uk.wikipedia | 15:17 | 7 November 2021 | AriaTess |
| zh.wikipedia | 12:20 | 8 November 2021 | AriaTess |
| en.wikiquote | 16:33 | 16 November 2021 | Miladtayan |
| commons.wikimedia | 04:07 | 28 October 2021 | AriaTess |
| wikidata | 22:22 | 25 May 2020 | Huyancho |
| pnb.wikipedia | 6:45 | 6 December 2021 | Abbas dhothar |
| pt.wikipedia | 05:27 | 19 January 2022 | Aryankhodakaramim |
- Delete history
| history | Page on [wiki] deleted | by |
|---|---|---|
| 09:25, 30 December 2021 | [hiwiki] | User: रेजा गुडारी |
| 15:56, 27 December 2021 | [eswiki] | User:-sasha- |
| 17:13, 26 December 2021 | [jawiki] | User:Marine-Blue |
| 15:21, 26 December 2021 | [kowiki] | User:Reiro |
| 12:05, 26 December 2021 | [urwiki] | User:Ulubatli Hasan |
| 23:36, 25 December 2021 | [ruwiki] | User:Q-bit array |
| 22:55, 25 December 2021 | [itwiki] | User:Merynancy |
| 17:12, 25 December 2021 | [frwiki] | User:Jules* |
| 17:06, 25 December 2021 | [dewiki] | User:Partynia |
| 18:09, 11 December 2021 | [fawikiquote] | User:فرهنگ2016 |
| 23:19, 08 December 2021 | [eswiki] | User:Ezarate |
| 06:54, 28 November 2021 | [fawiki] | User:Jeeputer |
| 01:16, 17 November 2021 | [enwikinews] | User:Acagastya |
| 11:12, 03 November 2021 | [dewiki] | User:Kuebi |
| 10:20, 03 November 2021 | [itwiki] | User:Gac |
| 11:02, 02 November 2021 | [dewiki] | User:Stefan64 |
| 17:08, 17 September 2021 | [fawiki] | User:Mardetanha |
| 15:46, 11 May 2021 | [fawiki] | User:Mardetanha |
| 19:57, 17 January 2021 | [enwiki] | User:Praxidicae |
--Persia ☘ 09:24, 28 December 2021 (UTC)
- @Jules*: Hello, What user handles the reports here?--Persia ☘ 20:20, 6 January 2022 (UTC)
- @Persia: Those who follow the page. But, as each report is about various wikis, you should ping users listed in Wikiproject:Antispam/Contacts for wikis relevant in the current case. — Jules* Talk 20:32, 6 January 2022 (UTC)
- Remarkable administrators of other wikis in:
- pt.wikipedia - @Jo Lorib and Francisco Leandro:@DarwIn:
- th.wikipedia - @Geonuch and Timekeepertmk:
- ps.wikipedia - I did not find an admin!
- tr.wikipedia - @Superyetkin:@ToprakM:
- uk.wikipedia - @Нестеренко Оля and Стефанко1982: Done blocked AriaTess
- pnb.wikipedia - @Abbas dhothar and Danish47:
- en.wikipedia - @Praxidicae:@TheresNoTime:
- commons.wikimedia - @AFBorchert:
- wikidata - @Ameisenigel:
--Persia ☘ 09:53, 23 January 2022 (UTC)
WOWcube
Hi, can we ping users from other wikis where there were no discussions about this article yet? This is related to Hrabarook and en:Wikipedia:Sockpuppet_investigations/Iexeru/Archive.
Illustrations:
- File:Wozniak with wowcube.png
- File:WOWCube Savva.jpg
- File:WOWCube Emulator GUI.gif
- File:Illustration from the patent US2017057296.png
--Anntinomy (talk) 20:39, 20 January 2022 (UTC)
Multi-language Spam : creation of Luka Snoj in different languages by several accounts
(in french, sorry)
Bonjour, j'ai la forte suspicion que Luka Snoj a spammé entre mai et octobre 2021 une dizaine de wikis, dont la wikipédia francophone, pour créer sous différents pseudonymes son propre article wikipédia.
Les utilisateurs, tous CAOU, sont inactifs maintenant que ces articles existent (en 9 langues à ce jour, tandis que 2 langues ont été supprimées) mais pourraient revenir si on faisait un gros nettoyage (admissibilité discutable et articles publicitaires bien entendu).
À ce jour 4 de ses présumés pseudonymes ont été exclus, mais de la wikipédia espagnole uniquement.
En déroulant le fil avec l'article français qui me paraissait louche, je me suis fait un petit pavé avec les notes que j'ai pu rassembler. Si l'on supprime les articles sans s'occuper de ces comptes le problème pourrait se poser de nouveau :
Basketball3x3 (nom du bouquin)
CAOU sur en.wiki
17 décembre 2015 à 14:02 création page en.wiki
2 imports sur commons effacés en 2015
Europe3x3basketball (variation sur le précédent)
CAOU sur en.wiki et jp.wiki
9 janvier 2021 à 21:15 modifications page en.wiki
17 mai 2021 à 21:15 création page ja.wiki
17 mai 2021 à 23:15 modification sur l'item wikidata
CAOU sur en.wiki
compte bloqué sur es.wiki pour abus de faux-nez
3 mai 2021 à 11:59 modifications page en.wiki
18 mai 2021 à 00:02 modifications sur l'item wikidata
CAOU sur sl.wiki
4 mai 2021 à 00:31 création page sl.wiki avec le diff "Ustvarjanje nove strani Luka Snoj (po vzoru Luka Snoj strani na amer. Wikipedii)" (google trad : "Création d'une nouvelle page Luka Snoj (sur le modèle de la page Luka Snoj sur Wikipedia américain) "). (NDLR : Ben voyons... si je créé moi-même ma page en anglais, je m'en sers comme modèle pour les autres ;) )
CAOU sur de.wiki, en.wiki et fr.wiki
compte bloqué sur es.wiki pour abus de faux-nez
18 octobre 2021 à 16:25 modifications page en.wiki
18 octobre 2021 à 20:33 création page fr.wiki
18 octobre 2021 à 23:06 une dizaine de modifications sur l'item wikidata jusqu'au 20 octobre
19 octobre 2021 à 00:16 modification page fr.wiki
19 octobre 2021 à 00:42 création page de.wiki
CAOU sur de.wiki, en.wiki, nl.wiki, pl.wiki, pt.wiki
compte bloqué sur es.wiki pour abus de faux-nez
18 octobre 2021 à 16:53 import d'une photo du sujet sur commons
une photo supprimée précédemment, date d'import inconnu
18 octobre 2021 à 22:25 modifications page en.wiki
19 octobre 2021 à 01:47 création page pl.wiki
19 octobre 2021 à 01:58 modifications page de.wiki
20 octobre 2021 à 12:55 création page pt.wiki
20 octobre 2021 à 21:25 création page nl.wiki
CAOU sur fr.wiki et en.wiki
compte bloqué sur es.wiki pour abus de faux-nez
26 octobre 2021 à 14:57 modifications page en.wiki
26 octobre 2021 à 16:52 import de la photo du sujet sur commons
26 octobre 2021 à 18:28 modifications page fr.wiki (révoquées)
1 seule modif, insuffisant mais même pattern de pseudo et ça peut être un compte dormant
20 octobre 2021 à 19:36 modification page en.wiki
Page es.wiki supprimée le 18 juin 2021 puis 18 novembre 2021
Page sr.wiki supprimée le 1er novembre 2021
- (english summary)
- Hi everyone, I suspect someone (Luka Snoj himself I presume, but who knows) creates the article Luka Snoj in several languages in order to promote himself and his book about basket-ball.
