Wikipedia:Sockpuppet investigations/Capasitor/Archive

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User:Capasitor

Capasitor (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · page moves · block user · block log)
Report date January 18 2009, 12:37 (UTC)
Suspected sockpuppets


Evidence submitted by Grandmaster

I suspect that Capasitor (talk · contribs) is a reincarnation of banned user Erkusukes (talk · contribs). Capasitor registered on September 13, 2008, but started editing 1 month later and almost instantly moved to the article about Caucasian Albania, favorite article of Erkusukes, and his editing manner and POV are the same as those of the banned user. These are CUs on Erkusukes and his socks: [1] The latest CU gave no results, as the data on Erkusukes is stale. According to CU, Erkusukes is likely to be reincarnation of another banned user, Verjakette, who used a number of socks to edit war: [2]

69.143.131.204 (talk · contribs · WHOIS) is a CU confirmed IP of Merjanov (talk · contribs), a proven sock of Erkusukes. [3] Therefore a checkuser is necessary to establish any relation between 69.143.131.204/Merjanov and Capasitor.

Capasitor has been engaged in edit warring and personal attacks on Armenia - Azerbaijan related articles, which were a subject to a number of arbitration cases recently. This is the latest example of such behavior, he calls his opponents trolls for no reason: [4] Previously he has been blocked for 1 week for the racist comment about other editors. Here's the comment, [5] and the block rationale by the admin. [6]

Previous report on this user at WP:AE: [7]

I find a very strange correlation in the edits of Capasitor with the edits of the banned user Erkusukes. Just check these 2 diffs: [8] [9]. Same POV about Albanian stone not being a proven Albanian artifact, despite abundance of sources on this fact.

I also have a reason to suspect that we are dealing with a long term disruption by the same person, who returns after being banned under the new usernames. I have a reason to believe that User:Robert599 and his army of socks were the same person. Please see this old CU for details. Wikipedia:Requests_for_checkuser/Case/Robert599 It is very interesting, that Merjanov repeated word by word the arguments made by User:Jalaleddin, which was a cu proven sock of User:Robert599, and those arguments match the claims made by Capasitor, who also claims that Caucasian Albania was an Armenian state, etc. [10] I made a comparison of claims by Merjanov and Jalaleddin some time ago, similarity is striking: [11] And the latest posts of Capasitor at talk of Caucasian Albania, also match the posts of Merjanov/Erkusukes, et al, as no one else claims that Albania was an Armenian state.

So it looks like he initially came as User:Robert599, got banned, then returned as User:Verjakette, banned again, returned as User:Erkusukes, banned, and now he is back as User:Capasitor. I also have a reason to believe that the one behind this sockery is User:Rovoam, banned back in 2005.

This is the list of articles, edited by some of the aforementioned accounts, specifically Capasitor, Verjakette with his socks, and Erkusukes and his socks:

User:Capasitor [12]

User:Erkusukes [13]

User:Ironback [14]

User:Merjanov [15]

User:Bassenius [16]

User:Verjakette [17]

User:Jalaleddin [18]

As one can see, they edited almost the same set of articles, the most popular among them being Nagorno-Karabakh, Caucasian Albania, Shusha, Artsakh, and related articles. Overall, this seems to be a long term disruption by the banned user, who is gaming the system to evade his ban.

Comments by other users

All users interested in the subject of Nagorno-Karabakh are editing the same set of articles which are mentioned above. The articles on Nagorno-Karabakh, Caucasian Albania, Shusha, Artsakh are interrelated. Please assume good faith. Grandmaster is evidently trying to engage in hostile suppressing of my role in WP by repeatedly filing irrelevant and offensive appeals against me, all the while demonstrating indignant non-compliance with a recommendation to build a consensual approach to solving a dispute on sources on Nagorno-Karabakh here [19]. Please encourage or force Grandmaster to assume good faith and engage in the proposed dialogue in order to build consensus regarding conflicting points of view. So far, by replaying by offensive and irrelevant remarks, he sabotaged the consensus-building measure, and when he failed, he resorts to other tricks. Wiki is not a battleground and Grandmaster does not seem to comply with that at all. Capasitor (talk) 19:17, 18 January 2009 (UTC)[reply]

