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Jagged 85

Jagged 85 (talk+ · tag · contribs · deleted contribs · logs · filter log · block user · spi block · block log · CA · CheckUser(log) · investigate · cuwiki)
18 June 2010[edit]
Suspected sockpuppets [edit]
Evidence submitted by David J Wilson [edit]

Editor Jagged 85 was recently the subject of an RfC/U in which he accepted that he had been editing in an unacceptable manner at Wikipedia for several years. Other editors had characterised this as a systematic misrepresentation of sources to exaggerate the achievements of non-western scholars in general, and Muslim scholars in particular, in a huge number of articles.

As soon as the RfC/U was opened Jagged 85 almost entirely stopped editing via his account, saying, on his talk page, that "I'm in the middle of an RFC now, so I don't think it's a good idea for me to be editing articles right now". But within five hours of the RfC/U being opened, he began to edit from the IP address 93.97.55.135 and, among other things, began restoring some of his contributions to Wikipedia that had been removed by other editors. Jagged 85 has now admitted that this is his IP address and that many of these edits were his, including at least one which violated an agreement that he had undertaken to abide by at the conclusion of his RFC/U.

On June 11th Amalthea blocked the IP address as an apparently abusive sock puppet of Jagged 85 (see discussions here and here). Then on the very next day after having his IP blocked, he apparently began to edit the Forced Conversion page (again) but this time from an open proxy, 193.164.132.6, subsequently blocked by Zzuuzz as a proxy (hidemyipaddress.org). Jagged 85 appears to have also admitted that these edits were again his.

Abusive nature of edits

The following edits from the IP addresses 93.97.55.135 and 193.164.132.6 were made after the conclusion of Jagged 85's RFC/U:

Whichever of these Jagged 85 was responsible for (he has only explicitly admitted to the first, but has not so far denied making any of the others) constitute surreptitious contributions to Wikipedia on topics relating to Islamic civilisation (Rashidun Caliphate and Forced conversion) and to the history of science (Reciprocating engine#Historyand History of calculus) and which are therefore contrary to his agreement at the conclusion of his RfC/U on April 27th not to edit such articles. In all four cases, the re-inserted information had been disputed as inaccurate and removed by other editors. Therefore any of those edits which Jagged 85 was responsible for clearly constitute an abuse of the anonymity provided by the IP addresses. Resorting to the proxy 193.164.132.6 to continue editing anonymously after his own IP address was blocked is a further sign of abuse.

Reason for requesting checkuser evidence

Five days after another editor asked Jagged 85 on his talk page whether he was responsible for edits from the IP address 93.97.55.135, and 4 days after I began preparing a case for a sock-puppet investigation, the latter eventually admitted that "a sizeable portion" of the edits from that IP address had been his. In the ensuing discussion he wrote the following:

"I've had a look at David Wilson's SPI draft and noticed that one user thinks I'm using other IP addresses. If that were the case, then there would have been other IP addresses with "Jagged-like" behaviour as well, but the fact is that only one IP exhibits such behaviour and that's the one I've admitted to using. The only possible way for me to use other IP addresses is through proxy servers, which can easily be detected and banned. In other words, there is no possible way for me to use any other IP address unless I change my ISP, which I have no intention of doing as I'm more than happy with my current ISP ... "

which appeared to other editors reading it to imply (as it does to me) that he was claiming not to have used any other IP addresses (including proxies) to edit anonymously. After it was later discovered that he seemed to have also been editing from the proxy IP address 193.164.132.6, he seemed to admit that he had in fact been doing so, but vehemently denied that anything he had written had implied otherwise, or that he had been editing from any other accounts or IP addresses. These denials do not appear to me to be credible. I am therefore requesting for a checkuser to search for sleeper accounts that Jagged 85 might have established, and any other IP addresses that he might have been using to edit anonymously, especially as he now appears to have been editing via a proxy.

Jagged 85 has expressed a strong desire to avoid checkuser for privacy reasons. This fear seems to be misplaced, especially if he has edited only from his account and the two IP addresses which he has seemingly admitted to. Nevertheless, administrators who become involved with the case need to be made aware of it.
David Wilson (talk · cont) 20:28, 18 June 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Comments by accused parties [edit]

See Defending yourself against claims.

I have already expressed all I wanted to say on this issue at my user talk page: User talk:Jagged 85#Hello. In summary, I agree that what I've sone is unacceptable. I don't wish to make excuses to justify my behaviour, other than that I was unable to handle the pressure of each of my edits being under scrutiny, thus resorted to hiding behind an IP. However, I think it's important to point out that I have never abused the IP for any persistent disruptive editing or vandalism, as you can see from the list of edits made using that IP. In addition, contrary to the claims of several users, I am not hiding behind any other IP, but had only been using the static IP 93.97.55.135 (now blocked for six months) and had attempted to use the proxy 193.164.132.6 (immediately blocked for five years); after my attempt at using a proxy had failed, it would be pointless for me to try using another proxy (as it would also get detected and blocked immediately). As such, if a CheckUser investigation was to be carried out, I am absolutely confident you will not find any other IP or account, thus it would not be worth the effort in my view. However, if others still believe my testimony is untrustworthy and demand a CheckUser investigation, then my only request is that I do not want any personal information being revealed. Other than that, I am willing to accept any harsh punishment for hiding behind an IP. Regards, Jagged 85 (talk) 14:59, 19 June 2010 (UTC)[reply]

My response to User:Athenean is that all of his claims are false and a CheckUser investigation would only confirm it. The only thing that is of concern to me is whether any personal details will be revealed. I'm clearly not "experienced enough" to know how much information the CheckUser tool can obtain, since I have obviously not been subjected to any SPI investigation in the past. If all it does is obtain IP addresses, then it's not a problem, but how am I supposed to know what other information it can obtain? If my personal identity were to come out into the open, how am I not supposed to worry about that? This might not be a big deal to you, but it is a big deal to me. Regards, Jagged 85 (talk) 15:24, 19 June 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Comments by other users [edit]
Reciprocating machines

I am the editor who originally introduced the material on reciprocating engines in Roman times. This material has also been introduced by me in a number of other articles such as Hierapolis sawmill, crank (mechanism), crankshaft and connecting rod where it has been unchallenged by other editors save Jagged 85 to this day. The last edit by 93.97.55.135, continues Jagged 85's pattern of inserting claims that are not supported by the cited source and violates the agreement to avoid such edits. Gun Powder Ma (talk) 23:22, 18 June 2010 (UTC)[reply]


Editing profile

There is a striking similarity between the editing profile of IP 93.97.55.135 and that of Jagged 85. We need to confirm whether this similarity indicates a single editor. --SteveMcCluskey (talk) 20:47, 18 June 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Proxies

I haven't been involved in this discussion, but stumbled across the 193.164.132.6 IP while following up on an unrelated issue at Forced conversion. Jagged 85 has since admitted that this is also him. It is most troubling that he's resorting to using sock IPs, including an apparent proxy, especially light of his previous comments about only using the one IP. As I've said I think it's quite understandable that he'd be reluctant to admit to doing something like this - editors have pride - so I don't think he should be subjected to additional lashing just for that. But we do need to determine what the extent of this is.--Cúchullain t/c 22:08, 18 June 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Necessary?

Since Jagged 85 has already admitted to editing under IP 93.97.55.135, I don't think the SPI is necessary based on that alone. Jagged 85 has already admitted to editing under a proxy and I believe 193.164.132.6 was the one he admitted to using, in which case there's no reason for that one either. Unless an IP which Jagged 85 hasn't admitted to is produced, the checkuser should be rejected to protect Jagged 85's privacy. Thinking about this more, the CU could be useful if there's a search on users to see if any have IP(s) matching the IP addresses underlying Jagged 85's account. II | (t - c) 21:12, 18 June 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Privacy

Jagged's concerns about his privacy are suspect. The only one who violated his privacy is himself, by editing from his IP. This SPI in any case will not violate his privacy, as the CU will not share any private info with anyone else. Jagged is moreover experienced enough to know that, so there must be ulterior motives to his insistence (bordering on desperation) on avoiding an SPI. I can only guess that a CU would uncover sleeper accounts, which, considering his past sockpuppetry and extreme tendentiousness are highly likely. This does not appear to be someone who quits easily. Considering the extensive damage he has done to this encyclopedia and the vast area of articles he edits, sleeper accounts would be particularly disruptive and it is very important that they be discovered. Jagged's disingenuous claims about privacy should not stand in the way of this. Athenean (talk) 21:18, 18 June 2010 (UTC)[reply]

SPI is necessary

I have followed the issues regarding Jagged 85's editing from a distance for several weeks and fully support an SPI because it has been established (see the RfC/U, its evidence, and the user's talk page) that Jagged has injected misleading and incorrect statements into many articles, often with a reference that did not support the claim. Jagged has an astonishing enthusiasm for this kind of editing (over 63,000 article edits) and has been very slow to react to questions regarding accuracy. The SPI is needed to establish whether an attempt has been made to avoid scrutiny of edits, or to make it appear that more than one editor supported a particular statement. Johnuniq (talk) 04:02, 19 June 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Clerk, patrolling admin and checkuser comments [edit]
Checkuser request – code letter: F (Other reason )
Current status – Declined, the reason can be found below.    Requested by David Wilson (talk · cont) 13:20, 12 June 2010 (UTC) [reply]

 Clerk declined – In general, checkusers do not comment on whether IPs are related to accounts. –MuZemike 06:13, 19 June 2010 (UTC)[reply]

In general, yes. In light of the severe problems pointed out in the RfC/U, the apparent disregard of the RfC/U conclusions, the apparent continuation of the same problematic edits as an IP in avoidance of scrutiny, the strong behavioral evidence that ties account and IP together, and the fact that the IP locates to the same metropolitan area the user has already declared himself in, the breach of privacy would have been both warranted and limited.[1]

But it's moot now since Jagged 85 has acknowledged that (most, assume all) edits by the two IPs mentioned above were made by him. CU would not publicly reveal anything else, so there is nothing that needs to be done here unless there is behavioral evidence for further IPs or accounts.
Blocks are not made for punishment. At this point, I do not see that a block of the Jagged 85 account would prevent any further damage to the encyclopedia. If anyone disagrees and thinks that further consequences are needed then it should go either through ANI or another RfCU.