- Some accounts :are blocked on es.wiki but he did it on 9 languages, included en.wiki and de.wiki.
- If needed, I can answer in basic english. Feel free to format my message in a better way if you think so. --El Funcionario (talk) 04:53, 28 January 2022 (UTC)
- Update : the french article has be deleted today. --El Funcionario (talk) 09:11, 5 February 2022 (UTC)
- German de:Luka_Snoj was discussed and kept in 10/2021 due to the sportive successes. Today I deleted most of its content as blatand book advertising. --MBq (talk) 12:31, 12 February 2022 (UTC)
Fake literature
Moin, on dewiki there is a new case of Fake Verifiability. See here: Jahrelanges Spammen von „Fake-Literatur
- Alfred Werner Maurer (CA · xwiki · sc · COIBot report)
- Vitruv2008 (CA · xwiki · sc · COIBot report)
- Vanessa Maurer-Schwindt (CA · xwiki · sc · COIBot report)
Literature is Fake. Please have a close look at the edits. effected Wikis are:
- enwiki User:Blablubbs
- eswiki User:MarioGom
- frwiki User:Jules* Done — Jules* Talk 13:49, 12 February 2022 (UTC)
- itwiki
- plwiki
Regards --Itti (talk) 10:52, 12 February 2022 (UTC)
Clandestine task force actively promoting Eric Zemmour's presidential campaign at Wikipedia
Hi, first of all: sorry about my broken English. I'll try and make it short.
- The whole story involved w:fr:Éric Zemmour, who is a candidate in the w:Presidential elections in France. The event is to be held in April 2022.
- In December 2021, the head advisor for Zemmour's online campaign said that several Wikipedians were monitoring and honing Zemmour's page, but he didn't give any hint to identify them. Le Parisien - paywall, sorry
- In December 2021 Jules* was asked, by a journalist whose name is Vincent Bresson, to help him with an enquiry about Z's supporters on fr-wp. Bresson went undercover and was admitted in the group of users who were POV-pushing about Zemmour. He kept all logs and also asked Jules* to check and support his own research. This secret group was directed by the head advisor for Zemmour's campaign. The members of the group were tasked with using several tactics to make POV-pushing, and also retaliate against anyone in their way, including cyberbullying. They called themselves WikiZedia.
- The data collected, both by Jules* and by journalist Vincent Bresson, was eventually released. Vincent Bresson published his research in a book Au coeur du Z, un journaliste a infiltré la campagne d'Éric Zemmour. The same day, that is on 2022-02-17, Jules* also released the information to the Frech community.
The members involved are:
- Special:CentralAuth/Cheep (with also a sock name IllianDerex sur Commons)
- Special:CentralAuth/Film sur Léo Major
- Special:CentralAuth/CreativeC
- Special:CentralAuth/Shōkakū24
- Special:CentralAuth/Trismegiste0
- Special:CentralAuth/Maurice Roux
- Special:CentralAuth/Salomegrd
They are currently in the process of being banned. The story made huge headlines in newspapers in France. The French community, as you might have guessed, is not really delighted about the WikiZedia team and their coordinated POV-pushing; also, they were involved with someone who threatened an opposing user with physical violence.
Cheep made changes on a lot of other wikis: https://guc.toolforge.org/?by=date&user=Cheep
Discussions about it on fr-wp:
- w:fr:Wikipédia:Bulletin des administrateurs/2022/Semaine 7#Cellule dissimulée de promotion d'Éric Zemmour sur Wikipédia
- w:fr:Wikipédia:Bulletin des administrateurs/2022/Semaine 7/WikiZedia
- w:fr:Wikipédia:Le Bistro/17 février 2022#Cellule de promotion d'Éric Zemmour sur Wikipédia
Best regards, Bédévore (talk) 16:07, 19 February 2022 (UTC)
- Discussions about it at en-wiki:
- Users indeffed at fr-wiki, per this French ANI discussion (Bulletin des administrateurs):
- Special:CentralAuth/Cheep 13:40 (UTC) (diff)
- Special:CentralAuth/Salomegrd at 2022 February 17, 13:40 (UTC) (diff)
- Special:CentralAuth/Shōkakū24 at 2022 February 17, 13:
- Special:CentralAuth/Film sur Léo Major
- Special:CentralAuth/Trismegiste0 at 2022 February 17, 1339 (UTC) (diff)
- Special:CentralAuth/Maurice Roux at 2022 February 17 at 13:40 (diff)
- Special:CentralAuth/CreativeC at 2022 February 17 at 13:39
- Users indeffed at en-wiki (blocking proposal still going on as of 01:58, 20 February 2022 (UTC) at this ANI thread :
- Special:CentralAuth/Cheep at 2022 February 19, 20:08 (UTC) (notif)
- Thanks, Mathglot (talk) 01:58, 20 February 2022 (UTC)
- Links to the enwiki discussions (now moved or archived): en:Wikipedia:Administrators' noticeboard/IncidentArchive1091#Manipulation of wikipedia by a French presidential candidate team and en:Wikipedia talk:WikiProject France#Organized interference at Wikipedia by the Zemmour campaign for President of France. MarioGom (talk) 10:17, 9 April 2022 (UTC)
KatiMedi
KatiMedi has been reported in ca.wiki as a possible cross-wiki case of doubious notable biographies. Aparently, identified as such at pt.wiki. Any thoughts?--TaronjaSatsuma (talk) 19:58, 20 February 2022 (UTC)
- TaronjaSatsuma: Can you post a link to the report? Thanks! MarioGom (talk) 10:12, 9 April 2022 (UTC)
Wikibusines round 3
See Wikiproject:Antispam/Archives/2021/Wikibusiness for previous spam.
