Jump to content

Wikipedia:Sockpuppet investigations/NadirAli: Difference between revisions

Add links
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Browse history interactively
← Previous editNext edit →
Content deleted Content added
VisualWikitext
→‎02 July 2018: closing notes
Line 5: Line 5:


===02 July 2018===
===02 July 2018===
{{SPI case status|checked}}
{{SPI case status|close}}


====Suspected sockpuppets====
====Suspected sockpuppets====
Line 141: Line 141:
*Behaviourally, JosephusofJerusalem is not NadirAli, and I see no good evidence that they are Faizan (with convincing evidence that they are ''not''). If you want to discuss other possible Faizan sockpuppets, do it in the Faizan case. Any further comments about other cases on this page will be removed.
*Behaviourally, JosephusofJerusalem is not NadirAli, and I see no good evidence that they are Faizan (with convincing evidence that they are ''not''). If you want to discuss other possible Faizan sockpuppets, do it in the Faizan case. Any further comments about other cases on this page will be removed.
*Unless someone (i.e. {{ul|NadirAli}}) gives me a very good reason not to proceed within the next few hours, I am intending to treat this with an indefinite block of all accounts, for which the first month of NadirAli's block will be arbitration enforcement, but I have to think about how to do that. [[User:Ivanvector|Ivanvector]] (<sup>[[User talk:Ivanvector|Talk]]</sup>/<sub>[[Special:Contributions/Ivanvector|Edits]]</sub>) 14:33, 10 July 2018 (UTC)
*Unless someone (i.e. {{ul|NadirAli}}) gives me a very good reason not to proceed within the next few hours, I am intending to treat this with an indefinite block of all accounts, for which the first month of NadirAli's block will be arbitration enforcement, but I have to think about how to do that. [[User:Ivanvector|Ivanvector]] (<sup>[[User talk:Ivanvector|Talk]]</sup>/<sub>[[Special:Contributions/Ivanvector|Edits]]</sub>) 14:33, 10 July 2018 (UTC)
::Okay, it took me a long time to think this through. I am proceeding with indefinitely blocking the two sock accounts. Since NadirAli's use of many IPs (though none reported here are recent enough to action on their own) and has evidently created sockpuppet accounts in violation of an Arbcom-imposed unblock condition, and it is their second block for violating that condition, NadirAli is blocked for three months as arbitration enforcement. I am not blocking NadirAli indefinitely: it seems to me that the Committee intended their remedy to address NadirAli's sockpuppetry specificially and so it would be unjust of me to impose an additional restriction for the same offence. However, Arbcom's own remedy prescribes a full site ban for a third offence, so let's all try to avoid that two months from now. [[User:Ivanvector|Ivanvector]] (<sup>[[User talk:Ivanvector|Talk]]</sup>/<sub>[[Special:Contributions/Ivanvector|Edits]]</sub>) 14:42, 23 July 2018 (UTC)
----<!--- All comments go ABOVE this line, please. -->
----<!--- All comments go ABOVE this line, please. -->

Revision as of 14:43, 23 July 2018

NadirAli

NadirAli (talk+ · tag · contribs · deleted contribs · logs · filter log · block user · spi block · block log · CA · CheckUser(log) · investigate · cuwiki)
Populated account categories: suspected


02 July 2018

– This SPI case is closed and will be archived shortly by an SPI clerk or checkuser.

Suspected sockpuppets

I am not sure how I should exactly describe this but Boxman88 started their editing on 29 June, only 4 hours before I had filed the earlier SPI.[1] Account was not editing for more than 9 months until 29 June.

Account was created in April 2015 for evading topic ban from South Asia on NadirAli, which was lifted during December 2015. Overlap is massive between these two accounts, their editing pattern is same, interests are same. Both make edits mostly without using any edit summary. In previous SPI, I had documented that NadirAli was socking massively ever since he was site banned. His IPs geolocate in Central Toronto, Canada, and Boxman88 also cites "books.google.ca",[2] just like Nadirali,[3] which shows he is in Canada.