I am disappointed by this episode. The admitting and accepting words written in the RfCU, while anonymously making the same kind of problematic edits in parallel. The switch to an open proxy once the original IP was blocked to continue the same POV pushing. I see no evidence that Jagged 85 ever meant what he conceded in the RfCU.

I also note that any further inappropriate use of multiple accounts will very likely result in an indefinite block or effective ban.

Amalthea 08:38, 21 June 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Closing this, there's nothing more to do here. If there are further IPs or accounts under suspicion feel free to reopen it. Amalthea 12:39, 27 June 2010 (UTC)[reply]


Notes
  1. ^ "Users who engage in problematic conduct to the point that requests for administrative action or blocking are raised and considered valid for CheckUser usage, and where CheckUser then determines that the user probably has engaged in such conduct, must expect that the protection of the project is given a higher priority than the protection of those who knowingly breach its policies on editorial conduct, if the two conflict or there is a problematic editing history." (WP:CHK).
This case has been marked as closed. It has been archived automatically.
02 June 2014[edit]
Suspected sockpuppets


This was brought to my attention by other editors at Wikipedia_talk:Requests_for_comment/Jagged_85#May_2014_Anon_IP_edits_to_Muslim_history_of_science_articles. I started off with an open mind thinking that maybe this was someone else who had a pro-Muslim bias. But after checking a few edits I came to the conclusion it had Jagged_85 written all over it. 86.186.44.113 has no history before 20th May, and then makes 30 substantial edits in ten hours. I simply don't know any other editor who has that level of stamina (or carelessness). This edit: [1] adds five (!) references to the opening sentence of the lead. Adding references is unusual for an IP; adding five references to the lead is very much Jagged's style. This substantial edit to History of Medicine: [2] replaces:

practices inherited from the ancient masters were improved and then systematized in Rogerius's The Practice of Surgery. Universities began systematic training of physicians around the years 1220 in Italy

with the text:

medical and surgical practices were improved in medieval Islamic medicine and then systematized in Avicenna's The Canon of Medicine and Rogerius's The Practice of Surgery. Bimaristan medical schools began systematic training of physicians in the Middle East, followed by universities around the years 1220 in Italy.

Anyone who's familiar with Jagged_85's style will recognise that kind of edit. This edit: [3] by 86.157.99.120 is also typical Jagged_85, note large changes close to what Jagged_85's previous version of the article, elimination of the sentence "Critical contemporary reviews of Watson's hypothesis apart", etc. 86.157.103.109 starts editing Arab_Agricultural_Revolution the day after 99.120 and makes edits like this: [4], which adds a large chunk with text like: "Similar changes occurred in the Egyptian city of Fayyum, which, by the early 13th century, had a large-scale hydraulic system with local control of water supply and management. This was, according to historians Yossef Rapoport and Ido Shahar, unique to the medieval Islamic period and not present there in ancient times, much like the hydraulic system found in medieval Islamic Spain", which gives a reference with no support for most of the claims (again, typical Jagged_85). I'm less certain about 87.81.139.93 (I wasn't aware Jagged_85 had such an interest in martial arts), however compare: [5] and [6], which removed Jagged_85's version. The edits to Hospital, Water wheel and Watermill by 139.193 are all in Jagged_85's areas of interest. Merlinme (talk) 17:36, 2 June 2014 (UTC)[reply]

I realise this may not be as obvious to uninvolved editors as it is to those of us who have spent months trying to clean up after Jagged_85. Some more evidence:
86.157.103.109 compare: [7] by Jagged_85 with [8] by 86.157.103.109. The overall tone is very similar; the sentence "The Muslims similarly brought the technological complex to Islamic Spain and applied it to the unique regional context of that region" is identical.
87.81.139.93 Comparison of edits to Zosimos of Panopolis (see Johnuniq's evidence below) by Jagged_85 and 87.81.139.93 should be clear.
86.157.99.120 I believe Jagged_85 created Arab Agricultural Revolution. Note how 86.157.103.109 and 86.157.99.120 make substantial edits one day apart to this mildly obscure article. Compare Jagged_85's creation of the article: [9] with this edit: [10] by 86.157.99.120. This is classic Jagged_85; again, adding lengthy quotes with a pro-Muslim bias, moving criticisms of the Watson thesis out of the lead, and the frankly outrageous use of a source to mean almost the exact opposite of what the source meant. Decker was attacking Watson's thesis! In particular, the entire paper is about how most of the crops Watson advanced as being introduced by the Arabs in an agricultural revolution were in fact known in Europe centuries before the Islamic period. After 86.157.99.120 has finished, Decker is being used in the lead not to criticise Watson's thesis, but to promote the view that the agricultural revolution thesis has gained widespread acceptance! This is exactly what Jagged_85 did all the time; that was why he was banned.
86.186.44.113 Another of Jagged_85's pet projects is the supremacy of medieval Islamic medicine. See: [11]. Note POV pushing to promote medieval Islamic medicine. The mildly obscure term Bimaristan (another favourite of Jagged_85) is described as a medical school and pre-dates Italian universities. Note promotion of Avicenna as the "father of medicine" (one of Jagged_85's favourite phrases is "father of"). Compare this edit: [12] where Jagged_85 added Bimaristan, and describes Avicenna as "the father of modern medicine".--Merlinme (talk) 16:59, 3 June 2014 (UTC)[reply]
Comments by other users[edit]

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

  • WP:Jagged 85 cleanup explains that this case involves an extreme abuse of Wikipedia by a very prolific editor who severely misused hard-to-access sources by misrepresenting what the source asserted, quoting out of context, and inventing claims that the source did not make. It is important that their return be fully examined. I agree that the IPs are Jagged 85, and some details at this ANI permalink show a series of edits by Jagged 85 at Zosimos of Panopolis which change "was a Greek alchemist" (starting in August 2008) to "was an Egyptian or Greek" in this March 2010 edit by Jagged 85. That wording, and the four references, are almost identical with this 7 May 2014 edit by 87.81.139.93. Johnuniq (talk) 00:43, 3 June 2014 (UTC)[reply]
  • Years ago (from 2007 to 2010) I had been involved in trying to get Jagged 85 to engage in constructive editing to a range of history of science articles. As mentioned above, his edits relating to the history of Islamic science often misinterpreted the meaning and intent of the sources he cited. The plausibility of his edits often concealed their tendentious nature. Jagged 85, however, is not Wikipedia's only advocate for a major role for Islam in the history of science. In this context I strongly recommend a formal CheckUser to confirm, to the extent possible, that the recent anon edits are in fact by Jagged 85. Since Jagged 85 was banned for causing so much serious damage to Wikipedia in the past, a CheckUser seems appropriate to prevent his return and further disruption and bad faith editing. --SteveMcCluskey (talk) 17:49, 3 June 2014 (UTC)[reply]
Clerk, CheckUser, and/or patrolling admin comments[edit]
  • Even when this case was made, the IPs are block stale, meaning its pointless to block them, therefore I will just leave this one for the record. -- DQ (ʞlɐʇ) 03:29, 18 June 2014 (UTC)[reply]
18 January 2015[edit]
Suspected sockpuppets


User has been making same misuse of sources on various game-related articles ([13], [14], [15], [16]) and they appear to be in the same geographical location (London, England; Jagged 85 says that his location is London). Lord Sjones23 (talk - contributions) 23:50, 18 January 2015 (UTC)[reply]

Comments by other users[edit]

