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HaughtonBrit

HaughtonBrit (talk+ · tag · contribs · deleted contribs · logs · filter log · block user · spi block · block log · CA · CheckUser(log) · investigate · cuwiki)

26 August 2021

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Suspected sockpuppets

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I'd like for another CU to look at this. They match, but HaughtonBrit denies. Thanks. Drmies (talk) 02:46, 26 August 2021 (UTC)[reply]

Comments by other users

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

Clerk, CheckUser, and/or patrolling admin comments

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16 September 2021

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Suspected sockpuppets

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AtmaramU was blocked at 13:00, 28 August 2021, Canon8 was created at 14:56, 28 August 2021. Interection of articles is

At the Battle of Saragarhi article was have this from AtmaramU where they removed the result saying Look at WP:RSN Archives about the references. Also not sure what the second reference is suppose to show. Do not see any such statement to back the claim.) Canon8's entire edits to the article are removing the result, saying things like this where they claim There is no statement about victory in either references. They also make the same claim here about the supposedly unreliability of Indian Defence Review, The editor also discusses about Indiandefencereview.com as a third source but it has already been considered highly unreliable on WP:RSP. This claim was completely debunked here in a discussion with AtmaramU. If more evidence is needed please say so, I'd prefer not to have to waste too much time when the quacking is this loud. FDW777 (talk) 11:54, 16 September 2021 (UTC)[reply]

Comments by other users

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

Clerk, CheckUser, and/or patrolling admin comments

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18 September 2021

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Suspected sockpuppets

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  1. [1]
  2. [2] (User starts editing conveniently on same topics after HaughtonBrit's other sockpuppet gets Blocked. Inactive IP user as well before.
  3. [3] Ignoring MILMOS#INFOBOX, disruptive editing.
  4. [4] After told Haughton on another of his sockpuppets under "Canon8" he proceeds to remove it with a source that only states "Virtually a British Protectorate", while multiple sources state it is a protected state. User was found as a sockpuppet. Noorullah21 (talk) 15:57, 18 September 2021 (UTC)[reply]

Comments by other users

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

Clerk, CheckUser, and/or patrolling admin comments

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10 June 2022

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Suspected sockpuppets

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Created 3 weeks after last socks were blocked.[5]

On Capture of Peshawar (1758), kept adding the name "Jassa Singh Ahluwalia" to infobox and article body like previous socks.[6][7]

Restores 2 "Misl" with misleading edit summary,[8] the edit is same as the earlier sock.[9]

Ensures not to mention "Jassa Singh Ahluwalia" as commander on Battle of Kup.[10][11]

Removes entire infobox from Vadda Ghalughara.[12][13]

Updating flags of Durrani Empire at Battle of Manupur (1748).[14][15]

 Looks like a duck to me. Aman Kumar Goel (Talk) 18:22, 10 June 2022 (UTC)[reply]

@Drmies: That information helped me in making the stronger connection. I find that range to be overlapping with both MehmmodS and HaughtonBrit when it comes to same edits to infobox of Afghan-Sikh Wars[16][17] and origin of a Sikh movement.[18][19]
This range was also used for restoring versions by indeffed user "WorldWikiAuthorOriginal" per the edit summaries.[20][21]
WorldWikiAuthorOriginal finds significant similarities in edits with MehmoodS,[22][23] with MehmoodS on Afghan–Sikh Wars adding "the Sikhs defeated the Afghan",[24] and WorldWikiAuthorOriginal adding "The Sikhs defeated the Afghans".[25]
HaughtonBrit was created 2 days[26] after QEDK refused to unblock WorldWikiAuthorOriginal.[27] Aman Kumar Goel (Talk) 00:03, 12 June 2022 (UTC)[reply]

Comments by other users

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

Clerk, CheckUser, and/or patrolling admin comments

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  • A duck block seems fair to me, but I can not find evidence of other accounts. But one of their ranges, a /60 range blocked by ToBeFree on 12 May 2021 for three years, has a TON of CU checks, many by RoySmith, for a wide variety of reasons, and a ton of editors, including some longterm editors and administrators. So I cannot confirm anything technically, and of course the old socks, they're all stale. Drmies (talk) 18:44, 11 June 2022 (UTC)[reply]
  • Sock indeffed. Closing. Vanjagenije (talk) 21:23, 5 July 2022 (UTC)[reply]

28 January 2023

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Suspected sockpuppets

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Note that MehmoodS has admitted to being a sock of Haughton Brit, a claim he vehemently denied during his July 5 block. 2600:1016:B000:0:0:0:0:0/44 edits: On the page Mahadji Shinde: [28], [29], + a few more edits were made just a few days after his August 10 edit on the same page [30] with the IP 50:50.248.64.249, the same IP he used to resubmit his block request on July 9. The geolocation and behavioral patterns match up precisely. Note that this IP range was also used for block evasion when AtmaramU was temporarily blocked for editing warring on the page Vyasa. IP edit: [31] AtmaramU edit: [32]. Other edits by this range (for brevity purposes I will only link one edit per page even though there may be multiple edits made by IP): [33], [34], [35], [36].

2600:1016:B010:0:0:0:0:0/44 edits: [37], [38], [39], [40], [41], [42], [43], [44], [45], [46] etc. Requesting admins to take a look at the other ranges as well since posting all the edits here would cause it become excessively long.