  • Asks for "assistance" at Help desk saying:
I need assistance finding sources
I need assistance aligning a barnstar on my userpage
  • Uses similar phrases on talk pages:
"it will give the reader an idea of what is being discussed"[4]
" give readers a proper idea of what is being referred"[5]
  • Boxman88's edit on Desi[6] restores content of an old version, spreading criticism of the term. NadirAli dislikes this term too per his comment on Talk:Desi.[7]
  • Made same edits on Languages of the Indian subcontinent; Boxman88 added a number of "see" links concerning "Languages of (India, Nepal, Pakistan, Maldives, Sri Lanka)" countries,[8] NadirAli turns up later and adds a number of categories concerning Languages of same countries.[9]
  • Made same edits on Dari language, replacing "[[Urdu]], [[Hindi]]" with "[[Hindustani language|Hindustani]]" in the same section, without using any edit summary.[10][11] NadirAli later even edit warred over it.[12]
  • Makes similar edits on multiple pages, saying same thing: Boxman88: cant be if it's paramilitary (while removing "Pakistan Armed Forces" link from Pakistan Coast Guards) and non-paramilitary (while removing "Pakistan Army" link from Paramilitary forces of Pakistan)
  • Prefers changing "British Raj" to "British Indian Empire". [13][14]
  • Same way of creating articles. "I am still editing this"[17], "I'll work more on it later".[18]
  • Says "citeweb" instead of "cite web" in references.[21][22]
  • Spends excessive amount of time on adding external links in further reading section of articles: [25][26][27][28][29] (using same formatting)
Boxman88 adds external link on Human rights abuses in Sindh,[30][31] NadirAli turns up later and makes changes in the title of that same link,[32] then adds more external links himself.[33][34]
Boxman88: Thanks for warning me about the sanctions, I appreciate that. Thank you.
NadirAli: and thank you for warning me about the arbitrary sanctions, that was very useful.
  • Makes page moves by saying "more accurate" [38][39]
  • "to avoid confusion"[40][41]
  • Boxman88 adds content on Pakistan–Russia relations and NadirAli turns up the next day on this page and fills in bare references.[42][43]
  • Updates "Notable operations and controversial incidents" section on Pakistan Rangers, adding similar anti-rangers content: [44][45][46] Here, NadirAli used his sock[47] (same IP that I had reported here earlier) to restore content that was added by Boxman88 when it was removed.[48]


I can keep adding but this should be enough for CU and behavioral evaluation as sock puppetry seems to be too obvious here. My Lord (talk) 11:11, 2 July 2018 (UTC)[]

  • @Ivanvector: NadirAli was supposed to reply here before editing anymore given the importance of concerns raised here. I also don't see if he is going to show up though he has left a number of discussions hanging that would move only after he is blocked or absolved, latter is not possible. As mentioned below, the AE block is no longer a choice and as far as the behavioral issues goes, the final edit of NadirAli lacked the understanding of policies.[49] I believe we can move on now. My Lord (talk) 04:44, 13 July 2018 (UTC)[]

Comments by other users

Accused parties may also comment/discuss in this section below. See Defending yourself against claims.

  • The below accounts as well as Boxman88 are all NadirAli. There is no end of similarities with these accounts. Especially Boxman88, that was created on 20 April 2015 because NadirAli was going through a WP:AN report [50] that was started which was about NadirAli's topic ban violation. Boxman88 was created for evading that topic ban and NadirAli has abused many IPs to evade his topic ban. NadirAli and Boxman88 prefers to censor "India" and "Indian subcontinent" given his hatred towards the country and refers to the Indian subcontinent as "the subcontinent".[51][52]
NadirAli has been also engaging in WP:MEAT puppetry for a topic banned sock called Towns Hill, since NadirAli can't himself write a proper sentence in English, no matter how much he tries,[53][54][55][56][57] though he is capable of posting or restoring 10,000 - 32,000 bytes[58][59] of contents on India Pakistan conflict-related articles that he never edited before, all for Towns Hill.[60]
To summarise, NadirAli has always socked and helped others evading their bans. The Arbcom removal of siteban and topic ban was a total mistake and NadirAli is considered as the most disruptive editor of this whole area who has been brought to ARE a number of times [61][62] and even in present version of ARE he is only showing why he needs a CIR block, though now that socking has been confirmed, there should be no reason to wait. Furthermore, NadirAli is also banned from uploading images[63] and the account mentioned below has been abused to violate that restriction.[64] --RaviC (talk) 01:06, 9 July 2018 (UTC)[]

Boxman88 and NadirAli are indeed same. See these same edits: [65][66][67], [68][69]

A cursory look into the history of these articles heavily edited by NadirAli show that he has has abused the following IPs:

Lorstaking (talk) 11:51, 9 July 2018 (UTC)[]