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

  • I noticed Jagged's apparent return to wikipedia in August or September of last year when numerous items on my watchlist suddenly began receiving large amounts of rapid-fire edits by a whole host of IPs in a similar range (the ones listed above may not be all of them). Jagged was banned because on numerous occasions he added sourced material to articles that was flat out wrong and contradicted by -- or not even mentioned in -- the source he provided. After the first time he did this in Muslim history-related articles, an RFC let him off if he promised to help clean up the mess and never engage in that behavior again. He then turned to video game history articles and caused the same mess, hence the permanent ban. The volume of edits, the type of article (video games, with a heavy focus on Japanese products) edited by these anons, and the several gaffes and source misreadings I have already caught in said edits over the past few months, pretty clearly identifies these IPs as puppets for Jagged. Due to the volume of edits and his dubious reading of sources, continued editing by Jagged is incredibly harmful to Wikipedia because it is nearly impossible to fact check every edit he makes and you never know which sourced additions he adds are flat out wrong. Indrian (talk) 00:14, 19 January 2015 (UTC)[reply]
  • Yeah that looks like Jagged85. Note that Jagged_85 is also believed to have been editing editing Muslim history articles using IP sock puppets in the last few months. There are a lot of dubious computer games edits in that list, but I thought this was a particularly good example. (References are shown using the URL or the reference written out in full.)
The demo featured polygon-based 3D renderings of characters from Final Fantasy VI in a real time battle.http://www.rpgamer.com/games/ff/affw/ffsgi.html The demo was unveiled in August 1995 at the SIGGRAPH show, where many incorrectly assumed it to be for the Nintendo 64.("Final Fantasy VII", Computer and Video Games (174), May 1996: 106–11"). This experiment led the development team to integrate these design mechanics into Final Fantasy VII. However, as a result of the high quantity of memory storage required to implement the motion data, only the CD-ROM format would suit the project's needs.http://www.edge-online.com/features/making-final-fantasy-vii/ Nintendo, for whom Square had developed previous titles in the Final Fantasy series, had decided to continue to use cartridges for its upcoming Nintendo 64 console. This eventually led to a dispute that resulted in Square ending its relationship with Nintendo. Instead, they announced on January 12, 1996 that they would be developing Final Fantasy VII exclusively for Sony's PlayStation console.http://www.lostlevels.org/200510/
It's typical Jagged85, apparently reasonably well-written and referenced material, but if you dig into it:
  1. Love of buzz words which Jagged doesn't necessarily seem to understand and which aren't in the references. "polygon-based 3D renderings" is not in citation given. All the reference says is "3-D graphics demo".
  2. A lot of words which aren't particularly helpful (because they obscure what's important) and are occasionally misleading. "This experiment led the development team to integrate these design mechanics into Final Fantasy VII." What Jagged means is: "they used 3d graphics in Final Fantasy VII", which we knew anyway.
  3. Claims which are not in citation given. "the high quantity of memory storage required to implement the motion data, only the CD-ROM format would suit the project's needs" is not in citation given. "Motion data" is a rather vague phrase, but I assume what is meant is that the graphics were so complicated that they needed CD ROM amounts of data. This would be surprising, because graphics typically require lots of CPU and some dedicated video RAM, but they don't typically require lots of storage memory. Apart from anything else, storage memory such as on hard disk is slow to access, and typically you want to draw graphics quickly. CD ROM access is even slower than hard disk access. What the reference actually says is that "only CD media was able to facilitate more than 40 minutes of FMV movies". In other words, it's not the graphics which you see when you're moving around your character around on the screen which was the problem, it was the movies; it was the cut-scenes, where you watch the screen while a movie plays which advances the plot in some way, which needed all that data storage. That makes much more sense, because movies require a lot of data storage, and you can store that data fine on CD-ROM. It may be a little slow to load the data initially as the disk spins up, but that is not generally considered a problem if it takes seconds to load up minutes of movie.
  4. Careless referencing style. As far as I can tell, a lot of the detail which is attributed to the "SGI demo" reference is actually from the "Lost levels" reference.
  5. Just the sheer quantity of material added is unusual, making it very hard to check all the references, which are frequently in hard-to-check sources, e.g. 20 year old computer games magazines.
I think the previous Muslim history sock puppet investigation was closed because of stale IP addresses, so there may be no formal action that can be taken. However it's good that people are alerted that Jagged_85 is back and doing as much damage as ever. The main solution is probably to revert the material so that Jagged_85 recognises that editing anonymously is a waste of time. --Merlinme (talk) 10:52, 19 January 2015 (UTC)[reply]
Clerk, CheckUser, and/or patrolling admin comments[edit]

Any input, SPI? :) Jagged 85 really was a detrimental editor to the project, with all sorts of false information added, and I can see some similarities in edit styles. I think this is worth looking into. Sergecross73 msg me 16:16, 28 January 2015 (UTC)[reply]

  •  Clerk note: None of the IPs listed have been active in 2015, except 86.169.107.8 which has been inactive for 10 days. Blocking inactive IPs is superfluous. If the edits themselves are problamtic, blocking the IPs as they come might be your best option, especially since the range seems kind of large for the purposes of a rangeblock. ☺ · Salvidrim! · ✉ 16:24, 28 January 2015 (UTC)[reply]
  • I've  IP blocked the latest active (86.176.251.0), but as I said, unless looking into a rangeblock reveals minimal collateral, there might be little to do outside of reverting & short-term blocking the IPs are they come, especially since the article targets are too varied for SPP. ☺ · Salvidrim! · ✉ 16:26, 28 January 2015 (UTC)[reply]
    • That's fine. We really just wanted a determination that Jagged is, in fact, engaged in sock puppetry so that it is easier to respond to situations as they pop up without too much fuss. Once we establish a pattern of behavior, its much easier to take care of business using WP:DUCK. Indrian (talk) 16:35, 28 January 2015 (UTC)[reply]
26 May 2015[edit]
Suspected sockpuppets

Banned user Jagged 85 has a history of editing with IPs, including incidents in January 2015. Recently, IPs have been making a large number of problematic edits to Electric blues,[17] Blues rock,[18] Rock music,[19], Origins of rock and roll,[20] and related articles. They add original research, synthesis, copyvio or closely paraphrased material, etc. in an attempt to push barely sustainable minority or fringe views. Their edits are not supported by RS, which often include only a bare url link to a book or blog. In many cases, these IP edits are identical or similar to those by Jagged 85 to the same articles in 2012, such as Origins of rock and roll,[21] Electric blues,[22] Rock music,[23] , etc. They appear to be in the same geographical location (London, England; Jagged 85 says that his location is London). Ojorojo (talk) 22:08, 26 May 2015 (UTC)[reply]

Comments by other users[edit]

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

Even if those disposable IP addresses get banned, I'd believe that the circumstances mightn't alter. -- ♕JenniTheEmpress  16:48, 28 May 2015 (UTC)[reply]

Clerk, CheckUser, and/or patrolling admin comments[edit]
  •  Clerk note: @Ojorojo: Please, provide diffs of edits made by IPs and diffs of edits made by the master (or previous socks) to illustrate their similarity. Vanjagenije (talk) 21:55, 29 May 2015 (UTC)[reply]
User is adding "distortion"-related descriptions to a large number of blues music and artists articles, in an attempt to conflate electric blues and heavy metal. This is WP:UNDUE and doesn't follow Wikipedia:Neutral point of view.

—Ojorojo (talk) 19:46, 2 June 2015 (UTC)[reply]

  •  Clerk note: Yes, I agree, that's him. But, none of these IPs have been active in the last 10 days or so. It seams that they are of the same range as those previously mentioned in January. Maybe a rangeblock can help? Vanjagenije (talk) 20:28, 2 June 2015 (UTC)[reply]
  • information Administrator note Range is enormous - 4 million addresses. I'm not sure a rangeblock would do more good than harm. Someguy1221 (talk) 04:34, 4 June 2015 (UTC)[reply]
  • In that case, I have to close this with no action. Vanjagenije (talk) 08:11, 4 June 2015 (UTC)[reply]

18 May 2020[edit]

Suspected sockpuppets[edit]


For those who are not aware, User:Jagged_85 was a user who was banned "for long-term and systematic misrepresentation of sources, despite a previous RFC/U on the same problem". Their initial area of interest was Islamic medieval history and the history of science. They wrote thousands of edits of plausible sounding text which was apparently backed up by references. However, when other editors checked the references, the sources were frequently being misrepresented. The normal problem was that Jagged_85 was determined to say that medieval Islamic thinker X was the father/ founder/ first to do Z, ignoring any evidence to the contrary. A particular favoured area was that the Islamic world had invented something when there were earlier examples in the Greek or Roman world. The sources quoted were sometimes from slightly odd sources, or extremely difficult to obtain sources.
Following a request for comment, Jagged_85 agreed to stop editing Islamic history articles. They started editing Computer games related articles instead. They were soon back to misrepresenting sources however. They tended to inflate sales figures for their favoured games, and go back to claiming game X was the first to do Z, when game X was an example of doing Z (not the first example). Frequently the apparently referenced edits displayed a misunderstanding of the technology described in the sources, using 'buzz words' inappropriately to make the subject sound more exciting and groundbreaking. It is also hard to overestimate the sheer scale of the edits. Jagged_85 made 87,237 edits between 2005 and 2012, roughly 11,000 edits a year. The vast majority of those edits were apparently referenced edits to articles, which obviously put a huge burden on anyone trying to check text and references added by Jagged_85. Following the apparent inability of Jagged_85 to restrain their misuse of sources, they were banned.
I first became aware of Maestro2016 because user DMKR2005 emailed me. This user had become aware of the Jagged_85 saga, and had some suspicions about Maestro2016, largely because of edits Maestro2016 made at the MOSFET page. They asked me if I had any advice. I had a look at Maestro2016's edit history, and what I saw concerned me.