FedEx IP edit just one day after his July 5 block: [47]. Note that this range 199.82.243.0/24 was used to make other edits such as [48] (Mahadji Shinde), [49], [50] and similar topics that Haughton Brit used to engage in as well as edit war with Noorullah21 in Sept 2021. [51], [52]. This range is listed as a confirmed sockpuppet on Haughton Brit's SPI archive page and coincidentally it became active in the topic areas that HB/MehmoodS edit right after his July 5 block.

Editing from a Pennsylvania airport [53], then a Calgary airport [54], and Toronto airport [55]. His edit in GTAA is the exact same as MehmoodS' June 9 edit [56] & [57]. Suthasianhistorian8 (talk) 01:16, 28 January 2023 (UTC)[reply]

New draft

* Master: MehmoodS

  • Sock IP: 50.248.64.249
Fairly self explanatory. He used this IP to resubmit his block request [58] and later to edit pages such as Battle of Rohilla [59], [60] Talk: Criticism of Sikhism, Maratha Navy [61], and Mahadji Shinde [62]. Please note two things, on the page Talk:Criticism of Sikhism, the IP 2600:1016:B02D:2B06:B1A9:91C:677C:F0E8 made the same edit as 50.248.64.249 just one hour apart from each other and both removed content from the page [63]. The IPs both geolocate to the same location, and the 2600 IP belongs to the range 2600:1016:b020::/44. This without any shadow of a doubt proves that MehmoodS was evading his block through both 50* and fluctuating IPs belonging to the 2600:1016:b020::/44 range. Please also note that merely by examining the edit history on the page Mahadji Shinde will provide a solid understanding of what IPs Mehmood was using to block evade.

*Master: MehmoodS

  • Sock: Various IPs belonging to the 199.82.243.0/24 range.

MehmoodS made this edit on Jun 29 [64]. IP 199.82.243.101 makes the exact same edit one day after MehmoodS July 5 block [65]. IP makes this edit [66] on Siege of Sirhind, a page MehmoodS extensively edited- MehmoodS also has a tendency to erroneously add "Khalsa" as an adjective to a Sikh congregation similar to the IP. IP makes this edit [67]. MehmoodS has an extremely extensive history of editing Maratha involved conflicts in order to change a "victory" to either a stalemate or defeat. Examples: [68], [69], [70], [71] etc etc. IP removes honorifics of Shivaji [72], Mehmood has done this hundreds of times: [73], [74], [75] + many more. IP also removes content from Mahadji Shinde [76], a page which 50.248.64.249 (undeniable MehmoodS sock) edited as well [77]. Not to mention all the 199* IPs belong to the range 199.82.243.0/24, the same range is currently listed on the Haughton Brit SPI Archive page [78]. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Suthasianhistorian8 (talk • contribs) 17:27, 28 January 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Recent sock/meat IP edits (most recent version)
All this plus the fact that the 2600:1016 range only started becoming active in the topics that MehmoodS edits after his July 5 block, apart from some just a few days after AtmaramU's temporary block: [105] - [106], [107] & [108] is telling.Suthasianhistorian8 (talk) 00:36, 29 January 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Please also note that until recently the 2600:1016 IPs used to geolocate to Cupertino, California, I suspect this is why the user was more confident in editing with those IPs. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Suthasianhistorian8 (talk • contribs) 13:26, 29 January 2023 (UTC)[reply]

Comments by other users

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No doubt he used 50.248.64.2491 to evade block, as we can see him using same IP address at his own talk page, after talk page access was revoked. This Ip was active till the end of August. Same topic areas as his other sock MehmoodS [109] Akshaypatill (talk) 04:22, 28 January 2023 (UTC)[reply]
@Bbb23: I am currently restructuring the SPI. Please read the incomplete version and provide your thoughts on whether this is better formatted. Thanks. Suthasianhistorian8 (talk) 17:29, 28 January 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Dmries, user MehmoodS most recent edits were on Jan of this year. I am not making this SPI because I intend to revert or edit any particular pages listed within here, but rather because this user is requesting a unblock and CheckUser data has supposedly found no evidence of checkuser block evasion, however there is undeniable evidence that he was editing logged out or through a proxy virtually every month since his block till now. @Bbb23: is it alright if I take a short break and resume this after a couple of hours? I have to attend something else for the time being. Suthasianhistorian8 (talk) 18:56, 28 January 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Hi Bbb23, firstly my apologies for changing the header. And yes, I was tracking the 2600:1016 range during November and December as well, and during that time the geolocation provided by Wikipedia said that the IPs belong to Cupertino, California, however the WHOIS service as well as other geolocation services offwiki both said the IPs are from Pennsylvania (the IPs that AtmaramU used to block evade on June 23, 2021 also said Cupertino, CA). For some reason, the geolocation has recently reverted to Pennsylvania, I'm assuming due to a network quirk I'm unfamiliar with. Suthasianhistorian8 (talk) 15:20, 29 January 2023 (UTC)[reply]