- R4forcement (CA · xwiki · sc · COIBot report)
- Roodymod (CA · xwiki · sc · COIBot report)
- Тетяна Кузьмінська (CA · xwiki · sc · COIBot report)
- Pennybleat (CA · xwiki · sc · COIBot report)
- Woromka (CA · xwiki · sc · COIBot report)
You'd think they've got better things to do right now, but nope! MER-C 16:55, 16 April 2022 (UTC)
Not a fresh story but may be worth seeing. fr:Dragon_Eternity and uk:Dragon_Eternity were created simultaniously and reapeat word by word ru:Драконы вечности. Ukrainian version was created by sockpuppet. French one is a question.--Anntinomy (talk) 12:55, 27 May 2022 (UTC)
BinaryX was respammed:
- pt:BinaryX, ca:BinaryX
- JefriMalen (CA · xwiki · sc · COIBot report)
MER-C 12:15, 15 June 2022 (UTC)
- Also BairesDev (d:Q85112918). MarioGom (talk) 17:24, 16 June 2022 (UTC)
- I reported it on eswiki. Update: now deleted. Nacaru
· Talk ✉ 00:19, 16 July 2022 (UTC)
- I reported it on eswiki. Update: now deleted. Nacaru
- File:Bairesdev.jpg
- AgdioDeus (CA · xwiki · sc · COIBot report)
- F4Spacesnis (CA · xwiki · sc · COIBot report)
- Boeo3reng (CA · xwiki · sc · COIBot report)
- Scadrous (CA · xwiki · sc · COIBot report)
- EachBreat99 (CA · xwiki · sc · COIBot report)
- Nightwatcher2401 (CA · xwiki · sc · COIBot report)
- I reported it on eswiki. Update: deleted. Nacaru · Talk ✉ 00:19, 16 July 2022 (UTC)
- I reported it on eswiki. Update: deleted. Nacaru
- ca:SendCloud, de:SendCloud
- de:Sendcloud B.V.
- Marisha Kurak (CA · xwiki · sc · COIBot report)
- OrlaBan (CA · xwiki · sc · COIBot report)
- Yanina Krakov (CA · xwiki · sc · COIBot report)
- Statnia TresJoli (CA · xwiki · sc · COIBot report)
- Baldebon (CA · xwiki · sc · COIBot report)
- be:Пары-Матч, el:Parimatch, en:Parimatch, hi:Parimatch, sw:Parimatch, uk:Parimatch
- File:Parimatch logo crop jpg.jpg, File:Parimatch logo jpg.jpg, File:Parimatch logo.svg
- d:Q17556215
- Glenn.Collman (CA · xwiki · sc · COIBot report)
- Mosopudhara (CA · xwiki · sc · COIBot report)
- MoloDis (CA · xwiki · sc · COIBot report)
- Oksana kulz (CA · xwiki · sc · COIBot report)
- it:Kateryna Fonseca, uk:Катерина Фонсека
- d:Q106867382
- Paruskana (CA · xwiki · sc · COIBot report)
- Admitad was respammed by Natasha Binar (CA · xwiki · sc · COIBot report) with File:Admitad-logo (7).svg. MER-C 06:46, 17 June 2022 (UTC)
Per Wikipedia:Conflict_of_interest/Noticeboard#Jeanie_Roland_and_her_restaurants:
- w:Jeanie Roland was respammed
- w:Tim Barnes (basketball)
- w:Zack Klima
- w:Ashton Khan
- w:Justin Alliman
- w:Jonny Caplan
- w:Brodie Nero
- w:MadeMan (skincare)
- en:Julien Durix (fr:Julien Durix)
- w:MN2S
- w:Ken Barefield
- w:Banzai Teriyaki
- w:Laurent Tourondel
- w:Avery Andon (art dealer)
- w:Jeremy Gardner
- w:Jonas Muthoni
- w:Dhaval Panchal
- Wickipedia1000 (CA · xwiki · sc · COIBot report)
- Gators88 (CA · xwiki · sc · COIBot report)
- WallstraightXX (CA · xwiki · sc · COIBot report)
- Cailieghsumalinog (CA · xwiki · sc · COIBot report)
- Mckoyko08 (CA · xwiki · sc · COIBot report)
- LaurenMaccaffrey (CA · xwiki · sc · COIBot report)
- HacksawRidge (CA · xwiki · sc · COIBot report)
- Marcoparin (CA · xwiki · sc · COIBot report)
- Nftgenes (CA · xwiki · sc · COIBot report)
- JRland333 (CA · xwiki · sc · COIBot report)
- Puppydinah (CA · xwiki · sc · COIBot report)
- Cubesaural999 (CA · xwiki · sc · COIBot report)
- PatisserieFrench (CA · xwiki · sc · COIBot report)
- Lazer68 (CA · xwiki · sc · COIBot report)
- Gwaposikokoy1 (CA · xwiki · sc · COIBot report)
- Alzersumalinog (CA · xwiki · sc · COIBot report)
- DrinkingWater47 (CA · xwiki · sc · COIBot report)
- NFTLoved (CA · xwiki · sc · COIBot report)
- Itsmethefox (CA · xwiki · sc · COIBot report)
- Pottybug (CA · xwiki · sc · COIBot report)
MER-C 02:16, 22 June 2022 (UTC)
- File:Hryhoriy Malenko.png
- File:Hryhoriy Malenko.jpg
- Alina Poliakova (talk · contribs · page moves · block user · block log)
Not sure who the article spammer is for this one. MER-C 06:16, 24 June 2022 (UTC)
Parallel work around Ukrainian companies:
- uk:Дмитро Будорін - w:Dmytro Budorin
- uk:Hacken - w:Hacken.io
- es:Rentberry -w:Rentberry Inc. (main contibutor Korozia edited w:Biosphere Corporation which is known to be WB client) - simple:Rentberry (simple English, WB likes it) - uk:Rentberry
--Anntinomy (talk) 19:34, 5 July 2022 (UTC)
- I reported it on eswiki. Update: deleted. Nacaru · Talk ✉ 00:19, 16 July 2022 (UTC)
- I reported it on eswiki. Update: deleted. Nacaru
- @MER-C can you look at these, please? Anntinomy (talk) 12:22, 7 July 2022 (UTC)
I agree with Hacken.
