Wikipedia:Requests for checkuser/Case/Evidence-based

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Evidence-based

request links: main • edit • links • history • watch
Filed: 23:51, 7 August 2008 (UTC)

Evidence-based (talk+ · tag · contribs · deleted contribs · logs · filter log · block user · block log · CA · CheckUser(log) · investigate · cuwiki)

Code letter C: Ongoing, serious pattern vandalism with many incidents.

E-B's massive sock farm was used, in part, to create "biographies" of anti-Zionist political activists which consisted of a short biographical sketch followed by an info-dump of vicious criticism from unreliable or questionable sources, such as Front Page Magazine. I noticed the article Hedy Epstein, which was in precisely this state, thanks largely to the contributions of the three-day-old account BatYisrael, and done my part to repair it. BatYisrael is now working to restore this material. She makes similar edits elsewhere. [1]

BatYisrael is clearly not a newbie account; in the first hours after her initial edit she shows familiarity with Wikipedia jargon, templates, categories, deletion procedures, reference tags, article formatting and structure, and policies. (Pick almost any contribution at random or try [2] [3] [4], etc.) Like the E-B farm, BatYisrael edits more or less exclusively on pages related to Israel, Zionism, Jews, and the Israeli-Palestinian conflict - usually all four.

Most of E-B's socks had user pages comprising a single sentence derived from their usernames; [5] [6] [7] [8] [9], etc. BatYisrael's user page is the same (Bat Yisrael means "daughter of Israel.")

Both BatYisrael and the E-B socks very often use the edit summary "adding sourced material," and tend to use "adding" or "added" as the first word of many of their edit summaries. Both BatYisrael and the E-B socks frequently describe an article's subject as previously unknown, but now suddenly noteworthy owing to a controversy. (Usually this means it's a WP:COATRACK.) Both BatYisrael and the E-B socks make an extremely high volume of typographical errors caused by striking adjacent letters on the keyboard.

E-B's proudest creation was A land without a people for a people without a land. It was also the article that exposed E-B's sockfarm due to overextension. While BatYisrael has not edited this article, she has edited the articles of both Diana Muir (http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Diana_Muir&diff=prev&oldid=230411906 diff], one of the main sources for its text, and Israel Zangwill which the article discusses significantly. BatYisrael, indeed, has made minor corrections to the paragraph of Zangwill's article that deals with the "without a people" quote. E-B sock Morningside Clio had edited this same paragraph, and created the Diana Muir article.

<eleland/talkedits> 22:51, 7 August 2008 (UTC)[reply]

There has been some confusion over this matter; hopefully this should clarify the CheckUser evidence.
Regards, Anthøny 15:18, 14 August 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Evidence-based

request links: main • edit • links • history • watch
Filed: 19:28, 12 April 2008 (UTC)


This is a difficult case, so please bear with me. I'm also a little puzzled about the exact approach to take.

User:American Clio, who is probably the former User:Morningside Clio, regularly creates and edits biographies dealing with journalists and academics who are usually notable for their relationship to the Israel-Palestine conflict, which can be problematic as noted here and here. The other accounts, most formed recently except for the eponymous one, have an identical pattern of creations. Most of their other edits have focused on editing articles of interest to obscure internecine struggles in the world of I/P propaganda.

All the above accounts share identical editing patterns, focusing on such articles to a large degree, starting them with identical edit comments and wording, usually two or three edits. The new pages are all identical in structure, with a paragraph stating institutional affiliation and a paragraph about a controversial review or some such that has received a little discussion in I/P dispute circles. Their user pages also show an interesting pattern of similarity. Three of the accounts started editing intensively in the past six weeks, after User:American Clio's edits became increasingly scrutinized.

In the first linked AfD, a biography of a marginally noted living person contained votes from three of the accounts. Other places where the accounts have affected consensus are the other linked AfD, though I cannot say that there their comments were instrumental (though one !voted twice in error?) and on Talk:A land without a people for a people without a land and Talk:Pallywood.

I'm asking for a checkuser here because the possible AfD votestacking mandates it. I'm also doing so because I am concerned on two levels. Although these editors are uniformly -refreshingly!- polite and collegial, even when their articles are serially nominated for deletion, this is a particularly contentious area, and consensus is so difficult to find sometimes that this sort of behaviour, if confirmed, greatly hampers the search for it. Also, more worryingly, if the checkuser comes back negative, I will have to take this to the community, as I am convinced the patterns in these edits indicate some sort of co-ordination off-wiki, that may or may not be related to this. The articles being edited are sourced to secondary or dubious sources which are also collated and dissipated primarily through the organisation discussed in the wikilink.

I hope that's enough for the checkusers to accept; I've held on for a couple of days hoping to avoid it. I understand if it is considered inadequate for a check, I just don't have the patience, the time or the skill yet to trawl more closely through the accounts. I also think I've left out a few, I can't remember where I wrote the account names down. Relata refero (disp.) 19:28, 12 April 2008 (UTC)[reply]

 Confirmed;

  1. Charles1630 (talk · contribs)
  2. Yankee Scribe (talk · contribs)
  3. DP116 (talk · contribs)
  4. 86Journal (talk · contribs)
  5. Prag22 (talk · contribs)
  6. Chicago213 (talk · contribs)
  7. Maimo67 (talk · contribs)
  8. Thomas Babbington (talk · contribs)
  9. Whig historian (talk · contribs)
  10. Roger Warren (talk · contribs)
  11. CJ36 (talk · contribs)
  12. Hen66 (talk · contribs)
  13. JL88 (talk · contribs)
  14. CPS22 (talk · contribs)
  15. George Bancroft (talk · contribs)
  16. Cathawk (talk · contribs)
  17. MercyOtis (talk · contribs)
  18. Morningside Clio (talk · contribs)
  19. American Clio (talk · contribs)
  20. Thomas Bewick (talk · contribs)
  21. Evidence-based (talk · contribs)
  22. Lydia21 (talk · contribs)
  23. Athena's daughter (talk · contribs)
  24. Clarity Trustworthy (talk · contribs)
  25. Post-modern truthsquad (talk · contribs)
  26. Hannah More (talk · contribs)
  27. Susan Sowerby (talk · contribs)
  28. Anne Merryton (talk · contribs)
  29. Aphra Behn (talk · contribs)

-- Thatcher 23:30, 15 April 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Also,

  1. Cathawk (talk · contribs)
  2. Barnard bear (talk · contribs)
  3. FTU (talk · contribs)
  4. JHM110 (talk · contribs)

-- Thatcher 00:17, 16 April 2008 (UTC)[reply]

 Clerk note: I have blocked and tagged all accounts - Anthøny 13:45, 17 April 2008 (UTC)[reply]


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