Clerk, CheckUser, and/or patrolling admin comments

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  •  Additional information needed - This report is the equivalent of WP:TLDR at less structured administrative noticeboards, but at the same time it lacks crucial information. Putting aside how many IPs are listed, both single and ranges, and many of whom have not edited recently, there are almost no diffs of the master or any other named socks. What we need to show block evasion now are paired diffs of recent edits by an IP and an edit by a named account, and we need that for all IPs or ranges that have recent edits. Finally, no check will be run against IPs for privacy reasons, so CU should not have been requested. Bbb23 (talk) 15:11, 28 January 2023 (UTC)[reply]
  • Bbb23, I was having a hard time following this structure, but I did see, as you did, that those IPs edited last in like August of last year. User:Suthasianhistorian8, is there anything here that is urgent and necessary? Drmies (talk) 17:32, 28 January 2023 (UTC)[reply]
  • @Suthasianhistorian8: I started checking the diffs in your "draft", and they have the same problem as before. As I already stated, the diffs of the IPs have to be very recent. I'll wait your response to this and to Drmies's comment, but I am inclined to close this report with no action.--Bbb23 (talk) 17:35, 28 January 2023 (UTC)[reply]
  • Close it. What is the point here? MehmoodS wasn't even linked here, and was the point to argue they're editing logged-out after their block? There is no evidence of that. User:Suthasianhistorian8, you need a lot more practice writing up these things, and you also need to think about what you are asking for, and what we do here. Drmies (talk) 18:40, 28 January 2023 (UTC)[reply]
  • @Drmies: I'm confused. What do you mean by "MehmoodS wasn't even linked here"? BTW, at this point I'm reviewing only "Recent edits logged out" where there are diffs for IPs in the last 90 days and for MehmoodS.--Bbb23 (talk) 18:48, 28 January 2023 (UTC)[reply]
  • You're confused, Bbb23? "Mehmood" occurs 24 times in this report, but not a single time with user links, and not marked as someone we're supposed to be looking at. Isn't the editor asking us to confirm that Mehmood is evading a block, by providing diffs like this one? What on earth could be the point of us looking at these IPs in relation to an account that was two and a half years ago? And that's why I said that they need more practice. Drmies (talk) 21:30, 28 January 2023 (UTC)[reply]
  • Drmies, let's say this is a more normal report of socking, and you have a new named account that you claim is a sock. The master has multiple socks. The usual evidence is of similarities between the suspected sock and the master or past socks. It doesn't matter how old the diffs are of the master/past socks. Let's take this one step closer to the reality of what's going on here. The filer, when pushed, provided evidence of IPs making similar edits to MehmoodS by giving diffs of the IPs in the last 90 days and edits by MehmoodS of any age. The purpose of this report is not to justify blocking the IPs but to provide evidence that MehmoodS has evaded their block, which is contrary to what Yamla found, and it was Yamla who instructed the filer to file this report.--Bbb23 (talk) 21:40, 28 January 2023 (UTC)[reply]
  • Hi, everyone. I'll summarize my position here. MehmoodS made an unblock request. I took a look at the checkuser evidence at that time and saw no evidence of recent block evasion. Suthasianhistorian8 claimed to have ironclad evidence that evasion had happened. That could easily trump the checkuser data, so I advised filing an SPI. I'm deliberately keeping this short, but happy to answer questions or go into more detail. I don't claim I'm definitely correct. --Yamla (talk) 13:20, 29 January 2023 (UTC)[reply]
  • Thanks, Yamla. I'll summarize my position as well. I believe based on the comparison diffs presented by Suthasianhistorian8 in the "Recent..." section (they keep changing the header), particularly those added earlier in the process as I haven't looked at every single one, the behavioral evidence that the IPs and MehmoodS are the same person is sufficiently persuasive that in the normal course of events, the IPs would be blocked for block evasion. In addition, MehmoodS has demonstrated by their own admitted use of IPs that they edit from Pittsburgh, and the IPv6s noted in the diffs geolocate to Pittsburgh (Suthasianhistorian8 says the IPs used to be allocated to Cupertino, California, but I have no idea how they know that or, if so, when that happened). So, without CU evidence, which we normally don't have the benefit of when analyzing IP edits, we would be done unless another administrator or clerk disagreed with my conclusion, particularly if it were one who knew more about this case. Now we come to the CU side, which I can only speak to superficially. MehmoodS has made 5 edits that are not stale. Fatih200, whom I will assume Yamla checked as well for additional data, has made 8 edits. That is not a lot of data to go on. Whether Yamla went further than that in their check I have no way of knowing, but I have confidence in Yamla's abilities as a CU, so I suspect he was as thorough as he could be in these circumstances. At this point, unless there is something new someone has to say, I suppose my position on the matter, which is that MehmoodS should not be unblocked because of block evasion, should go into the mix on their Talk page, and the issue should be discussed there.--Bbb23 (talk) 15:03, 29 January 2023 (UTC)[reply]
  • I can confirm that I indeed looked at Fatih200. I'd like to strongly emphasize Bbb23's point that both accounts combined had only a few recent edits, so there was not a lot to go on. Checkuser data is challenging in cases like this and behavioural evidence needs to be factored in. I'm deliberately trying hard to avoid violating CU privacy policies, but will say it's entirely possible that I may not have found technical CU evidence of block evasion (as in this case), but block evasion may nevertheless have happened. CU isn't a silver bullet. If the consensus is that behavioural evidence indicates block evasion, we obviously should not lift the block. --Yamla (talk) 17:04, 29 January 2023 (UTC)[reply]