I see no indications that Capasitor is anyone else. I think this is just Grandmaster on a fishing trip. I don't doubt that he will bring up in some future appeal or complaint (of his) the fact that Capasitor was accused of sockpuppetry, as if the mere fact of the accusation is enough to question someones integrity (unfortunately, it often is). I've been editing some of the articles Capasitor has been editing, and because I have not agreed with a number of his contributions I have been following Capasitor's edits in those articles and in the others he has edited. I don't see any strong similarity in his edits or subjects or writing style to those other blocked accounts, beyond the fact that English is not his native language. More importantly, I do not see anything disruptive in Capasitor's edits (I presume those blocked accounts were blocked because their edits were considered disruptive). Having a Russian speaker such as Capacitor active on these articles is very useful, given that a fair number of their sources are in Russian. Capasitor is also heavily involved in several ongoing talk page discussions, to have him removed from Wikipedia right now would interupt those discussions and would be to the benefit of Grandmaster. Meowy 20:08, 19 January 2009 (UTC)[reply]
CheckUser requests
Checkuser request – code letter: F (Other reason )
Current status – Completed: Reviewed by a Checkuser, results and comments are below.    Requested by Grandmaster 12:37, 18 January 2009 (UTC) [reply]



Clerk, patrolling admin and checkuser comments

I'm looking into this. Moreschi (talk) 23:51, 18 January 2009 (UTC)[reply]

On first glance this looks plausible. I've sent some emails out asking for old CU data. Moreschi (talk) 00:08, 19 January 2009 (UTC)[reply]
Conclusions
  • Ok, this is confirmed as sockpuppetry. The IP of Capasitor is here. As we can see, it is almost identical to the CU-confirmed Merjanov IP. The geolocation is the same as is the ISP, ComCast. Dmcdevit privately confirms that this all tallies with known data surrounding Erkusukes/Verjakette. There can be little doubt that we are dealing with a reincarnation of a banned user who has been disrupting Wikipedia for many years now. Grandmaster's speculation concerning Rovoam is plausible; if we accept this the disruption dates back to 2005. The common use of open proxies between Rovoam and Verjakette makes this perhaps more likely than not (although I have to wonder why he stopped using them). At any rate, Capasitor is indefinitely blocked. Moreschi (talk) 15:11, 21 January 2009 (UTC)[reply]
A stupid decision. Capasitor was not being disruptive. Thanks for nothing Moreschi. Meowy 16:45, 21 January 2009 (UTC)[reply]
Evidently racist comments about Azeris, for which he was blocked for a week, do not qualify as disruptive, eh? Not to mention the little matter of ban evasion being against policy. That aside, I see no evidence this guy has improved over time. Moreschi (talk) 17:36, 21 January 2009 (UTC)[reply]
Give it a rest. Anyone who can't stand a little bit of heat shouldn't make edits on controversial pages or go there, like Brandmeister does, to stir up trouble. If I dig around, I could probably quote numerous racist comments you have made - for example I recall you once banned all Armenians and Azeris from posting on a page. Nothing Capacitor has done was disuptive, much of it was very constructive, some of it (mostly talk page comments) was stupid and unhelpful. You have no evidence of sockpuppetry. To permanently ban someone for no reason other that having an ip address that is used by America's biggest internet provider is beyond stupidity. And thanks for ruining several ongoing talk-page discussions. Meowy 15:55, 22 January 2009 (UTC)[reply]
An IP address almost identical too, and with the same geolocation as, the last known IP belonging to Verjakette? Come on. Now knock it off. Moreschi (talk) 20:56, 22 January 2009 (UTC)[reply]

 Stale - For the record, there is no currently available technical evidence. -- Avi (talk) 01:50, 22 January 2009 (UTC)[reply]

This case has been marked as closed. It has been archived automatically.

Tiptoety talk 20:28, 25 January 2009 (UTC)[reply]

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