  1. Maestro2016 appears to have emerged as a fully formed editor in 2016. They have a blank user page. They initially seemed to make fairly unobjectionable edits on pop music etc.
  2. I searched through Maestro2016's contributions for something which I could potentially identify based on Jagged_85's style. Jagged_85 had some interest in pop music, see, for example,[38] but I am most familiar with Jagged's edits on Islamic history, and to a lesser extent on computer games history. I found this edit: [39] Jagged_85 had some interest in the history India, see: [40] I think it's important to emphasise that I did not exhaustively attempt to check all of Maestro2016's contributions. If this is the first example I found, it is highly likely that there are far worse examples in Maestro2016's edit history. I simply looked for the first significant referenced edit in something which could be considered broadly related to history, particularly Islamic history. The first significant edit I found on history in Maestro2016's edit history had the following problems with sources: Article says: "Workers in the textile industry, for example, earned more in Bengal and Mysore than they did in Britain, while agricultural labour in Britain had to work longer hours to earn the same amount as in Mysore." Reference says: "earnings were comparable" for Bengal and Britain, doesn't say anything about Mysore, doesn't say anything about hours. Article says: "per-capita agricultural output and standards of consumption in 17th-century Mughal India was higher than in 17th-century Europe and early 20th-century British India." Reference says per capita output was "certainly not lower and probably higher than contemporary European."
  3. I then looked for something which could be compared to Jagged_85's edits in computer games. The first thing I found was this: [41] The film Hero is added using a couple of references for the worldwide gross. How the worldwide gross is calculated is fascinating however. The edit references Box Office Mojo, which is considered a Reliable Source for box office data (see, for example, [42]). However the figures this edit adds are not the figures Box Office Mojo uses for worldwide gross. The figures this edit uses are based on a passing remark in an article on a different film on a dead website. The article is actually about The Eternal Zero being at the top of Japanese box office in 2014. In the second paragraph the article says: "The last time a domestic live-action film remained at the top of the box office for seven consecutive weeks was Hero ＨＥＲＯ (2007), which made a total of ¥8.15 billion (US$80.4 million) in 2007." Maestro2016's edit takes the dollar figure from this article, adds the Asia Pacific figure from Box Office Mojo, ignores the figure from Box Office Mojo for the worldwide gross, and comes up with a worldwide gross of $83.38 million, which conveniently is just good enough to get Hero into the top 10 in this article. Compare, for example, [43] for various Jagged_85 abuses of sources regarding computer game sales figures. Again, this is the first example I found, there are almost certainly worse examples.
  4. Having found enough that I was beginning to have some concerns that Maestro2016 might be Jagged_85, back under a new name and abusing sources once more, I then attempted to compare writing style, so I compared Talk page space edits. Maestro2016 seems to be generally less verbose than Jagged_85, but that is a relatively simple way of making comparisons harder. And I think there are some quite significant similarities. Compare, for example: [44] with [45]
  5. Having started looking at Maestro2016's Talk page, I noticed that Maestro2016 had been warned about use/abuse of sources by: User:Worldbruce, User:Betty_Logan, User:Phmoreno, User:Cyphoidbomb, User:Raymond3023, User:Almostangelic123, User:619XXXX, User:Wiki KuthiVaiyans, User:Scabab, plus other Talk page entries for edits lacking a reliable source, using less reliable source, using unreliable source.
  6. I now looked in detail at edits Maestro2016 had made to the MOSFET page, which was the original reason DMKR2005 emailed me. I looked at the first set of edits Maestro2016 made to this page: [46] There are some dubious edits in that initial diff: as an offshoot to the patented FET design becomes building on the earlier FET design. There is a further edit to downplay the original patent in favour of the invention of Atalla and Kahng. However the really interesting edits begin here: [47] Note addition of text "A breakthrough came with the work of Egyptian engineer Mohamed M. Atalla in the late 1950s" which is sourced to this: [48] Reference actually says: "The first long-awaited breakthrough came from Atalla and Kahng at Bell labs." The reference goes on to describe the importance of the work of Deal, Grove, Sarace, Klein, Faggin but for some reason Maestro2016 only chooses to concentrate on the work of "Egyptian engineeer" Mohammad Atalla. Source actually calls him "John Atalla", doesn't mention Atalla's nationality (which is described in his Wiki article as "Egyptian-American"), and for some reason Kahng appears to have been sidelined.
  7. The number of edits Maestro2016 made to the MOSFET article is huge. For example, from 17th July to 31st July 2019 Mojo2016 made dozens of edits adding several thousand characters of referenced text to the article. This is, in my experience, unusual. Most editors do not have the time to make this number of edits. Most editors find it hard to add more than a handful of referenced edits per day; adding references can be fiddly, and finding good quality sources can be difficult. This was not a problem that ever troubled Jagged_85. Compare: [49] where Jagged_85 made dozens of 'referenced' edits to the Avicenna article in November 2007. E.g. 'the first descriptions on bacteria and viral organisms', which got instantly reverted with 'not supported by this reference'. As noted before, Jagged_85 made about 11,000 edits a year, 95% of them in article space. This is partly because having made a bad edit in one article, Jagged_85 would make the same bad edit in lots of related articles. In somewhat over four years Maestro2016 has made 44,350 edits, the vast majority of them in article space. Compare Maestro2016's hundreds of edits on Mohamed_M._Atalla with Maestro2016's hundreds of edits in the same time period on MOSFET and Passivation. And they are bad edits. For example: [50] which claims 'surface passivation' is known as 'Atalla passivation'. Atalla certainly created a new technique for passivation that was crucial to the development of MOSFET, however that's a different thing to having a technique named after you. Compare Atalla's biography article here: [51] where it is described as 'a method', 'a crucial step', but it is not described as "Atalla passivation". The reference cited for this bad edit says: "The first time the Atalla passivation technique was used was in 1960 at Fairchild Semiconductor Corp. as an improvement in the fabrication process for bipolar transistors (the planarprocess)." Note it does not put "Atalla passivation" in quotes. It is describing what Atalla did; it is not describing something which is widely known as 'Atalla's technique' in the same way as, say, a Faraday cage is named after Faraday. I did a web search for 'Atalla passivation' and found nothing except Wikipedia articles which Maestro2016 had edited. This is absolutely classic Jagged_85, where badly sourced and exaggerated claims about a particular Islamic 'great man' pollute the encyclopedia.
  8. Without trying particularly hard, I found numerous dubious edits to the MOSFET page where the text was not really supported by the reference. The reference says: 'perhaps the most important invention'. The edit says: 'the most important invention'. The reference says: 'Arguably the most important device'. The edit says: 'most important device'. One of the sources appears to be a workshop abstract. The abstract mentions three things as being important, the edit only mentions one. One of the sources appears to be a plagiarised engineering course pdf. Various edits are used to imply Atalla should have got a Nobel prize, based on a couple of throwaway lines in articles about other things. However the clincher for me is this: [52] This edit introduced the following text (with expanded reference): "In 1965, the Victor 3900 desktop calculator was the first LSI MOS calculator, with 29 LSI MOS ICs.[53] title=Sharp QT-8D "micro Compet" accessdate=September 29, 2010" This is very characteristic of Jagged_85 in full flow, where references are thrown in with, at best, tangential relevance to the text being cited. Why is the reference accessdate 2010? Why is the reference for the sharp_qt-8d rather than the Victor 3900? If you follow the Sharp reference: [54], you find that the sharp_qt-8d was 'The first calculator to use MOS LSI (Metal Oxide Semiconductor, Large Scale Integration) integrated circuits'; it 'uses five MOS LSI integrated circuits' and was 'Introduced October 1969'. If you lookup the Victor 3900 on the same site: [55] it says: 'The first calculator using integrated circuits, 1965'; and 'Electronics uses 29 MOS integrated circuits.' Note it does not use LSI technology, which is not surprising, bearing in mind the 1969 Sharp was the first calculator to do so, four years later. However in Maestro2016's edit the 1965 calculator is four years ahead of its time. See, for example, [56] where Jagged_85 made a game in advance of its time.
  9. I then thought I would at least try to find something which was unambiguously in Jagged_85's area, so for example, Islamic history. Jagged_85 is believed to have used various IP addresses for editing Islamic history articles, so I did wonder if they would avoid using a named user, given how suspicious people would be if they started making Jagged_85 like edits. After going back less than a month however I found this: [57] in Mughal Empire. What is particularly interesting about this edit is that it was immediately reverted by User:Worldbruce for misrepresenting the source: Talk:Mughal_Empire/Archive_2#Indrajit_Ray_misinterpreted.
  10. I would also like to highlight Maestro2016's suspicious behaviour since I started this investigation. I had no contact with DMKR2005 before they emailed me a couple of weeks ago. I had no contact with Maestro2016 before I started this investigation. I have never made an edit to the MOSFET page. Yet, for some reason, since I started my investigation on the Jagged_85 project page [58], Maestro2016 has deleted their own talk page archive: [59]. After I commented on this: [60] Maestro2016 reinstated the archive: [61] Since I've listed various issues on the Jagged 85 page Maestro2016 has apparently been on a cleanup: [62] [63] Maestro2016 is clearly aware of my criticisms; what I would like to know is how Maestro2016 was aware of my edits on the Jagged_85 project page.

To conclude then, I think Maestro2016 is a sockpuppet of banned user User:Jagged_85, and needs to be blocked before they do any more damage to the encyclopedia with abuse of sources. Merlinme (talk) 10:03, 18 May 2020 (UTC)[reply]

Comments by other users[edit]

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

1. Okay. I might as well use this space to copy-paste my talk page message: "This is not the first time I've been accused of being a sockpuppet, however, but there have in fact been three previous similar sockpuppet investigations against me, which all concluded that I was innocent and not a sock at all. You can see the three previous sockpuppet investigations here: first case (accusing me of being a User:MariaJaydHicky sock), second case (User:ThreeTwentyTwo sock), and third case (User:Bazaan sock). In the first case, a CheckUser was carried out, concluding that I was not a sock at all. If I was indeed a sock, then the CU would've picked up on it, yet the conclusion was that I was not a sock. In fact, it turned out that my accuser User:Mario Maraschi was the actual sockpuppet all along, not me. The second case was similarly filed by a user who themselves turned out to be a sock, User:NineTimes. And the third case was filed by someone who was convinced I was a sock, before the investigation eventually concluded that I was not a sock, after a month-long investigation. As you can see, I have a clean record. Three independent sockpuppet investigations (including a CheckUser) all concluded that I'm not a sock at all. If that's not enough to convince you that I'm not a sock, then I'm not sure what else will. For whatever reasons, whenever some editors have a dispute or disagreement with me, or find that there's some other editor out there with some similar edits to me, they suspect me of being a sock. And then I'm forced to prove my innocence. Rinse and repeat. And it's very stressful each and every time. Just because there may be some users out there who may have some similar edits to me, that doesn't mean I must be a sock of those users. I don't know Jagged 85, or MariaJaydHicky, or ThreeTwentyTwo, or Bazaan. I have no connection to these people. Like I've said to my previous accusers, if you have any issues with my edits, then feel free to confront me about it and we can try resolve it together (as long as you're not a sock yourself, as two of my previous accusers turned out to be). The sock-puppet allegations are unnecessary. But if you still don't believe me, then you can go ahead and feel free to file yet another sockpuppet investigation (for the fourth time)."