15 April 2023

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Suspected sockpuppets

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Javerine
  • Created his account in late August 2022 while MehmoodS was blocked. The latter was recently found editing logged out virtually every single month (July- late January) during his 7 month block, except, for the month of September, which is when Javerine made his first edit.
  • This diff made just two hours after Javerine's first edit suggests that he was not a new user at the time [110], as he seems to invoke sock-puppetry right away.
  • Significant overlap in articles [111], both have the same MO of diminishing Maratha, Rajput, Afghan sides in military conflicts while aggrandizing their own side.
  • [112] and [113]. Both remove content mentioning Maratha's expanding into Punjab.
  • [114] and [115] (MehmoodS has extensively edited this page with numerous previous accounts and IPs)
  • Signifcant similarities on the Battle of Kup. [116], [117], [118], [119], [120] (the last diff is particularly egregious POV pushing reverting the Afghan strength side to 150,000, a wholly unsubstantiated claim) (MehmoodS has a particular fixation with this battle making 9 edits with accounts and many more logged out)
  • [121] and [122] on the Battle of Noshwera
  • Both have the exact same way of talking to others on their talk page. [123] and [124] addressing editors with "Sir".
  • Both fixate on diminishing Maratha Empire victories through changing figures in the infobox [125] and [126], [127]
  • [128] (even though he claims it was a self revert- he still changed the 800 Jamrud garrisons to 600 whereas prior to him editing, the page said 800 jamrud garrisons) and [129] on the Battle of Jamrud.
  • [130] & [131] on the page Hari Singh Nalwa
  • [132] & [133] on the page Ranjit Singh
  • Both post on User Kansas Bear's talk page to canvass-[134] & [135]
  • [136] and [137] on Battle of Rohtas, both changing casualty figures to 5,500.
  • [138] and [139] on Sardar Gulab Singh
  • [140] & [141] on the page Maratha Empire.
  • Javerine edited British procterate, a page MehmoodS was also fixated on. Javerine removes a source on a Sikh state being a British protected state and paying a tributary [142], it appears he realized his mistake and quickly reverted it as his reversions on this article are listed on his SPI [143]
  • [144] and [145], same tendentious editing on 1947 Amritsar train massacre.
  • [146] and [147]

The duck behavior is overwhelming. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Suthasianhistorian8 (talk • contribs) 07:29, 17 April 2023 (UTC)[reply]

Lovepreet Singh Bahadur
  • Changes result on article from inconclusive to "Sikh victory, siege ineffective"- [148], the exact same edit as his IP was found doing [149]
Ronnie Macroni
  • Significant overlap with Javerine. [150]. Again, same MO as MehmoodS and Javerine.
Notes

Please note that the user has a extensive history of using proxies 199.82.243.102 (talk+ · tag · contribs · filter log · WHOIS · RBLs · proxy check · block user · spi block · block log · cross-wiki contribs · CheckUser (log)) and 134.195.198.201 (talk+ · tag · contribs · filter log · WHOIS · RBLs · proxy check · block user · spi block · block log · cross-wiki contribs · CheckUser (log)), as well as using ranges which obscure his true geographic location. [151] and [152] + [153]. ([154], [155] and the 2601:540:8180 and the 2600:387:5 IPs were editing at the same time-[156] and [157] proving that he was not editing in NYC like the 2600:387:5 IP suggests.)

Further, Javerine was created on August 23, MehmoodS was editing from 3 different airports during this time- [158] (Pennsylvania airport), [159] (Calgary Airport), and [160] (Toronto Airport). Travelling would be the perfect time to create a sock account. Javerine incidentally starts becoming much more active after Jan 30. Javerine's editing frequency matches with MehmoodS'. Javerine had an average of 18 edits in March, prior to MehmoodS' block, he had an average of 16 per day for the 2 months before his block.

The recent imbroglio in January of this year had me suspicious as it seemed MehmoodS was making it exceedingly obvious that he was editing logged out in a way any reasonable editor would foresee getting caught almost immediately. Then these 2 edits clearly made by him logged out even after Jan 30 [161] and [162] signaled to me that it was a possible distraction to move on to another account with less scrutiny. The 192 IP and 199 IP are from the same source (FedEx) + [163].South Asian Historian (talk) 10:29, 15 April 2023 (UTC)[reply]

Edit: @Bbb23: for reviewing. South Asian Historian (talk) 07:39, 17 April 2023 (UTC)[reply]

Post CU edit: Thank you Yamla for all your help. I'm really thankful for it. To save admins some time, I very recently uncovered something that strongly indicates that Ronnie Macroni and Javerine are not meatpuppets, but rather that there is a likely link between Ronnie Macroni and another unrelated/unlisted user in a way that may or may constitute meat-puppetry (I can't go into too much detail as it would be against Wikipedia's privacy policy). It's not something I would like to escalate at the moment unless there is overt disruption going on, although I did express concerns over possible off-wiki enlisting and its possibility of exacerbating in the future in a recent email. I have no comments about Lovepreet Singh Bahadur given his lack of edits. South Asian Historian (talk) 22:32, 24 April 2023 (UTC)[reply]

Comments by other users

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


Clerk, CheckUser, and/or patrolling admin comments

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  •  Confirmed to each other:
  • Red X Unrelated to each other and any other account, as far as I can see:

No comment on any IP addresses involved. My findings today are based solely on technical data, not on editing patterns. It cannot be used to rule out meatpuppetry. Use of proxies has been repeatedly brought up. Without giving away anything confidential, I kept that in mind when doing the investigation. Checkuser tools aren't magical pixie dust but I'd be quite surprised if I was mistaken on Ronnie Macroni and Lovepreet Singh Bahadur. On the other hand, I was surprised at how blatant the connection between Javerine and MehmoodS. I will tag and block Javerine. My findings do not preclude an administrator taking additional action on the other accounts based on behavioural comparison, but my findings give me no reason to do so based on direct technical evidence. --Yamla (talk) 21:35, 24 April 2023 (UTC)[reply]

Although already closed, we haven't archived yet. I can  Confirmed an additional sock:

I'll block and tag. No additional sleepers. There are another couple of accounts showing up on the various IP addresses in use, but technical data makes them unlikely and they haven't edited. --Yamla (talk) 20:17, 28 April 2023 (UTC)[reply]

30 April 2023

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Suspected sockpuppets

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Historian2325 started editing after almost a month, first two pages he picked were targets of the confirmed sock till yesterday. Can't be a coincidence. CrashLandingNew (talk) 18:18, 30 April 2023 (UTC)[reply]

He is active on all these IPs. They were blocked once before, see archive of the puppet master. CrashLandingNew (talk) 19:02, 30 April 2023 (UTC)[reply]

Comments by other users

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

Clerk, CheckUser, and/or patrolling admin comments

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27 May 2023

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Suspected sockpuppets

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  • Created his account the same day Javerine was blocked.
  • "DUCK quacking into a megaphone" edits on Kaur [164] & [165]. See [166], [167] and [168]
  • Exact same fixation with Afghan-Sikh and Mughal-Sikh conflicts- [169] and [170].
It's obviously the same person. Southasianhistorian8 (talk) 19:18, 27 May 2023 (UTC)[reply]

Comments by other users

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

Clerk, CheckUser, and/or patrolling admin comments

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  • I agree that the user-activity is suspicious and sock-y with some links to HaughtonBrit's socks, although I wouldn't swear on the sockmaster's identity given the number of sockmasters active in this/related areas. Will recommend and wait for a CU check and in case that is negative, will evaluate the edits more deeply to see if sanctions are needed based upon the editing of this account alone. Abecedare (talk) 03:21, 28 May 2023 (UTC)[reply]
  • CU says very  Likely - there's no smoking gun, but there are a lot of technical similarities. Taken with several other factors, I have no doubts.  Blocked and tagged. Closing. Girth Summit (blether) 15:44, 29 May 2023 (UTC)[reply]

31 May 2023

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Suspected sockpuppets

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  • Created his account in mid May- same as his most recent few socks.
  • DUCK edits regarding the Battle of Amritsar (1757) [171] and [172]
  • Exact same fixation with Afghan-Sikh and Mughal-Sikh conflicts
He also primarily edits logged out with these two IP ranges: [173] and [174]. I'm not sure if there are subranges within those two that could be blocked so as to prevent hiw block evasion whilst also reducing collateral damage to other editors.
Edit: I think /44 or B03/48 might be a good fit for the 2601 range, as the bulk of the most recent 250 edits appear to be him, I'm also assuming that he was editing/vandalizing this page- [175] a while back, as it lines up with his previous edits. Southasianhistorian8 (talk) 19:18, 27 May 2023 (UTC)[reply]
The IPs keep hounding me every time I edit an unprotected page. Blocks on the IPs would be appreciated, although I'm aware that a subrange is needed for the 2600:1016 range, as there many legitimate editors using it. Southasianhistorian8 (talk) 01:49, 2 June 2023 (UTC)[reply]

Comments by other users

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

Clerk, CheckUser, and/or patrolling admin comments

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The edits by Singh62002 are disruptive and display as a similar POV as the sockmaster but they are not necessarily the same user, esp. in light of the CU findings. So for now will inform them of IPA CTOP. Tagging the case for closure. Abecedare (talk) 18:37, 3 June 2023 (UTC)[reply]
The sockmaster s also active on the range 2600:1016:b020::/44 (block range · block log (global) · WHOIS (partial)). Haven't blocked yet since there is at least some collateral damage. Can re-evaluate if needed. Abecedare (talk) 18:56, 3 June 2023 (UTC)[reply]
2600:1016:b020::/44 (block range · block log (global) · WHOIS (partial)) also blocked for a month. Abecedare (talk) 23:57, 3 June 2023 (UTC)[reply]

21 July 2023

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Suspected sockpuppets

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Elifanta23

  • Newly made account exhibiting very similiar editing patterns as Ralx888 by following CanadianSingh1469 around. [176]
  • Mimicking my actions just to frustrate the encyclopedia [177]- [178]-[179]

Jaagit

  • Very first edit is a SPI against me. The user subsequently claimed that he was Bane143 in his unblock request, an obvious lie given that Bane143 has not edited in 1.5 years, and there is no indication whatsoever that Bane143's editing behaviour or ideology aligns with the nature of the SPI. This type of apalling and egregious deception is something HaughtonBrit is notorious for. The SPI is also structured and worded much like my April 15 SPI on him [180].
  • I know Jaagit has been possibly linked to Kelownatopdog-[181] by CUs, but I find it hard to believe that Jaagit is part of this sockfarm. I don't know how this came to be uncovered, whether it was an organic result of a check conducted solely on Jaagit and it turned out there was some overlap between the two or whether CUs happened to check and compare Kelownatopdog and Jaagit in the same proximity by coincidence. Kelownatopdog has not made any unblock requests or reports with any of his accounts, and appears to be quite candid about his sockpuppetry, even having an account called "PuppetAccountK". Filing a SPI to inhibit his "opponents" would be outside of his MO, which is usually to revert and sometimes insult other editors in his edit summaries or on their talk pages. I would not be surprised if HaughtonBrit was in Canada right now (where I believe Kelownatopdog is based from too). He traveled to Canada last year in August (Calgary and Toronto for certain, and possibly some other cities we dont know of )-[182]. Hopefully, this can be cleared up.