- Hacken (et:Hacken, uk:Hacken)
- en:Robin Healthcare
- Oceos Foszi (CA · xwiki · sc · COIBot report)
- СтереПашка (CA · xwiki · sc · COIBot report)
- Yagsweld (CA · xwiki · sc · COIBot report)
- (W)rid(t)ing High (CA · xwiki · sc · COIBot report)
- RedyyLed (CA · xwiki · sc · COIBot report)
Rentberry and the rest at the en.wp SPI I am not yet sure of. MER-C 17:23, 7 July 2022 (UTC)
- A few more possibles:
- d:Q111757391
- Wiokewa (CA · xwiki · sc · COIBot report), Javierel (CA · xwiki · sc · COIBot report), Morpho achilles (CA · xwiki · sc · COIBot report). MER-C 17:30, 7 July 2022 (UTC)
- МаринаОльховик (CA · xwiki · sc · COIBot report)
confirmed to СтереПашка (see my meta talk page). MER-C 18:45, 7 July 2022 (UTC)
- @MER-C Why Hacken.io is missing? Anntinomy (talk) 20:03, 11 July 2022 (UTC)
- Because I don't have enough info to block yet. MER-C 19:51, 12 July 2022 (UTC)
- Alfie Barlow (CA · xwiki · sc · COIBot report)
- BlankkSpace629 (CA · xwiki · sc · COIBot report)
Mercuryo was respammed.
- I reported it on eswiki. Update: it has been deleted. Nacaru · Talk ✉ 00:19, 16 July 2022 (UTC)
- I reported it on eswiki. Update: it has been deleted. Nacaru
- M09 Tan (CA · xwiki · sc · COIBot report)
- Hindi Terry (CA · xwiki · sc · COIBot report)
- Moraleß (CA · xwiki · sc · COIBot report)
MER-C 09:43, 9 July 2022 (UTC)
- @MER-C seems Володимирівна Ольга (CA · xwiki · sc · COIBot report) should be added. Can we check?--Anntinomy (talk) 18:29, 11 July 2022 (UTC)
Blocked Молдовський винний погріб (CA · xwiki · sc · COIBot report) but cannot pinpoint any spam. MER-C 18:45, 15 July 2022 (UTC)
- Praca.pl (pl:Praca.pl, uk:Praca.pl)
- en:Hum3D (uk:Hum3D)
- KatBet (CA · xwiki · sc · COIBot report)
- Kuba Ali (CA · xwiki · sc · COIBot report)
- Leksunski (CA · xwiki · sc · COIBot report)
- Flytermit (CA · xwiki · sc · COIBot report)
- Tadeusz Wróblewscy (CA · xwiki · sc · COIBot report)
- Валентин Карпенко (CA · xwiki · sc · COIBot report)
MER-C 18:47, 29 July 2022 (UTC)
- And more possibles:
- en:Autopix, simple:Autopix, d:Q113217216
- Lucky Namrd (CA · xwiki · sc · COIBot report), Ïntereßant (CA · xwiki · sc · COIBot report) MER-C 19:03, 29 July 2022 (UTC)
Continued spamming on en:Volodymyr Polochaninov (ru:Полочанинов, Владимир Геннадиевич, uk:Полочанінов Володимир Геннадійович)
- d:Q12141862
- Митяй Василич (CA · xwiki · sc · COIBot report), Yana Plotska (CA · xwiki · sc · COIBot report), Саша Полторак (CA · xwiki · sc · COIBot report), Бодрій (CA · xwiki · sc · COIBot report)
This is now two Wikibusines articles created by ДмитроСавченко on en.wp. MER-C 15:47, 31 July 2022 (UTC)
- Seems this parallel work is worth attention: w:Oleksandr Zats was translated shortly after by Tuga1143 (CA · xwiki · sc · COIBot report) in pt:Oleksandr Zats--Anntinomy (talk) 20:43, 1 August 2022 (UTC)
Büşra Duran Gündüz
I suspect spam. A same editor created this article on two Wikis. The ur-wiki article is a complete rubbish machine translation. Please see via Wikidata:Q111592126 and see what should be the best action. Celestina007, can you assisting digging this further? ─ The Aafī (talk) 23:22, 24 April 2022 (UTC)
- @PeaceSeekers:, I see you once deleted the article on ms-wiki but the article is back again. ─ The Aafī on Mobile (talk) 08:28, 25 April 2022 (UTC)
- @Sabri76: deleted the article on tr-wiki.─ The Aafī on Mobile (talk) 08:29, 25 April 2022 (UTC)
- @Ameisenigel: Would you like to have a look since you're an admin at Wikidata? ─ The Aafī on Mobile (talk) 08:31, 25 April 2022 (UTC)
- Deletion is not possible, since there is a sitelink for urwiki. --Ameisenigel (talk) 08:36, 25 April 2022 (UTC)
- Taken care of. Please proceed now. ─ The Aafī (talk) 08:39, 25 April 2022 (UTC)
- Deletion is not possible, since there is a sitelink for urwiki. --Ameisenigel (talk) 08:36, 25 April 2022 (UTC)
- @Ameisenigel: Would you like to have a look since you're an admin at Wikidata? ─ The Aafī on Mobile (talk) 08:31, 25 April 2022 (UTC)
- @AafiOnMobile: I had deleted the article and protect it from it being created again for now. Thanks for the alert. PeaceSeekers (talk) 08:33, 25 April 2022 (UTC)
- Should the article creator be warned/blocked? Because I suspect several other spam articles such as Wikidata:Q24579245, and this on Ms-wiki. ─ The Aafī (talk) 08:45, 25 April 2022 (UTC)
- guys @PeaceSeekers: and @Ameisenigel:; did you check this one? ─ The Aafī on Mobile (talk) 14:27, 25 April 2022 (UTC)
- This person doesn't met the conditions about "Notability policy" in tr.wikipedia. There's no problem for deletion. Wikipedia is not a platform for advertisement.--Sabri76 (talk) 16:13, 25 April 2022 (UTC)
SagoShader