2. The "earned more" was a reference to the figures in the grain earnings table, where the weaving/spinning earnings for Bengal and South India have a slightly higher average than Britain. Mysore is actually referenced in the source, several pages further down (the Kingdom of Mystore ruled much of South India at the time). Nevertheless, I've acknowledged your criticisms and have since applied your suggested corrections. However, what exactly does this have to do with Jagged_85? Did s/he actually make any similar edits about Mughal/Indian economic history previously?

3. The thing about Box Office Mojo is that it doesn't always give complete figures for Japan box office numbers, because of the way the Japan BO works. In most movie markets, new releases have a big opening and then get phased out from cinemas after a certain number of weeks. Japan is a "legs" market where new releases have a small opening and then successful movies have a long run at the box office, occasionally lasting a whole year. When tracking Japanese movies, BOM occasionally stops tracking after a certain number of weeks, rather than tracking the whole year. So for some Japanese movies, I've used a seperate source for Japan numbers (such as Japan Motion Picture Producers Association) and BOM for overseas numbers. After you brought up Hero, I looked up the Film Business Asia source again and realized it's not entirely clear whether its dollar figure is for Japan or worldwide (I initially assumed it was for Japan because the yen figure matched the number given by the Japan Motion Picture Producers Association), so I have since made a correction there. However, this is an apples-to-oranges comparison. Did Jagged_85 actually make any similar edits about box office figures in movie articles?

4. I'm struggling to see the similarities. The Jagged_85 message looks like some kind of personal monologue rant. My messages in the talk section you linked to are a debate with another user over different reliable sources that give differing manga sales numbers, with the debate ending in a compromise (a ranged figure).

5. You're misrepresenting my talk page. Nowhere does the word "abuse" pop up anywhere, except for a sockpuppet allegation (which later concluded that I was not guilty). Phmoreno is a banned user, so can't really be taken seriously. 619XXXX is the same person as Wiki KuthiVaiyans, who stopped using his/her 619XXXX account, and our debate was over manga sales (same debate mentioned in #4 above). Almostangelic123 was criticizing me for citing too many reliable sources which describe Katie Hopkins as "far-right", not doubting the reliability of those sources. As for the others, they did question me over the reliability of sources I was initially using in movie articles. But in my defense, I was new to editing movie articles back then, took their advice on board, and since then haven't received any such criticisms over movie sources. But again, what does any of this have to do with Jagged_85? Was he involved in any similar debates over movie box office or manga sales?

6. You're misrepresenting my edits. Before I began editing the article, the History section of MOSFET consisted of just a single sentence on Lilenfield followed by a paragraph on Atalla and Kahng, and that's it. There was no mention of Heil, Shockley, Bardeen, Brattain, Sah, Wanlass, Deal, Grove, Sarace, Klein or Faggin anywhere. Who added their contributions to the article? That's right, me! Your claim that I ignored their contributions is nonsensical when I was the one who added their contributions to the article in the first place. You're making it sound as if I dedicated the History section almost entirely to just Atalla, when he actually only got two paragraphs (one shared with Kahng) out of the eight paragraphs I wrote in the History section. You're focusing on those two paragraphs and ignoring the six other paragraphs where I described the contributions of others. And for the record, I had previously already added the contributions of Sarace, Klein, Faggin and others to the MOS IC section.

7. There are a ton of editors out there with far more edits. Are you suggesting anyone with a large volume of edits must necessarily be a Jagged_85 sock? That sounds similar to a previous sockpuppet allegation against me, where one of the reasons I was accused of being a sock of User:Bazaan (which turned out to be a false allegation) was because s/he apparently made a large volume of edits. Also, you've agreed yourself that the source states "the Atalla passivation technique" which is exactly how I phrased it, so how exactly is this a misrepresentation of the source? I added the term "Atalla passivation" simply to avoid confusion and distinguish his specific silicon surface passivation technique used in microelectronics from other forms of chemical surface passivation discussed in the same article.

8. Again, you're misprepresenting my edits. I didn't say "the most important invention", but said "possibly the most important invention". I noted that it was the MOSFET itself that wasn't recognized with a Nobel Prize, not that Atalla was snubbed. As for the "MOS LSI calculator" thing, that was a typo. What I meant to say is that the Victor 3900 was the first "MOS calculator" and this was the source I meant to refer to (as you've noted yourself). In fact, I mentioned above in the MOS LSI section that MOS LSI tech appeared in the late '60s, which is several years after the Victor 3900 was made in 1965, which clearly shows it was a typo. And the reference says 2010 because I got the ref from the Sharp QT-8D article (where I presume it was added in 2010). Besides, I'm not sure how this is even "characteristic" of Jagged_85? Didn't s/he have some kind of strong anti-Western agenda? How would me giving precedence to American inventions (Victor 3900 and Texas Instruments Cal-Tech) over a Japanese product (Sharp QT-8D) be "characteristic" of Jagged_85? That sounds like the very opposite of Jagged_85.

9. That was over a year ago, not a month ago. The Mughal Empire mainly falls under Indian history, though I guess it is also related to Islamic history (due to Muslim rulers). As for the tonnage thing, the source shows a table where it states the annual mercantile tonnage is 207,500 tons, which Ray elaborates on and states the mercantile+defense shipping tonnage is 2,232,500 tons. This was a reference to the total shipping tonnage. He then states 10% were replaced, which comes to 223,250 tons. So they're referring to two types of tonnage, one for shipping (which I initially thought was for shipbuilding) and the other for replacements.

10. It's not hard to search up your own name. I sometimes search myself up to check for any article talk page discussions I might be involved in. That's when I came across your comments about me on the DMKR2005 and Jagged_85 pages.

11. You have not presented any evidence of me actually repeating any claims previously made by Jagged_85. That would usually be one of the strongest indicators of sockpuppet behaviour, when a sock repeats or restores material from a puppetmaster. When have I ever done this with Jagged_85? One reason why my previous sockpuppet case involving Bazaan dragged on for a whole month was because we somehow ended up making some similar claims and repeating some similar material (to my surprise), before the investigation eventually concluded that we're two entirely different people. I'm certainly not aware of repeating any claims that Jagged_85 had previously made.

12. What Jagged_85 apparently seems to be known for is pushing bizarro fringe theories that claim "medieval Islamic inventor/thinker X first invented/fathered/mothered something Y". When have I even written anything about medieval Islamic inventors/thinkers? And his video game edits apparently seem to more-or-less do the same thing with Japanese video games, claiming that "Japanese game X first invented something Y". Again, I don't recall ever making any such edits to video game articles either. We're clearly two entirely different people.

Maestro2016 (talk) 13:49, 18 May 2020 (UTC)[reply]

Re: number 10, I have never searched for my own user name on Wikipedia. It seems a strange thing to do to keep track of Talk page discussions when normally they would be in my watchlist. When I just tried both for my name and for Maestro2016 it didn't actually give the results I was expecting. Could you provide the URL of the search you used, please? Or the exact search term you used so we can reproduce your search. Merlinme (talk) 14:06, 18 May 2020 (UTC)[reply]
Here you go. BTW, I don't keep a watchlist (it's empty). Maestro2016 (talk) 14:09, 18 May 2020 (UTC)[reply]
Thanks. The important point seems to be to sort the search by edit date. I'm a bit surprised though if you were aware of these discussions enough to be make corrections based on them that you didn't decide to get involved and defend yourself earlier. Merlinme (talk) 14:28, 18 May 2020 (UTC)[reply]
And why did you delete your Talk page archive? Merlinme (talk) 14:29, 18 May 2020 (UTC)[reply]
I didn't like the idea of my talk page being stalked by someone who has some kind of vendetta against me. After all, I have had to previously deal with three previous sockpuppet allegations (all false). But I realized just an hour later that it could already be on your watchlist anyway, making it pointless. But before I could undo it, it appears you had already noticed and posted a comment about it. Maestro2016 (talk) 14:56, 18 May 2020 (UTC)[reply]

Since my name has been invoked, I'll chime in.

Misinterpreting or misrepresenting sources is a widespread problem in South Asian topics (maybe in all topics, but I specialize in South Asia). Sometimes it's malicious, often pushing a nationalist or religious point of view, sometimes it's because of a lack of fluency in English, and sometimes it's just a mistake.

Points #2 and #9 presented as evidence of sockpuppetry are unconvincing. Merlinme writes, The normal problem was that Jagged_85 was determined to say that medieval Islamic thinker X was the father/ founder/ first to do Z ... The sources quoted were sometimes from slightly odd sources, or extremely difficult to obtain sources. In my experience, sockpuppets have a hard time changing their stripes. Maestro2016's edits to Economy of India under the British Raj and Mughal Empire are not of the X was the father of Z form. The sources Maestro2016 cited were on-topic, from major academic publishers, and were linked to Google Books previews, so not odd or obscure. Nor has Jagged 85 been shown to have inserted the same content into those two articles.

As stated in point #5, I warned Maestro2016 in 2017 against citing a self-published blog. I've warned hundreds of editors about not citing sources, not citing reliable sources, or citing sources that fail verification. They aren't all sockpuppets of Jagged 85. The whole business of "strive for verifiable accuracy, citing reliable, authoritative sources" and "editors' personal experiences, interpretations, or opinions do not belong on Wikipedia" is poorly grasped by novice editors.

In point #4, it is unclear what "quite significant" writing style similarities we are supposed to see between the two talk page links.