Supmananger

  • User page is the exact same as Canon8's. [183]-[184].
  • Refiles the SPI on me immediately after it was closed [185]
  • Edits the same page I was editing not too long- something HaughtonBrit has a fixation on doing [186].

Yesverg1699/Krasius1090

  • Posts on CanadianSingh1469's page right after creating his account [187].
  • Immediately starts creating articles similar to Javerine and his IPs.

Southasianhistorian8 (talk) 10:53, 21 July 2023 (UTC)[reply]

Comments by other users

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Accused parties may also comment/discuss in this section below. See Defending yourself against claims. This is all lie and Suthasianhistorian8 is purposely tying my account to some sock account to block me so that he can continue to revert changes. From his history it also looks like I am not the only one he has done it to. I see that this user ties any account who edits Sikh related pages to HaughtonBrit account. If you look at the history of this user, there are more edits in concern to HaughtonBrit.[188]. I also see that this user had a history of sock-puppetry.

Any admin is welcome to check my account. Elifanta23 (talk) 11:26, 21 July 2023 (UTC)[reply]

  • Comment by Sirfurboy - I filed a duplicate request, sorry. Did not notice this one was open. Copying what I have there, but please note that I believe there is evidence that CanadianSingh1469 may also be a sock, and should be included in the SPI. What I wrote:

User's first day editing in mainspace, and they post this suspicious keep in an increasingly controversial AfD [189]. They also struck an IPs comments and then struck them again, after being reverted. The editor reverting them left this edsum: [190]. On checking SPI history I found this case for CanadianSingh1469 [191]. The result of that surprises me as it appears there was already strong suspicion that CanadianSingh1469 was part of a sockfarm. Now we have them defending a page that appears to have no good sources that they created, and what is clearly the sock of someone coming in to !vote keep, per CanadianSingh1469. Elifanta23 passes a  Looks like a duck to me duck test. CanadianSingh1469 and the editing behaviour support a view these are related to Ralx888 and thus to the sockfarm. Sirfurboy🏄 (talk)

  • Admins, please do check my account and once cleared please close these bogus requests.Elifanta23 (talk) 12:12, 21 July 2023 (UTC)[reply]
  • HaughtonBrit was probably traveling while creating and using these accounts. See [192]. The 107* IPs are very likely HaughtonBrit. I'm also starting to believe there probably was some off-wiki campaign that led to many of the events and accounts listed in this SPI, given the sheer absurdity of events that transpired- Jaagit being possibly linked to Kelownatopdog by CUs, despite the fact that his SPI was worded much like HaughtonBrit's work, and the fact that Kelownatopdog has never made an unblock request or report with any of his accounts or interacted with me for over a year, Supmananger and Elifanta popping up shortly afterwards, with the former creating the exact same user page as Canon8 (another one of HaughtonBrit's confirmed socks) and refiling the SPI on me immediately after being closed. Then in the page Battle of Jalalabad, a Washington DC IP (107.116*) popped up, behaving very similarly to HaughtonBrit, zealously trying to diminish a side belligerent to the Sikhs, and also invoking Surjit Singh Gandhi, a historian him and I discussed at length before, then, another 107* IP showed up making the same revert as the DC IPs, but this time they geolocate to Washington State. I'm very, very confused by whatever is going on. Southasianhistorian8 (talk) 10:00, 25 July 2023 (UTC)[reply]

Clerk, CheckUser, and/or patrolling admin comments

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21 July 2023

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Suspected sockpuppets

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User's first day editing in mainspace, and they post this suspicious keep in an increasingly controversial AfD [193]. They also struck an IPs comments and then struck them again, after being reverted. The editor reverting them left this edsum: [194]. On checking SPI history I found this case for CanadianSingh1469 [195]. The result of that surprises me as it appears there was already strong suspicion that CanadianSingh1469 was part of a sockfarm. Now we have them defending a page that appears to have no good sources that they created, and what is clearly the sock of someone coming in to !vote keep, per CanadianSingh1469. Elifanta23 passes a  Looks like a duck to me duck test. CanadianSingh1469 and the editing behaviour support a view these are related to Ralx888 and thus to the sockfarm. Sirfurboy🏄 (talk) 11:49, 21 July 2023 (UTC)[reply]

Comments by other users

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

I understand this SPI but in all honesty, I don't think CanadianSingh1469 is socking or part of any sockfarm. He was cleared of any suspicion in his SPI investigation. This is 99.99% just HaughtonBrit just up to his odd antics again. Southasianhistorian8 (talk) 11:53, 21 July 2023 (UTC)[reply]