User SagoShader has been adding self-made svg flags to different articles across wikipedias that he's uploaded to commons himself (commons:Special:Contributions/SagoShader), focusing on articles with little traffic. So far I haven't been able to verify the authenticity of any of these flags through my search. At least enwiki, eswiki and commons are concerned. Nacaru · Talk ✉ 11:06, 1 May 2022 (UTC)
- Can confirm viwiki is concerced as well at vi:Oranjestad,_Sint_Eustatius. Nacaru · Talk ✉ 11:08, 1 May 2022 (UTC)
- Tagging some of you:
- @Blablubbs:
- @TheresNoTime:
- @DarwIn:
- Tagging some of you:
- Nacaru · Talk ✉ 11:14, 1 May 2022 (UTC)
- Update: the user seems to occasionally do genuine contributions, mostly through upgrading existing flag designs (see commons:Flag_of_Jerusalem.svg). I still haven't been able to verify some of their latest designs (namely:[10][11][12], among others). Nacaru · Talk ✉ 11:37, 1 May 2022 (UTC)
- Update: many of their images have now been deleted and the user has been blocked for a week. Watch out for potentially hoax content the user might have left in the different wikis they posted. Nacaru · Talk ✉ 00:08, 12 June 2022 (UTC)
- Update: many of their images have now been deleted and the user has been blocked for a week. Watch out for potentially hoax content the user might have left in the different wikis they posted. Nacaru
- Update: the user seems to occasionally do genuine contributions, mostly through upgrading existing flag designs (see commons:Flag_of_Jerusalem.svg). I still haven't been able to verify some of their latest designs (namely:[10][11][12], among others). Nacaru · Talk ✉ 11:37, 1 May 2022 (UTC)
M Natarajan
Looks suspicious. This article has been created on several wikis just today. See via Wikidata:Q51885920. ─ The Aafī (talk) 10:04, 13 May 2022 (UTC)
- Tagged for CSD in idwiki, no indication no notability. --*Fehufangą ♮ ✉ Talk page ♮ 10:21, 9 June 2022 (UTC)
Sayyid Raphael Dakik
Ongoing xwiki spam about a non-notable person. On enwiki, a deletion discussion was opened, which resulted in the article being deleted. Was later salted. Perhaps because of that, the article is now being created in other Wikipedias.
- ar:سيد رفائيل دقيق (recreated)
- simple:Prince Sayyid Raphael Dakik (deleted after a deletion discussion)
- es:Principe Sayyid Raphael Dakik
- Update: I nominated the article for deletion on eswiki. Nacaru · Talk ✉ 20:03, 2 June 2022 (UTC)
- Deleted on June 16 --*Fehufangą ♮ ✉ Talk page ♮ 08:35, 26 June 2022 (UTC)
- Moved and deleted on june 22. --*Fehufangą ♮ ✉ Talk page ♮ 08:35, 26 June 2022 (UTC)
- nl:Sayyid Raphael Dakik (deleted - nl:Wikipedia:Te_beoordelen_pagina's/Toegevoegd_20220522#Sayyid_Raphael_Dakik)
- ps:شہزادہ سید رفایل دقیق
- fa:شاهپور سید رافائل دقیق (deleted)
- pl:Książę Sayyid Raphael Dakik (update: deleted after a discussion Tempest (talk) 20:46, 23 June 2022 (UTC))
- ru:Принц Саййид Рафаэль Дакик
- ur:پرنس سید رافیل دقیق (deleted by TheAafi)
- id:Pangeran Sayyid Raphael Dakik (quickly deleted as a machine translation)
- commons:File:Raphael Dakik.jpg
- d:Q111966211
Accounts:
- sockuppets in enwiki
- Warburton123 (CA · xwiki · sc · COIBot report)
--*Fehufangą ♮ ✉ Talk page ♮ 00:33, 23 May 2022 (UTC)
- Fehufanga, This was re-created on the Urdu Wikipedia. I just deleted it few hours ago. Pinging بندر who deleted the article earlier on Arabic Wikipedia. Sometimes I believe, we should have a group on Telegram to report spam articles and get them deleted on time, or at the least a group of active admins from all the wikis over here. ─ The Aafī on Mobile (talk) 19:55, 7 June 2022 (UTC)
- @AafiOnMobile, apologies for the late reply. I didn't receive a notification for the ping. Thanks for notifying me. I agree that a dedicated channel for xwiki spam would be beneficial. --*Fehufangą ♮ ✉ Talk page ♮ 10:15, 9 June 2022 (UTC)
- Fehufanga, This was re-created on the Urdu Wikipedia. I just deleted it few hours ago. Pinging بندر who deleted the article earlier on Arabic Wikipedia. Sometimes I believe, we should have a group on Telegram to report spam articles and get them deleted on time, or at the least a group of active admins from all the wikis over here. ─ The Aafī on Mobile (talk) 19:55, 7 June 2022 (UTC)
Looks like that's all of them, excluding Wikidata and commons. Thanks everyone. --*Fehufangą ♮ ✉ Talk page ♮ 08:38, 26 June 2022 (UTC)
Muzeum Miniaturowej Sztuki Profesjonalnej Henryk Jan Dominiak w Tychach
The same editor has created articles about the museum in 18 languages. I nominated the article in en for deletion at en:Wikipedia: Articles for deletion/Muzeum Miniaturowej Sztuki Profesjonalnej Henryk Jan Dominiak in Tychy as it was promotional and without independent references and it was deleted on 7 June. There is also a pl deletion discussion. I believe that all of the articles should be checked for notability and promotional language.