I haven't considered the points raised about computer games or MOSFET because they are outside my area of expertise.

There is considerable overlap (682 articles) in the editing of Jagged 85 and Maestro2016. But that might be explained by both being male, of South Asian descent, living in the UK, and growing up in the same decade. If Maestro2016 has made bad edits, take them to task for that, but I would need stronger evidence to be persuaded of sockpuppetry. --Worldbruce (talk) 15:39, 18 May 2020 (UTC)[reply]

Thanks for the third party perspective. A large part of my being convinced (as opposed to suspicious) was based on what I assumed was Maestro2016's watching of the Jagged_85 project page. I actually found their explanations above of how they regularly searched for their own user name fairly convincing; I didn't realise some Wikipedians worked like this. Also, I have debated with Jagged_85 before, and although there are a few unusual words both use, Jagged_85 didn't really debate like this.
I was waiting to see what someone else thought, but I was already minded to withdraw the sockpuppet accusation. I still think there are big issues with Maestro2016's use of sources, but that's a different issue. Merlinme (talk) 16:00, 18 May 2020 (UTC)[reply]

Hey I believe I noticed Maestro2016 in November last year with his edits on computer related technology, in particular on MOSFET. These edits where strangely familiar with Jagged_85: Taking important figure and exaggerating everything so much about them, that it completely messed up the whole history.If you read his edits it would lead you to believe that Information Age, Digital Revolution and everything related to it, are all largely the product of Atalla work on Mosfet. I've read Arjun Saxena's Invention of Integrated Circuits:Untold Important Facts, for example, and comparing it with articles about Integrated Circuit and Invention of the integrated circuit, I believe Maestro2016's edits seriously exaggerate Atalla's role and MOSFET technology in particular. The book just mention Atalla briefly as one of important figures,together with Fuller and Ditzenberger, Frosh and Derrick, Tanenbaum and Scheibner, that led Jean Hoerni to the development of the planar technology. Also take a look Maestro2016's edits in List of IEEE milestones that added Atalla using this source [64]. I can't find anything about Atalla there, which leads me to conclude that Maestro2016 simply invented these claims. This sound like classical Jagged_85 since he had a tendency to give references which do not support his edits. Or look at the claim that "In 2018, the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences which awards the science Nobel Prizes acknowledged that the invention of the MOSFET by Atalla and Kahng was one of the most important inventions in microelectronics and in information and communications technology (ICT) in Mohamed_M._Atalla article. The reference in fact simply say that "Other important inventions include the prevailing MOS-FET (Metal-Oxide-Semiconductor Field Effect Transistor) by D. Kahng and M.M. Atalla and the microprocessor by T. Hoff." Again this sounds very similar to Jagged_85 who had tendency to misinterpret the sources. Irregardless I believe that his edits would require major cleanup. Thanks, that's my take on the whole situationDMKR2005 (talk) 16:45, 18 May 2020 (UTC)[reply]

I did not "invent" these claims. The IEEE source clearly lists the "MOSFET (1959)" right there. The Arjun Saxena source clearly states that it was indeed Atalla's important findings that led to Hoerni's planar technology. If you looked at these sources more carefully, you'd realize they confirm what I've written in the articles. As Worldbruce noted above, my sources are easily accessible (with URLs) so that readers could confirm what I've written (in contrast to Jagged_85 who apparently used to make his sources hard to find). As you can see, I did not "invent" any of these claims. Your main issue with me seems to be that you feel I am giving undue weight to the MOSFET and/or Atalla in particular, which is an entirely different issue. You're making it sound like I'm pushing some kind of controversial fringe theory (i.e. what Jagged_85 used to do), when the importance of the MOSFET is widely recognized in the electronics industry (virtually every digital electronic device today uses MOSFETs) and virtually all authoritative sources on the subject agree that Atalla and Kahng were its inventors. It's nowhere near the same ballpark as Jagged_85's bizarro fringe theories about "medieval Islamic inventors/thinkers". You seem to think there's a connection simply because Atalla was of Middle-Eastern descent, even though I've never implied he's Islamic at all (he could've just as easily been Christian/Coptic/Agnostic/Atheist/Buddhist for all we know). Maestro2016 (talk) 18:12, 18 May 2020 (UTC)[reply]
Can you please show me where does IEEE source say MOSFET invention in 1959 by Atalla and Kahng.Because I can't find it. It only list Semiconductor Planar Process and Integrated Circuit and Commercialization and Industrialization of Photovoltaic Cells both in 1959. You also didn't address you edits that claims that Royal Swedish Academy of Science acknowledged that the invention of the MOSFET by Atalla and Kahng was one of the most important inventions in microelectronics and in information and communications technology when in fact the source just briefly mention them without saying anything about their key importance in information and communications technology. And yes my issue is that you are over hyping Atalla contribution, presenting as some sort of pivotal figure, when in fact he is just that, one of many important figures in the process of developing Integrated Circuit. Over hyping, by the way was very prominent with Jagged_85. In fact Jagged_85 theories were not fringe at all, most Islamic figures that he wrote about were very important in history of science. He just had a tendency to exaggerate and over hype there role.DMKR2005 (talk) 19:00, 18 May 2020 (UTC)[reply]
"MOSFET (1959)" is listed under Bell Telephone Laboratories. The Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences' Information and Communication Technology source states: "Microelectronics has continued to evolve with the integrated circuit as the driving force. Other important inventions include the prevailing MOS-FET (Metal-Oxide-Semiconductor Field Effect Transistor) by D. Kahng and M.M. Atalla and the microprocessor by T. Hoff. In other words, they are three of the key inventions in microelectronics and ICT. As for Atalla's importance in integrated circuit technology, this is what Chih-Tang Sah had stated about his work: "Those of us active in silicon material and device research during 1956–1960 considered this successful effort by the Bell Labs group led by Atalla to stabilize the silicon surface the most important and significant technology advance, which blazed the trail that led to silicon integrated circuit technology developments in the second phase and volume production in the third phase." Clearly, Atalla's contribution to integrated circuits is very significant, though not quite as significant as Kilby, Noyce, and Hoerni, whom the integrated circuit articles rightfully give top priority to. In addition to the Atalla stuff, I added more information on Noyce and tried to add a picture of Kilby (but couldn't because of copyright issues). So it's not like I was prioritizing Atalla over them. As for those medieval Islamic figures, I don't really know much about them, so can't comment on their importance. But AFAIK, Jagged_85 apparently used to attribute fake inventions/discoveries to these medieval Islamic figures and back up his claims with obscure unreliable sources or by misrepresenting sources. What I've written about Atalla developing silicon surface passivation (and its role in planar and IC technologies) and the MOSFET are not fake inventions/discoveries, but are widely recognized by reliable authoritative sources on these subjects. Maestro2016 (talk) 19:47, 18 May 2020 (UTC)[reply]
Thank you for pointing out Mosfet. As for the source Information and Communication Technology, it simply does not say that mosfet is was one of the most important inventions in microelectronic and ICT, you claim simply does not match the reference. Wikipedia is not original research, we should just stick to what sources say. As for Atalla. I said again and again that Atalla is important, but you edits seriously over-hype him. Claiming that he laid the foundation for digital revolution and modern electronic is serious exaggeration. As for Jagged_85, yes lots of his claims were pure inventions, but most of the problems were very much exaggeration, cherry picking, peacock terms and just copy pasting the same misleading claims all over Wikipedia. Anyway since investigation going nowhere, I believe we should end this discussion. I think your edits are highly misleading and would require major rewrite/trimming.DMKR2005 (talk) 21:40, 18 May 2020 (UTC)[reply]
Maestro2016, I still have big problems with your use of sources. Take this: "In 2018, the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences which awards the science Nobel Prizes acknowledged that the invention of the MOSFET by Atalla and Kahng was one of the most important inventions in microelectronics and in information and communications technology (ICT)". Saying that the Nobel awarding academy 'acknowledged' something sounds like it won a special prize of some description. In fact the Academy issued a press release about the actual winner, who won for the integrated circuit, which the Academy describes as 'the driving force' of microelectronics. After that, in one sentence at the end of the section, they mention MOSFET and the microprocessor as also important. If this reference is needed at all, (there are surely lots of other references which could say similar things more succinctly), it needs to be put in context: "In its award of half the Nobel prize for Physics to Jack Kilby in 2018 for his part in the invention of the Integrated circuit the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences specifically mentioned MOSFET and the microprocessor as other important inventions in the evolution of microelectronics." That would at least make it clear that it was mentioned in passing as part of an award that was not being given to Atalla and Kahng. And where does it say 'one of the most important'? The sentence starts "Other important inventions include", and they mention a couple, but the implication is surely that there are other important inventions that for whatever reason they're not going to mention. Adding "along with the integrated circuit and the microprocessor", as you have recently done since I made my initial criticisms, is only a marginal improvement, mainly because anything that fails to make it clear that the Academy was giving a prize for the integrated circuit, not MOSFET, is giving a misleading impression of the source.
Or this as a source: [65] Is an engineering course pdf really the best source for the claim "The MOSFET is by far the most widely used transistor in both digital circuits and analog circuits, and it is the backbone of modern electronics"? Is this a WP:Reliable Source for an WP:Exceptional claim? Is this a WP:Reliable Source for any claim at all? Quite apart from the fact the original edit was almost certainly a copyright violation, the PDF has no author; what do we know about the fact checking process that went into making that statement?
The crazy part about this kind of thing is that most of the time you don't need the bad sources and the exaggeration; accurate reporting using good sources should be enough to convey that MOSFET was an important invention. If you slowed down when adding material and focused on accurately reporting the best sources, rather than adding dubious sources and generally bending them to fit what you wanted to say, we might not have ended up wondering if you were Jagged_85.
Anyway, these are content disputes, and we should be having them on the Talk:MOSFET page. I will assume that you are trying to act in good faith, and that, unlike Jagged_85, you are willing and able to learn how to use sources appropriately. Merlinme (talk) 22:24, 18 May 2020 (UTC)[reply]
Fair enough. We'll continue this discussion at Talk:MOSFET, where I've posted a reply to your comment. Maestro2016 (talk) 00:39, 19 May 2020 (UTC)[reply]

Clerk, CheckUser, and/or patrolling admin comments[edit]

  • Best that can be said for this is that it was a misplaced content dispute. Closing. Cabayi (talk) 18:52, 20 May 2020 (UTC)[reply]

19 May 2022[edit]

Suspected sockpuppets[edit]

This concern was previously brought up in 2020 with no action taken, but after discussing it with fellow WP:VG members, I feel it needs to be looked into again. I believe there's a compelling amount of evidence to suggest that Maestro2016 is in fact Jagged 85.