Thank you. I am not familiar with the sock, so yes, maybe this is the sock deliberately following CanadianSingh1469 around and causing mischief. However, looking at the SPI case I found, I don't see that CanadianSingh1469 was cleared. It looked like there was a block and no further action was taken. Maybe I have misunderstood - I don't come here very often so am not an expert on SPI. I wonder if Black Kite is around and could give an opinion, being an admin involved in that case. Sirfurboy🏄 (talk) 12:03, 21 July 2023 (UTC)[reply]
No action was taken as I was cleared in the SPI. I was not blocked over the SPI. CanadianSingh1469 (talk) 18:57, 21 July 2023 (UTC)[reply]
I think by checking my early edit history, and my writing style it would be clear that I am not a sockpuppet. CanadianSingh1469 (talk) 19:03, 21 July 2023 (UTC)[reply]
I agree unequivocally that CS1469 is not part of any sock/meat farm. Southasianhistorian8 (talk) 19:29, 21 July 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Happy to withdraw my SPI in favour of Southasianhistorian8's above, and thus drop CanadianSingh1469 from the investigation. Apologies to CanadianSingh1469 for my misreading of the history. Sirfurboy🏄 (talk) 19:37, 21 July 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Thanks @Suthasianhistorian8 for raising your opinion :) CanadianSingh1469 (talk) 19:58, 21 July 2023 (UTC)[reply]
  • Comment by CanadianSingh1469 - I am not in any sockfarm or anything. I would like to point out that if I were using socks wouldn’t I be actively participating in my original sock puppet investigation as Ralx888 was. I didn’t make a single comment on it because I didn’t know about it. I only found out about it after it closed. When Ralx888 was in a dispute in the Insurgency in Punjab, India page I made maybe one comment and that was after everything died out. CanadianSingh1469 (talk) 18:55, 21 July 2023 (UTC)[reply]
  • I have mentioned before that my account is not sock of any account and this is just like before an attempt to shutdown editors who disagree or could be challenge. Admins, please do check my account and once cleared please close these bogus requests.Elifanta23 (talk) 12:11, 21 July 2023 (UTC)[reply]
There is still an outstanding Checkuser request attached to this filing. Liz Read! Talk! 23:50, 24 July 2023 (UTC)[reply]

Clerk, CheckUser, and/or patrolling admin comments

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22 July 2023

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Suspected sockpuppets

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User Mian Singh was banned in June for disruptively editing articles, specifically by making controversial and undiscussed page moves to new titles. I noticed another account behaving in a similar pattern. Both accounts focus on Sikhism-related articles and have the same habit of moving these articles to new names without any attempt at building or establishing consensus for these moves. It is very suspicious that this Khidrana Singh account popped up a month after the Mian Singh account was indef. banned.

Please see these diffs:

Mian Singh account: [196], [197], [198], [199]

Khidrana Singh account: [200], [201], [202], [203], [204], [205], [206]

Further proof these accounts are operated by the same person can be found in the sandboxes of these users. Both users maintain extremely large sandboxes trying to cover anti-Sikh violence throughout India in 1984:

Mian Singh: [207]

Khidrana Singh: [208]

I am convinced these are the same person and I hope this can be confirmed and if indeed true, appropriate action may be taken before they cause further damage to the project. ThethPunjabi (talk) 03:37, 22 July 2023 (UTC)[reply]

Comments by other users

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

Clerk, CheckUser, and/or patrolling admin comments

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04 October 2023

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Suspected sockpuppets

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UnbiasedSN-Blatant POV, disruptive editing on Battle of Kartarpur much like all the previous socks. Similar behaviour as Ralx888 and Elifanta23 by appending himself to CanadianSingh1469. Same POV pushing as what is very obviously HaughtonBrit using a proxy - [209] & [210].

Finmas- The account was created on the same day Javerine was blocked. Significant article overlap with both Javerine and Ralx888. Made this comment directed at me just one day after his account was created-[211], in an article talk page that Ralx888 was actively participating in-[212].

Note that HaughtonBrit was previously editing logged out since April 2023 but is now using proxies [213] + [214] + [215] + [216] + [217]. The FedEx IPs (199* and 192*) are his confirmed socks. Recently, a 65*IP was pushing the same edits as HaughtonBrit relentlessly does on the page Battle of Patti, coincidentally this IP also happens to be a proxy, and made the same exact message on my talk page as UnbiasedSN-UnbiasedSN's copy paste of the message I posted on his talk page and IP's message-[218]. Seems like a duck. Southasianhistorian8 (talk) 04:00, 14 October 2023 (UTC) Southasianhistorian8 (talk) 22:58, 4 October 2023 (UTC)[reply]

Comments by other users

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

Clerk, CheckUser, and/or patrolling admin comments

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  • CU data is not helpful in this case, I'm afraid, except to say the two accounts are Red X Unrelated to each other. I make no claims they are unrelated to other socks in this case, only that CU data is not helpful in this case. --Yamla (talk) 10:45, 27 November 2023 (UTC)[reply]
  • Evidently stale
ST47 (talk) 00:58, 9 January 2024 (UTC)[reply]

09 January 2024

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Finmas- The account was created on the same day Javerine was blocked. Significant article overlap with both Javerine and Ralx888. Made this comment directed at me just one day after his account was created-[219], in an article talk page that Ralx888 was actively participating in-[220]. HaughtonBrit has a proclivity to use SPIs as a tool to try to get me blocked, particularly since his account Javerine was blocked. See Abecedare's talk page- you can note that the 2600:1016 IP was later blocked for block evasion-2600:1016 block log. Since then, the users Jaagit and Supmananger filed SPIs against me-[221]. Both users had very strong behaviorual similarities as HaughtonBrit as acknowledged by both RoySmith and Abecedare and were subsequently blocked-[222]. On top of that HaughtonBrit's IPs were openly intervening in the SPIs against those accounts trying to get them absolved-[223]. Then once again, one of HaughtonBrit's proxy socks that have a listed IP of FedEx, proxies that he has been abusing for years-[224] + 199.82.243.0/24 edits used for block evasion after his 5 June 2022 block started making these edits on different admins' talk pages trying to get met blocked comparing me to a PrinceofRoblox sockpuppet-[225] + [226] + [227]. Finmas's use of SPIs as a tool against me + his fixation on PrinceofRoblox can't be a coincidence [228]- they're undeniably the same person. The only person who has this mcuh of a grudge against me and who knows an awful lot about my editing habits is HaughtonBrit given that he's been incessantly confronting me non stop since 2021, at first with accounts like MehmoodS, and when both MehmoodS and Javerine were blocked, with IPs, various proxies, and sock accounts like Rivanawam and Testload and Swellingtom.