- be:Музей прафесійнага мастацтва мініяцюры Генрык Ян Даміняк у Тыхы
- csb:Mùzeùm Miniaturowégò Profesjonalnégò Kùńsztu Henrik Jan Dóminiôk w Tichach
- cs:Muzeum miniaturního profesionálního umění Henryk Jan Dominiak
- de:Benutzer:Krzysiek2224/Museum für Professionelle Miniaturkunst Henryk Jan Dominiak 2 moved to user space
- en:Muzeum Miniaturowej Sztuki Profesjonalnej Henryk Jan Dominiak in Tychy deleted 7 June
- eo:Muzeum Miniaturowej Sztuki Profesjonalnej Henryk Jan Dominiak en Tychy
- es:Muzeum Miniaturowej Sztuki Profesjonalnej Henryk Jan Dominiak w Tychach
- Nominated for deletion on eswiki. Thank you. Nacaru · Talk ✉ 14:31, 11 June 2022 (UTC)
- Update: now deleted. Nacaru · Talk ✉ 12:16, 25 June 2022 (UTC)
- Update: now deleted. Nacaru
- Nominated for deletion on eswiki. Thank you. Nacaru
- fr:Musée miniature de l'art professionnel Henri Jan Dominiak
- haw:Hale Hōʻikeʻike o ka Miniature Professional Art Henryk Jan Dominiak
- ja:ミニチュア・プロフェッショナル・アート美術館 ヘンリク・ヤン・ドミニク
- ko:미니어처 전문 미술 박물관 Henryk Jan Dominiak
- Deleted in June 13rd.--Got Your Back Everyday (talk) 19:55, 15 June 2022 (UTC)
- nl:Muzeum Miniaturowej Sztuki Profesjonalnej Henryk Jan Dominiak w Tychach deleted 1 June after a deletion discussion
- pl:Muzeum Miniaturowej Sztuki Profesjonalnej Henryk Jan Dominiak w Tychach
- ru:Музей профессионального миниатюрного искусства Генрик Ян Доминяк deleted 12 June 2022
- szl:Muzeum Miniaturowej Sztuki Profesjonalnej Henryk Jan Dominiak we Tychach
- uk:Музей професійного мініатюрного мистецтва Генрик Ян Доміняк в Тихах
- vi:Bảo tàng nghệ thuật chuyên nghiệp thu nhỏ Henryk Jan Dominiak ở Tychy deleted 8 June.
- zh:微缩模型博物馆 亨利克-扬-多米尼亚克
- voy:pl:Muzeum Miniaturowej Sztuki Profesjonalnej Henryk Jan Dominiak w Tychach
- commons:Category:Muzeum Miniaturowej Sztuki Profesjonalnej Henryk Jan Dominiak in Tychy
- d:Q48851673
Account
- Krzysiek2224 (CA · xwiki · sc · COIBot report)
TSventon (talk) 10:21, 8 June 2022 (UTC)
- Probably related: Muzeum Miniaturowej Sztuki Profesjonalnej Henryk Jan Dominiak w Tychach (CA · xwiki · sc · COIBot report), see commons uploads Johannnes89 (talk) 13:03, 8 June 2022 (UTC)
- I looked at the Korean article once more, and I think it is promoting the museum. I'm going to request deletion of it.--Got Your Back Everyday (talk) 08:03, 9 June 2022 (UTC)
Oppose It is not strange to have an article because it is a national museum that has an article in the Polish version for a long time. It may be an opportunity to visit this museum when visiting this town, but I don't think it will be as effective as a promotion for residents of Korea and Japan.--The Lizard's Tail (talk) 07:08, 19 June 2022 (UTC)
.svg){kind=link}
![[10]](https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Flag_of_Niamey.svg){kind=link}
![[11]](https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Flag_of_Gustavia.svg){kind=link}
![[12]](https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Flag_of_Oranjestad,_Sint_Eustatius.svg){kind=link}
Comment I have a question. Isn't the discussion here announced in articles in each language? --The Lizard's Tail (talk) 03:19, 24 June 2022 (UTC)
Sources
Krzysiek2224, I have started a new section for sources for the article. The en:Wikipedia:notability guideline generally requires significant coverage in reliable sources that are independent of the subject. Other projects will have different, but probably similar requirements. Please can you explain whether the sources you add offer significant coverage, what the source is, e.g. a local paper, and if it is independent. TSventon (talk) 13:48, 9 June 2022 (UTC)
- https://prezi.com/zxtvbjok3kgr/muzeum-miniaturowej-sztuki-profesjonalnej-henryk-jan-dominia/ Krzysiek2224 (talk) 03:51, 9 June 2022 (UTC)
- Krzysiek2224, the en:prezi link looks like a presentation produced by the museum, which would not be independent. TSventon (talk) 13:48, 9 June 2022 (UTC)
- Szkoda, że jesteś takim słabym informatykiem i nie potrafisz w źródłach tej strony Prezi.com odnaleźć autorstwa - wszystkich tak podejrzewasz? poszukaj dokładnie i znajdziesz tam autora.
- https://prezi.com/zxtvbjok3kgr/muzeum-miniaturowej-sztuki-profesjonalnej-henryk-jan-dominia/ Krzysiek2224 (talk) 18:07, 9 June 2022 (UTC)
- Krzysiek2224, my advice to you is to make it easy for other editors to understand why your references establish notability. TSventon (talk) 03:47, 10 June 2022 (UTC)
- I read about this museum in the Silesian Library in Katowice in the printed encyclopedia "Britiszpedia". On Commons wikipedia of this museum I saw interesting photos of the exhibits. I decided to make articles about this museum in other wikipedia in the world. I checked that this museum is on the Register of the Ministry of Culture and National Heritage and is therefore encyclopedic. Nobody has to prove with some articles that this museum can be included in Wikipedia in Poland and in other places in the world. This museum collects exhibits from different countries of the world. It is a Cultural Institution, not an actor, singer or anyone else to prove encyclopedic. Some Wikipediaist from Poland does not know the rules and makes a mess with all Wikipedia. Here is the Museum Register in the Ministry, which automatically proves the encyclopaedic record from this museum. Item 41:
- https://bip.mkidn.gov.pl/media/download_gallery/20140319Muzea_utworzone_przez_osoby_fizyczne.pdf1397627824 Krzysiek2224 (talk) 04:44, 10 June 2022 (UTC)
- Krzysiek2224, my advice, which you are free to ignore, is to add a separate bullet point and explanation for each source. TSventon (talk) 11:13, 10 June 2022 (UTC)
- Krzysiek2224, my advice to you is to make it easy for other editors to understand why your references establish notability. TSventon (talk) 03:47, 10 June 2022 (UTC)
Comment The standard of Notability differs depending on the language versions.