Here are my specific concerns:

  1. Editing similarities: Maestro2016, who created their account in 2016 but appears to already have been familiar with editing Wikipedia, edits the exact same topics as Jagged 85, particularly Islamic history, video games, films, math, and music. The Editor Interaction Analyzer shows over a thousand shared articles, including hundreds of edits to articles like List of best-selling video games, List of best-selling video game franchises, Racing game, and Salim–Javed. Jagged 85 and Maestro2016 are both active at similar times of day (aside from a two-hour shift, they're both active at night, based on XTools analysis).
  2. Misuse/abuse of sources: Like Jagged 85, Maestro2016 has a history of misusing/abusing sources. Their talk page contains many warnings (this, this, this, this, and this, just for starters) regarding their sourcing practices, which include adding sources that do not back up the claims they add, taking sources out of context, twisting sources' words to make something sound grander than it actually is, and using unreliable sources. These are all practices Jagged 85 was known for.
    Adding to this, I'm mainly familiar with Maestro2016 because they frequently edit the Sonic the Hedgehog 2 article, which is an article I've been nurturing for a while in preparation for bringing it to FAC. I’ve caught them on two occasions misrepresenting and abusing sources as Jagged did, which is what made me suspicious. Firstly, Maestro added a claim to Sonic 2 ([66]) and The Swinging Star ([67]) and provided a source that, while related to the topic, did not back up the claim anywhere. This abuse lines up with behavior noted at Wikipedia talk:Requests for comment/Jagged 85/Cleanup: "inventing claims using a source related to the topic but which does not verify the claim." This does not appear to be an isolated incident, either; another example from Mughal Empire ([68]) was noted in the previous SPI. Secondly, I recently caught Maestro2016 using a preorder report in an attempt to inflate Sonic 2's sales to 7.55 million. Not only are preorders not an indicator of final sales, Sega's official number (provided in this GameTap retrospective) is only six million. A similar example regarding Donkey Kong Famicom sales is noted at a Jagged 85 cleanup page, in which Jagged combined sales of two versions of Donkey Kong to make it seem like it sold more on a single platform than it actually did.
  3. Behavioral similarities: There are further behavior overlaps beyond topics and misuse of sources. Both Jagged and Maestro spend copious amounts of time making massive edits that add thousands of characters of text. Compare Maestro2016's recent contribs to Jagged 85's old contribs—the behavior's incredibly similar. Both also have a history of uploading 30-second .ogg files ([69][70]), a rare activity among most editors. I also find Maestro2016's talk page behavior very similar to Jagged's, namely in how they bludgeon by writing verbose responses to every single point an editor makes. Compare Jagged 85's September 2012 unblock requests to Maestro2016's responses to the 2020 SPI.

It appears as if the 2020 SPI was treated as a "misplaced content dispute" rather than a genuine sockpuppetry case, so I think that this absolutely warrants to be properly looked into since it wasn't when first brought up. I'm hoping to be persuaded otherwise, but I think it's very plausible we have a sock on our hands. JOEBRO64 18:58, 19 May 2022 (UTC)[reply]

I'd like to add something I find suspicious: Maestro2016, who's normally incredibly active (among WP's top 1100 editors), has not edited anywhere outside this SPI since it was filed. His editing had slowed down during the previous SPI but not to this extent. JOEBRO64 17:53, 31 May 2022 (UTC)[reply]
Do you suspect they've moved to a different sock? ~Kvng (talk) 19:09, 31 May 2022 (UTC)[reply]
Just taking a break from Wikipedia. Maestro2016 (talk) 02:30, 1 June 2022 (UTC)[reply]

Comments by other users[edit]