Added on suggestion by RaviC:
-- Ivanvector (Talk/Edits) 13:48, 10 July 2018 (UTC)[]
@Lorstaking: Please also include 99.228.167.208 (talk · contribs · WHOIS) 99.234.72.95 (talk · contribs · WHOIS) 173.35.138.70 (talk · contribs · WHOIS) 99.241.114.251 (talk · contribs · WHOIS) 99.247.7.212 (talk · contribs · WHOIS) 99.247.57.5 (talk · contribs · WHOIS) HistoryPK14 (talk · contribs) HistoryPK15 (talk · contribs)
HistoryPK14 and HistoryPK15 were absolutely the same and were admitted to be operated by 99.247.57.5[72] who has made the same edits as NadirAli, including those outrageous edits where both claimed that Tarek Fateh was born in India. 99.247.57.5 added "PLACE OF BIRTH=[[Delhi]], [[India]]"[73] while NadirAli calls Fateh "an Indian born".[74] These all IPs and accounts match the behavior of NadirAli.
@Zzuuzz: I don't think NadirAli is willing to respond and the sockpuppetry has been so large in scale that it is completely inexcusable. --RaviC (talk) 19:25, 9 July 2018 (UTC)[]
I have had a couple of emails from User:NadirAli, which I'm not going to disclose. It'd be better if they respond here if anywhere. All I can say is that I haven't seen any indication of anyone lifting the restriction on logged-out editing. I would add that there's no guarantee that any of the IPs above are NadirAli, and also that some of the IPs listed above edited TEN years ago. -- zzuuzz (talk) 19:50, 9 July 2018 (UTC)[]
I see. These IPs match the behavior of NadirAli given the same edits and large volume of overlap. Failure to respond here itself speaks much about the sock puppetry that NadirAli lacks justification for it. --RaviC (talk) 20:10, 9 July 2018 (UTC)[]
  • If we are going to have a party, we need to include Towns Hill in it, whose current incarnation is, I suspect, JosephusOfJerusalem. NadirAli has been an amazingly disruptive editor, but he was all the more so due to his meat puppetry for Towns Hill. I filed a full report here, which unfortunately didn't get the attention it deserved. But there was one important clue that I missed there. In this comment, NadirAli claims "in contested pages the best approach according to our senior editor Fowler&fowler is to summarise the higher level histories". After digging, it turns out that Fowler&fowler talked of "higher level histories" to Faizan here, not to NadirAli. The Faizan account was being operated by Towns Hill at that time. NadirAli also claimed and "My main argument is that not all sources are equal, as Fowler&fowler has taught us". The "taught us" part probably referred to discussion at Talk:Kashmir, e.g., [75], where again Towns Hill and I were involved. No sign of NadirAli. So, what does he mean by "taught us"? I believe the comment came from Towns Hill, and NadirAli was simply cut-and-pasting.
There is much more direct evidence available now. An IP, whose identity was suppressed, edit-warred at Islam in Pakistan [76], [77], [78], wanting to remove 19,000 bytes of long-standing text. This same content was removed again [79] by NadirAli. Zzuuzz can confirm to us that this IP is connected to Towns Hill and JosephusOfJerusalem, and then we have a direct connection. When I complained to NadirAli about the removal, Josephus came to support him [80]. The words he used "After all policy is that there is a WP:BURDEN on the one who restores unverifiable content to find the sources for them" are pretty much the same as those of the suppressed IP "if you want unsourced content back its your responsibility to give sources."
At History of Balochistan, NadirAli added some 32,000 bytes of text [81], with excessively long quotations in citations. When it got reverted, again Josephus came to help him out. I am pretty sure that the 32,000 bytes of text came from Towns Hill/Josephus to start with, and NadirAli was merely executing. When a complaint was made at WP:Copyright problems, again Josephus went there to defend it.
There is a very long list of Towns Hill's meatpuppets, but NadirAli tops them all. -- Kautilya3 (talk) 23:08, 9 July 2018 (UTC)[]
The list is very long and NadirAli is the biggest one. Defending each other in a content dispute would be one thing but defending gross policy violation would be other. I had reviewed the diffs earlier, especially the copyrights problem report where Samee reached to safeguard NadirAli before JosephusOfJerusalem.[82] After these unnecessary comments were removed,[83] SheriffsInTown resorted to filibustering the talk page of Justlettersandnumbers,[84] to defend NadirAli. I also assume that Towns Hill abused the proxy[85] to defend NadirAli as uninvolved parties were no longer permitted to comment there.
It is difficult to treat the above to be an isolated incident. I recently raised my concern on the talk page of EdJohnston regarding this possible sock puppetry of Towns Hill[86] and guess what? Samee edited after inactivity of 23 days and jumped on to defend Faizan[87] and evidently he lacked any contributions to that talk page ever before.[88] I wonder who notified him of this? Why did he go to defend the severe policy violation of supposedly Towns Hill, just like he defended him on the copyright problem report?
I also remember that NadirAli was deeply offended[89][90][91] that Orientls asked TurboCop (who is probably Towns Hill[92][93]) to stop impersonating others or otherwise admit their identity.[94] RaviC (talk) 08:18, 10 July 2018 (UTC)[]
@Ivanvector: NadirAli has given up according to his latest edits[95][96][97], I wonder if he will join this page and contradict himself. A one month ARE block may have been a good decision only when the topic ban violation[98] by NadirAli was reported.[99] However, NadirAli has already rejected any topic ban violation,[100] just like he rejected any copyright violation earlier.[101] NadirAli further alleged other editors of vandalism and made disparaging comments about a good-faith contributor[102] and then filed a bogus AE report against him.[103] After observing enough of this disruption I had to ask Zzuuzz to look into this issue.[104]
There has been a large degree of disruption and clear display of inability to act collegially for more than 12 years now, I believe Arbcom should consider restoring the siteban since it was itself a wrong decision to unban a known ban evader without soliciting views of the community and without running a CheckUser that was always able to detect the rigorous abuse of multiple accounts and IPs. In addition to this, a community ban thread can be opened on WP:AN or WP:ANI. --RaviC (talk) 19:30, 10 July 2018 (UTC)[]