So it should be discussed locally in each language version.
It is a mistake to think Notability here according to en:Wikipedia:Notability in English version where user:TSventon is mainly active.
By the way, the reason for the request to delete by user:ネイ in Japanese version is not Notability but the quality of the Japanese used.--The Lizard's Tail (talk) 02:46, 24 June 2022 (UTC)(Fix user:TSvention to user:TSventon. Sorry.--The Lizard's Tail (talk) 02:50, 24 June 2022 (UTC))(Fix Nortability to Notability. Sorry.--The Lizard's Tail (talk) 02:55, 24 June 2022 (UTC))- For everyone's awareness, The Lizard's Tail is blocked as w:ja:LTA:SUZU on jawiki. It is safe to ignore their comments. ネイ (talk) 08:27, 24 June 2022 (UTC)
- Done Speedy deleted on fr-wp. — Jules* talk 14:07, 22 July 2022 (UTC)
- For everyone's awareness, The Lizard's Tail is blocked as w:ja:LTA:SUZU on jawiki. It is safe to ignore their comments. ネイ (talk) 08:27, 24 June 2022 (UTC)
[EN/FR/AR] Asaidmanar — Worldwide01
Hi @Blablubbs, Cabayi, Spiderone, and Nearlyevil665:
Regarding en:Wikipedia:Sockpuppet investigations/Asaidmanar, there is at least one new account used on fr, en and ar-wp: Worldwide01 (CA · xwiki · sc · COIBot report · en · fr · ar). He's not blocked yet. A checkuser request has been submitted on fr-wp.
Best, — Jules* talk 21:13, 8 June 2022 (UTC)
- Worldwide01 is now blocked on enwp, as is QWXCC (CA · xwiki · sc · COIBot report · en · commons) who uploaded copyvio images to Commons. I've requested a lock for these accounts. Spicy (talk) 04:15, 10 June 2022 (UTC)
Prix Versailles 2022
A group of single purpose editors had created articles about the prize in 16 languages by 2021. After various discussions in 2021, see links below, 8 articles were deleted. In 2022 3 more articles have been created by single purpose accounts. A check user request, link below, confirms that they are likely or maybe connected to the 2021 editors. I believe that all of the articles should be checked for notability and promotional language.
- es:Prix Versailles
- fa:جایزه ورسای created 2022
- hu:Prix Versailles
- id:Prix Versailles
- it:Prix Versailles
- ko:베르사유상
- lv:Prix Versailles created 2022
- ro:Prix Versailles
- ru:Премия Версаля recreated 2022, deleted 12 June 2022
- tr:Versailles Ödülü
- zh:凡尔赛奖
- d:Q25390191
Accounts
- Bahareza (CA · xwiki · sc · COIBot report)
- Rantemariana (CA · xwiki · sc · COIBot report)
- NicoloRaul (CA · xwiki · sc · COIBot report)
- KirjuxaB (CA · xwiki · sc · COIBot report)
- Shpynov (CA · xwiki · sc · COIBot report)
Discussions
- Wikiproject:Antispam/Archives/2021/Prix Versailles
- Steward requests/Checkuser#Bahareza@fa, id, it, lv, ru and Wikidata
TSventon (talk) 07:53, 12 June 2022 (UTC)
- It's just about a prize that UNESCO gives. I don't think it is promoting anything.--Got Your Back Everyday (talk) 22:14, 21 June 2022 (UTC)
- Hi. @Got Your Back Everyday: there are evidence that there is cross-wiki spam promotion of this prix for years. Best, — Jules* talk 13:09, 22 July 2022 (UTC)
Nicolas Micheletti - spam
This user is creating this article in the context of a promotion on each Wiki.
- https://www.partitoanimalista.org/chi-siamo-1
- https://www.greenme.com.br/informarse/agricultura/92449-fim-da-era-dos-abates/
- https://www.endtheslaughterage.eu/
These links are promotional and are included in the article, that is, it does not have a neutral point but a partisan point to veganism. On en-Wiki, "This article was nominated for deletion on April 2, 2018. The result of the discussion was delete".
- en:Nicolas Micheletti
- es:Nicolas Micheletti
- eo:Nicolas Micheletti
- fr:Nicolas Micheletti
- d:Q112285883
Account
- Kaleidosophia (CA · xwiki · sc · COIBot report)
--Anibal Maysonet (talk) 12:37, 12 June 2022 (UTC)
- Anibal Maysonet, the same editor has created en:World Union of Deists in 7 wikipedias, that looks like spam as well. TSventon (talk) 13:39, 12 June 2022 (UTC)
Linkspam – pirvnota.com
pirvnota.com
- Gaveswar (CA · xwiki · sc · COIBot report)
- Moirtan (CA · xwiki · sc · COIBot report)
Same modus operandi for both users – post a long screed in their user talk and bury the link in the text. Have found them on Wikidata and English Wikinews so far; will keep an eye for similar posts on other projects. –FlyingAce✈hello 05:39, 17 June 2022 (UTC)
Eva Hadashi - spam
Not meeting encyclopedic notability.
- en:Eva Hadashi
- ru:Ева Хадаши
- uk:Єва Хадаші
- pt:Eva Hadashi
- pl:Eva Hadashi
- ja:エバ・ハダシ
- hy:Եվա Խադաշի
- fa:اوا هاداشی
- es:Eva Hadashi
- Update: Now deleted on eswiki. Nacaru · Talk ✉ 19:52, 27 June 2022 (UTC)
- Update: Now deleted on eswiki. Nacaru
Single-purpose account
- Jenes (CA · xwiki · sc · COIBot report)
--Anibal Maysonet (talk) 13:08, 19 June 2022 (UTC)
aligarhup81.com
aligarhup81.com
legalresearchandanalysis.com
Shady website, link is being spammed by IP users across multiple projects; I have reverted on over 20 different wikis so far. –FlyingAce✈hello 07:37, 20 July 2022 (UTC)
- added another website related to this linkspam --Johannnes89 (talk) 08:05, 20 July 2022 (UTC)
- Looks like 2405:201:6822:5000:0:0:0:0/52 (CA · xwiki · sc · COIBot report) covers the most recent additions. –FlyingAce✈hello 14:58, 20 July 2022 (UTC)
- IP range is still spamming the first link ([13] – 49 different projects so far). –FlyingAce✈hello 15:13, 22 July 2022 (UTC)
- Looks like 2405:201:6822:5000:0:0:0:0/52 (CA · xwiki · sc · COIBot report) covers the most recent additions. –FlyingAce✈hello 14:58, 20 July 2022 (UTC)
Avisa Partners
Hi,
Mediapart, a french news outlet, published investigations about how Avisa Partners, a big competitive intelligence company, creates thousands of false sources on the web, and edit Wikipedia with UPE accounts; I helped the journalist for this last part, as explained on the fr-wp sysop noticeboard.