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

  • It's interesting to see this here, as I have been privately wondering about a connection for awhile myself. As one of the editors involved in compiling the copious evidence against Jagged that resulted in his ban, I noticed a lot of similarities in Maestro's rapid-fire editing and periodic misuse of sources. I do believe this should be taken seriously, as Jagged did inestimable damage during his time on the project and never seemed interested in owning up to or fixing any of his numerous mistakes. Indrian (talk) 20:25, 19 May 2022 (UTC)[reply]
  • I just came across this now. I thought it was already concluded years ago that I'm not a sockpuppet of this Jagged 85 user back in 2020? Furthermore, there were three other earlier sockpuppet allegations accusing me of being sockpuppets of three other users (here, here and here). The conclusion of all four sockpuppet investigations (including CheckUser analysis) was that I'm innocent of all sockpuppet allegations, and that these were misplaced content disputes. I believe this is yet another misplaced content dispute, as with the previous four allegations (including one involving the same user). In this case, it appears the point of contention is over my edits to the Sonic the Hedgehog 2 article and video game sales figures in general. I'm not aware of Jagged 85 writing extensively about either Sonic the Hedgehog 2 or video game sales figures. As far as I'm aware, Jagged 85 was mainly driven by some kind of anti-Western agenda with a bunch of fake claims about "Islamic inventors first inventing X" or "Japanese video games first inventing Y"... things which I'm not at all known for. Back in 2020, Worldbruce made some strong arguments for why the allegation was not true (mainly in regards to my edits in Indian-related articles). Maestro2016 (talk) 18:45, 21 May 2022 (UTC)[reply]
    Actually, there was no CU done on the prior SPI for Jagged 85. This is not a content dispute, multiple editors hold these suspicions and significant behavioral evidence exists. -- ferret (talk) 18:51, 21 May 2022 (UTC)[reply]
  • Just wanna chip in. I've been involved in cleaning up after Maestro2016 edits and I can attest his edits are very similar to Jagged-85. You can see talk pages of Information age,Mughal empire,Discrete_cosine_transform,Integrated Circuit and Great Divergence where I documented some examples of it. Or just check my edits. For instance in his edits to Economy of the Kingdom of Mysore he invents out of thin air the claim that Mysore had $2,000 per capita income. Or in his edits to p–n junction isolation he addited bunch of spam about Atalla with no clear connection to the article. Oh take a look at his edits to LED lamp,LED display and LED circuit where he claims that Attala was co-inventor of these technologies when all the source says is that "Developmental work was done in John Atalla's solid-state laboratory". And thats just a tip of the Iceberg. DMKR2005 (talk) 20:21, 21 May 2022 (UTC)[reply]
  • What do the CU results mean? Does it mean that one or two of the banned user's socks was active in the same city and/or vicinity? I remember it being mentioned in the 2020 SPI that the banned user was from the same country. Maestro2016 (talk) 00:30, 22 May 2022 (UTC)[reply]
    It means exactly what is says. You edit from the same ISP/country as Jagged. Again, there was no checkuser done in the 2020 Jagged 85 SPI, and no CU statements were made at all on it. You were never analyzed by a checkuser against Jagged until now. -- ferret (talk) 00:43, 22 May 2022 (UTC)[reply]
  • Comment: Should User:Randomnest be checked as a potential sock as well? That account has very few edits before swooping into this SPI page, and their first edits were a very strange (staged?) dispute with Maestro (diff). That's highly unusual. (I will make a side note that there's an argument that Maestro2016 is some sort of CLEANSTART attempt, but even if Maestro really is unrelated, it should be concerning to Maestro that people see your strange interpretation of sources as comparable to Jagged's. I'm not an expert on Jagged85's contributions so won't say much further there, but poor use of sources is the kind of thing that can get someone in trouble regardless of sockpuppet status or not.) SnowFire (talk) 02:05, 22 May 2022 (UTC)[reply]
  • No I shouldn't because I have done nothing wrong. My editing history is made in response to Maestro2016 and not vice versa. Maestro2016 just like banned user Jagged85 has an agenda going on we all know what it is. And apparently I am not the only one who realized that. --Randomnest
  • In response to TheJoeBro64's allegations above:
    • 1. Looking at the editor analyzer link posted above, there does appear to be quite a bit of overlap when it comes to video games, films, and music, but I don't see any such overlap when it comes to mathematics or Islamic history. When doing a Crtl+F search, the words "math" and "Islam" don't pop up anywhere and the word "Muslim" only pops up once. It appears TheJoeBro64 may be conflating Indian history articles (which I have written quite a bit about) with Islamic history articles (which I don't remember writing about). Nevertheless, there is some overlap, which in the 2020 SPI was explained by the banned user appearing to come from a similar background (in terms of nationality, ethnicity and gender).
    • 2. Regarding those complaints about sourcing issues on my talk page, I've already addressed them back in the 2020 SPI and don't feel like repeating myself here. But I will reiterate that one of those talk page comments was from Worldbruce, who actually defended me in the 2020 SPI and clarified his position: "I've warned hundreds of editors about not citing sources, not citing reliable sources, or citing sources that fail verification. They aren't all sockpuppets of Jagged 85. The whole business of "strive for verifiable accuracy, citing reliable, authoritative sources" and "editors' personal experiences, interpretations, or opinions do not belong on Wikipedia" is poorly grasped by novice editors.
      • In response to new evidence related to Sonic the Hedgehog 2, this just seems like another misplaced content dispute. The first source does confirm what I added. The Billboard source states: "including the songs DREAMS COME TRUE provided for the game series, such as “SWEET SWEET SWEET,” featured as the ending theme of Sonic the Hedgehog 2." Clearly, it's saying "Sweet" was adapted for the Sonic 2 ending, not the other way around as the Wikipedia article incorrectly suggested. With regards to sales, I noticed that you misrepresented two sources. One source states the game sold "an astounding million copies in one day!" Yet for some reason, you changed it to 600,000 copies. And you also misrepresented the GameTap video, where Sega representatives never said it sold 6M anywhere in that video, but it's the GameTap narrator who said it. That's two instances I've noticed of you misrepresenting sources in that same article, the very thing you're accusing me of.
    • 3. Since I've already addressed the volume of edits in the 2020 SPI, I'll just quote what I said back then: "There are a ton of editors out there with far more edits. Are you suggesting anyone with a large volume of edits must necessarily be a Jagged_85 sock?" As for the other stuff, 30 seconds is just the upload size limit for music samples. And I don't see any similarity between Jagged's unban request (which reads like a bunch of verbal diarrhoea to me) and my 2020 SPI response (where I specifically addressed each and every complaint). (EDIT: I just realized you're talking about the bullet point list below his unban request... I still don't see the similarity, besides the use of a bullet point list which is pretty common.)
  • Maestro2016 (talk)
    • This is pretty off-topic so I'm keeping it concise, but you're misrepresenting the Sonic 2 ordeal. Firstly, not only is your claim that "'Sweet' was adapted for the Sonic 2 ending" contradicted by other sources present in the article, but you added the claim "The song "Sweet Sweet Sweet" originated as a demo composed by Masato Nakamura in 1988", which is nowhere in the source. Secondly, the general WP:VG practice is that preorders are not an indicator of final sales; sales only begin after a game is out. The source makes it clear that it's combining preorders with first-day sales. (I've come to a compromise solution in the article.) And thirdly, the GameTap retrospective was produced by Sega, so it's official. (I also used a different text-based source that obtained the data from sales reports in the article, not the GameTap source.) I'm also going to add that this is not a content dispute; I did not file it because of your behavior at Sonic 2. I filed it because myself and several other editors found your behavior suspicious and uncovered enough evidence to spark concern. JOEBRO64 18:21, 22 May 2022 (UTC)[reply]
  • I don't have anything to say about the sockpuppet issue. I am familiar with Maestro2016's contributions to MOSFET and Discrete cosine transform and on out to articles that link to these. Taken as a whole there appears to be POV pushing included with these contributions. A lot of this has been slowly backed out of various articles some by me but mostly by other editors as they catch the wiff of this. ~Kvng (talk) 00:20, 23 May 2022 (UTC)[reply]
  • Another interesting thing to note and remember, is that for years after his September 2012 ban, Jagged 85 did not go away. There were rashes of Jagged-style edits pushing false Eastern technology POVs through misuse of sources by anons in Jagged's typical IP range in October 2014, in December 2014, in January 2015, in September 2015, and in October and November 2015. And that is just what I caught because I had some of the edited articles on my watchlist. There may well have been more. You know when this anon was not editing though? In February 2016, Maestro2016 begins editing for the first time. The anon edits, which were non-stop in late 2015, cease. Then Maestro stops editing for almost a whole year starting in July 2016, and we get at least one more flurry of anon edits fitting the Jagged pattern in April and May 2017. Then Maestro2016 resumes editing in July 2017, and we have not to my knowledge had an anon editing flurry resembling Jagged's behavior since. That really makes me wonder. Indrian (talk) 02:53, 23 May 2022 (UTC)[reply]
    • According to the Jagged85 RfC talk page, he still had socks active up until 2019. I was an active editor during that time. Maestro2016 (talk) 03:17, 23 May 2022 (UTC)[reply]
      • Okay, if you really want to go there, show me a 2019 Jagged-style anon editing flurry made at virtually the same time as one of your editing flurries. As often as you edit, it should not be too hard for you to find some overlapping edits if you are not the same user. That may even be enough to convince me if you can do so. Looking at the RFC talk page myself, I don’t see any evidence that any of those 2019 conversations actually stumbled on any actual Jagged edits. They don’t fit the pattern, which is dozens of edits on favorite topics in a timeframe of several days to several weeks originating from an 86.xx.xx.xx address. People are constantly on the hunt due to the extreme damage that was done, but its telling that none of those 2019 musings resulted in a sock puppet investigation like the one occurring here. Indrian (talk) 03:42, 23 May 2022 (UTC)[reply]
        • Looking at just the first five IPs on the list, it looks like they had an editing flurry between 10-20 April 2019 (here, here, here, here and here). I was definitely actively editing between 10-20 April 2019 (here). Maestro2016 (talk) 11:12, 23 May 2022 (UTC)[reply]
          • None of those are Jagged flurries, which all come from an 86.xx.xx.xx IP address and generally involve substantially more edits from a single address. Just because someone brings a concern to the RFC talk page does not mean it was actually a Jagged situation. No one even bothered with an SPI or any additional investigation of any kind in April 2019. I did find one probable Jagged flurry in November 2019, and it looks like while you edited much later that day, you did not edit near the time of this flurry eventhough its a time you are often active. I am not calling that proof, obviously, but it does nothing to exonerate. Find me an 86.xx.xx.xx flurry at the same time (not just date) that you also edited, and then you will have something. Indrian (talk) 12:10, 23 May 2022 (UTC)[reply]
            • The only 86.xx.xx.xx IP I see listed on that page since 2016 (when I joined) is this one which had several edits in April 2019. That last edit looks like it was just one hour before I edited. Maestro2016 (talk) 13:37, 23 May 2022 (UTC)[reply]

Clerk, CheckUser, and/or patrolling admin comments[edit]

  • information Administrator note I believe there's sufficient justification to take a serious look at behavioral evidence here. If I was more directly familiar with Jagged 85 myself, I'd almost say it's a clear DUCK case. But Jagged was a little before my active years. This is a complicated case, comparing two editors with multiple years of activity and 70,000+ edits each and significant article and interest overlap. The last SPI should also be reviewed, ignoring what was an apparent content dispute at the time and focusing on the original evidence presented. -- ferret (talk) 19:38, 19 May 2022 (UTC)[reply]
  • Checkuser statement: Due to stallness of accounts, a direct comparison is not possible. However, CU log indicates that Maestro2016 has edited from the same IP ranges as Jagged 85 (During two separate checks against other socksmasters), and current CU data indicates that Maestro continues to edit from the same ISP and country as Jagged. -- ferret (talk) 19:11, 21 May 2022 (UTC)[reply]
  • As noted above, this is a complex case and it has taken me some time to evaluate. When dealing with highly prolific accounts it can be difficult to wrap one's head around the evidence because any two editors with tens of thousands of edits will, statistically, overlap with each other regardless of whether or not they are related. Also, a great deal of time has passed between the master's block and the creation of the suspected sockpuppet, so some changes in behaviour would be expected. However, considering the content of the edits, the broad behavioural similarities mentioned above, the Checkuser results, and my own examination of the evidence, I am convinced that what is going on here is more than a coincidence.
  • For additional evidence, see these effectively identical edits: [71][72], and these edit summary comparisons, which are quite specific and unusual: [73][74][75][76] , [77][78], [79][80], [81][82], [83][84]. These accounts' timecards are also similar and fairly uncommon: [85][86]
  • In my view, the likelihood that there are two different people with the same constellation of interests - most distinctively, the promotion of Islamic inventors (see previous SPI filing and [87]); the same habits of extremely prolific editing and misleading use of sources; using the same edit summaries, and editing from the same IP range as each other, is incredibly low. Therefore, I am Pink clock Awaiting administrative action - please block Maestro2016 indefinitely as a suspected sockpuppet of Jagged 85.
    Thanks, Spicy (talk) 18:10, 25 June 2022 (UTC)[reply]
  • I looked at this case a while ago and came to the conclusion that the chances of this not being sockpuppetry were very slim indeed - individually the various pieces of evidence may not amount to much, but we have a huge collection of them. The extremely similar and unusual timecards, the editing overlap across a unique range of articles (i.e. a range that would be very unlikely for an unrelated editor to show interest in, given everything else presented), and the CU results. Spicy's excellent analysis of the edit summaries (again - unusual ones that I believe it unlikely an unrelated editor would use) is the final piece that gets us to the confidence needed to block.  Blocked and tagged. Closing. firefly ( t · c ) 18:21, 25 June 2022 (UTC)[reply]

26 June 2022[edit]

Suspected sockpuppets[edit]

After Maestro2016 was blocked, this IP address began edit-warring at First-person shooter. I understand CheckUser results will not be disclosed. Robert McClenon (talk) 23:58, 26 June 2022 (UTC)[reply]

Comments by other users[edit]

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

Clerk, CheckUser, and/or patrolling admin comments[edit]

  •  Clerk declined – since you understand that CheckUser results will not be disclosed, please do not ask for them. --Blablubbs (talk) 00:13, 27 June 2022 (UTC)[reply]
  • Wrong continent, according to the archives, and the IP is restoring material that Maestro2016 previously removed [88][89]. no Closing without action. Spicy (talk) 00:20, 27 June 2022 (UTC)[reply]
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