Clerk, CheckUser, and/or patrolling admin comments

The first obvious thing to say is that User:NadirAli has clearly been editing while logged out. This is to an extent you couldn't describe as accidental, and includes subjects such as the Kashmir dispute along with the Star Wars stuff. I understand that NadirAli is under a restriction which states that 'Nadirali may not edit from any Wikipedia account other than "Nadirali", nor edit anonymously, without the express prior permission of an arbitrator or a checkuser.'[105] If there is a defence for this result, now would be a good time for Nadirali to mention it.

The checkuser data for Boxman88 is extremely limited and doesn't provide a direct connection to NadirAli. However there are some other things to consider. There are some technical similarities which makes it possible. Additionally the following two accounts are confirmed to each other:

There is a clear overlap with the latter account in the history of Science fantasy. There is also extensive logged-out editing from this set, which again includes Pakistan-India along with the Star Wars stuff. -- zzuuzz (talk) 17:39, 8 July 2018 (UTC)[]

  •  Clerk notes: I tried to organize the list of IPs and look for range patterns, but the ranges are extremely broad and not suitable for rangeblocking. One is a /11, more than 2 million addresses. However it also includes one IP which is blocked indefinitely because of NadirAli using it while banned. While none of the IPs listed have edited more recently than August 2017, many of them have been used while NadirAli was banned, and others were used after NadirAli's ban was suspended with conditions including "no anonymous editing". It's clear that NadirAli has edited while logged out, in violation of their ban and then in violation of their unban conditions, with deceptive intent, repeatedly and over a very long period of time. The behavioural evidence that Boxman88 is NadirAli is also quite convincing.
  • Behaviourally, JosephusofJerusalem is not NadirAli, and I see no good evidence that they are Faizan (with convincing evidence that they are not). If you want to discuss other possible Faizan sockpuppets, do it in the Faizan case. Any further comments about other cases on this page will be removed.
  • Unless someone (i.e. NadirAli) gives me a very good reason not to proceed within the next few hours, I am intending to treat this with an indefinite block of all accounts, for which the first month of NadirAli's block will be arbitration enforcement, but I have to think about how to do that. Ivanvector (Talk/Edits) 14:33, 10 July 2018 (UTC)[]
Okay, it took me a long time to think this through. I am proceeding with indefinitely blocking the two sock accounts. Since NadirAli's use of many IPs (though none reported here are recent enough to action on their own) and has evidently created sockpuppet accounts in violation of an Arbcom-imposed unblock condition, and it is their second block for violating that condition, NadirAli is blocked for three months as arbitration enforcement. I am not blocking NadirAli indefinitely: it seems to me that the Committee intended their remedy to address NadirAli's sockpuppetry specificially and so it would be unjust of me to impose an additional restriction for the same offence. However, Arbcom's own remedy prescribes a full site ban for a third offence, so let's all try to avoid that two months from now. Ivanvector (Talk/Edits) 14:42, 23 July 2018 (UTC)[]
Retrieved from "https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Wikipedia:Sockpuppet_investigations/NadirAli&oldid=851623195"