Most of the activity detected is on fr-wp, but there are at least two accounts who are socks, and very likely to be UPE used by Avisa Partners, who edited en-WP en:Draft:Alexandre Arnault (linked to a client of Avisa Partners, Bernard Arnault):
- Sedentaire (CA · xwiki · sc · COIBot report · en)
- Jaffredo (CA · xwiki · sc · COIBot report · en)
Both are blocked on fr-wp. Ping @Blablubbs, @MER-C. Best, — Jules* talk 13:18, 22 July 2022 (UTC)
- Nice find! I blocked both accounts on enwiki (they could probably use locks as well); I'll try to dig into this more when I have some more mental bandwidth available. Blablubbs (talk) 13:34, 22 July 2022 (UTC)
- I think SanSiro69200 (CA · xwiki · sc · COIBot report) is them too for heavy spamming on Xavier Niel in multiple languages. MER-C 10:40, 23 July 2022 (UTC)
- There seem to also be some additional candidates here, here and here. Blablubbs (talk) 11:16, 23 July 2022 (UTC)
- I reported the user on eswiki and nominated the article for deletion. Nacaru · Talk ✉ Nacaru · Talk ✉ 21:42, 24 July 2022 (UTC)
- Hi @Blablubbs. You can block Louise12B (CA · xwiki · sc · COIBot report) who created en:Steeve Khawly. See fr:Steeve Khawly history and fr:Discussion Projet:Antipub#ekonomico.fr.
- Long story short (not only for Blablubbs): Ekonomico.fr is a false info website (among dozen like this one) edited by Nativiz, a company tied to Avisa Partners (which is also one of its client, but there are other ties); in this particular case, I believe those articles about Steeve Khawly have been created for another client of Nativiz, not Avisa Partners (not their methods).
- You can also take a look to fr:Discussion Wikipédia:Observatoire des sources#Sites (d'infox) liés à Avisa Partners ou Nativiz, but to be fair, that's a lot to read and understand (moreover if you don't read french), and the investigation is not over. Anyway, I will let you know if I find other accounts/articles edited in other languages than French.
- Best, — Jules* talk 21:38, 30 July 2022 (UTC)
- Following up fr:Discussion Projet:Antipub#Faux sites d'info liés à Avisa Partners, Nativiz, etc. led to this edit that seemed worth checking on a Kazakh dissident article, which showed that user TerryClarke (CA · xwiki · sc · COIBot report · en) was blocked in a major sockpuppet investigation on en-wiki exactly a year ago. Could be a coincidence, but people involved in that investigation might have useful experience for the current investigation. Boud (talk) 00:07, 4 August 2022 (UTC)
- The EU Transparency Register has a list of links to old versions (like 'history' in mediawiki), from 2012 to 2022, at the top: probably rid=organisation_ID; sid=date_ID. This link I gave here is for 2 April 2020 and lists about 50 or so of Avisa Partners' clients, like Airbus, Aquafil, Atlantia, ..., Vesuvius. If someone wanted to do heavy-duty searches for past abuses of xx.Wikipedia, these lists could serve as a basis for systematic analysis.Here's just one tiny-scale random check by me: Cruiser2015 (CA · xwiki · sc · COIBot report · en)'s only contributions were these in 2015 on en:Lanxess (client paid 300-399,000 EUR to Avisa for EU lobbying in 2019) and were cleaned up by Jytdog (CA · xwiki · sc · COIBot report · en) in 2017 (the advertising remained in place for two years); again, could be a coincidence: we don't have a match in years, and the one-purpose-editor hasn't come back to do any new editing. Jytdog him/herself, who cleaned up the advocacy, is indefinitely blocked, with an explanation on his/her talk page: "So... I made a very bad error in judgement, and called a person who had added raw advocacy content to WP, who is clearly deeply passionate about the topic. ... In the past, I violated the OUTING policy by posting off-WP information here. That was also a terrible error in judgement." From browsing the talk page, it sounds like Jytdog's contributions were overwhelmingly positive, especially against COI advocacy, whether or not it's all Avisa related. I'm not contesting the decision; my point is that if someone wants to (and knows how to) do a really heavy duty systematic search, it might be worth it for helping to retain Wikipedians to feel comfortable in remaining active (e.g. make people like Jytdog feel better, e.g. return to active editing, since the 12 month moratorium to request lifting the block has passed). Boud (talk) 21:13, 4 August 2022 (UTC) (clarified Boud (talk) 11:41, 5 August 2022 (UTC))
Hi @Blablubbs, MER-C, Mathglot, and Boud:. Still on Avisa Partners/Nativiz, a lot of edits on en-wp from (about) 2010 to 2015: fr:Discussion Projet:Antipub#Michazzi, etc.
Starting point of investigation is Michazzi (CA · xwiki · sc · COIBot report · en · fr), who created fr:New York Forum with 3 links from false websites used by Nativiz/Avisa (lenergiedavancer.com, metropolitaine.fr, sharknews.fr) + a "fake" blog paper.
UPE users found from there:
- Laslo2191 (CA · xwiki · sc · COIBot report · en · fr)
- Polerie5 (CA · xwiki · sc · COIBot report · en · fr)
- 2eduarda2 (CA · xwiki · sc · COIBot report · en · fr)
- Hul8tin (CA · xwiki · sc · COIBot report · en · fr)
I also found several SPA (such as Office98 (CA · xwiki · sc · COIBot report)) I let you check. And I didn't dug into all en-wp articles (for ex. I didn't check en:Vivendi).
Best, — Jules* talk 20:19, 6 August 2022 (UTC)
Sofia Talouni
Does this look like spam to anyone? Have a look at this, this, this and this.... ─ The Aafī (talk) 20:15, 5 August 2022 (UTC)