Edit: The first check on this account was done on November 27, two months after this user stopped editing on September 27. Since then's he edited again and made it exceedingly obvious that he's a sockpuppet of HaughtonBrit with his PrinceofRoblox SPI. This user is fairly adept at tricking checkusers- see [229] where he managed to trick CUs into believing he had not evaded his block in the past 6 months while making hundreds of edits logged out and with a sock account Javerine. He has numerous dynamic IPs and proxies at his disposal.

Swellingtom-Is behind this 199* blocked proxy. See similar edits-[230] and [231]- Much like the same religious nationalist edits as HaughtonBrit's other socks-Pittsburgh IP. On top of that, the 199* IP was active on the same page as other FedEx IPs makign the same exact edits (which has been conclusively established as HaughtonBrit's proxies)- see [232] and [233] and [234].

Regarding Dazzem- please see my message on Ponyo's talk page. HaughtonBrit has often posted on Ponyo's talk page in regards to KamalAfghan's sock farm with a bunch of his IPs. Now he is doing the same with sock accounts-[235].

Edit: He is continuing his disruptive trolling-[236] and [237]. Can someone look at this to prevent him from harassing other users and trolling. He is calling unblocked users sockpuppets in his edit summaries. This is flagrant harassment and intimidation and proves without any shadow of dobut that Dazzem is a sockpuppet as he was trying to get Leviathian12 blocked on Ponyo's talk page-[238]. Pinging firefly, @Dreamy Jazz:, @Cabayi:, @Girth Summit:. Southasianhistorian8 (talk) 13:59, 14 January 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Admins, please also see this AFD discussion page-[239]. You can see that there are 4 IP votes, and they're all either from Pittsburgh or proxies. Various 2601:547 HaughtonBrit IPs were also editing the article's talk page-[240]. Even Sutyrarashi, an experienced editor who has been on here for 3 years noted that there was clear sockpuppetry taking place. Please be very aware that this user has very extensive proxy use, and some of the proxies do not get detected by Wikipedia or spur, I'm willing to bet that this is the reason why Finmas was cleared by CU, but it is 110% him. Southasianhistorian8 (talk) 17:15, 15 February 2024 (UTC)[reply]
Now you can see that this user is comparing me to a criminal and trying to damage my reputation by invoking my former sockpuppetry and implying that any thing I do should automatically be invalidated-[241]. It's just astonishing to see how low he can stoop to. Southasianhistorian8 (talk) 19:42, 16 February 2024 (UTC)[reply]
You can clearly see that every single time someone has tried to file an SPI on me, they were all HaughtonBrit confirmed IPs or sockpuppets. [242]- the 2601:547 IP range are confimred HB IPs, and have been blocked numerous times, not just as range blocks, but also multiple times as individual IPs-[243].
Then you can see Jaagit and Supmananger doing the same thing and both were blocked as possible sock/meatpuppets of HB, both exhibited similar writing styles and both were consistent with the pattern of hounding me at the time-[244] and [245].
Hounding examples- Ralx888, HB's confirmed socks following me on the Operation Blue Star thread where I was active on right before he joined-[246]+ [247], [248]. Then while I was editing the page Kaur, this user started hounding me editing logged out-[249] take a look at the 2600:1016 IPs and their obvious attempts to stifle, these IPs geolocate to Pittsburgh and were also recognzied as HB socks-[250].
+ [251] + [252] and you can see on the page Battle of Jalalabad talk page- the 2601:547 IPs were block evading edit warring and trying to overturn consenus-[253]. On the page Nanakpanthi, this user was hounding me logged out as well as blatantly lying about what a source said, to once again, aggrandize his religion-[254] and [255]. [256] You can see all the 2600:1016 IPs confirmed HB socks who were there simply to stifle me. Then I was being hounded on the page Second Siege of Anandpur by again HB's confirmed IP socks-[257], [258], [259] leading to the page being protected. More hounding on the Kaur page during May-[260] and [261]. Being followed on the talk page of Punjabi Suba movement by one of HB's 2600:1016 IP-[262]. Then I was hounded by HB's confirmed sock Rvianwam who tried to gaslight me on my own talk page and mess with my edits on the page Kaur-[263]. Further hounding on the page 1991 Rudrapur bombinds-[264] and 1987 Lalru bus massacre-[265] by HB's 2601:547 and other Pittsbiurgh IPs. More hounding on the page Anand Karaj which lead to the page being protected numerous times-[266]. More harassment on the page 1983 Dhilwan bus massacre-[267]. One the page Battle of Mardanpur-[268]. Hounding and block evading on the deletion discussion page of Battle of Manakpur by Elifanta23-[269]. All this leading up to Jaagit and Supmananger.
Anyone can see a clear pattern of harassment and intimidation. I know this is a highly idiosyncratic situation where one person clearly follows one person around, makes constant frivolous reverts to their edits, makes constant attempts to gaslight them for years and hence admins and other uninvolved users think I'm exaggarating or being overly zealous and percieve my reports as trying to stifle opponents. But I actually urge you to go through my edits since April 2023 and you can see hundreds of examples of me being hounded by this user. Since the amount of diffs I have of this user hounding me are quite large are very, very large, I will continue this at a later time. Southasianhistorian8 (talk) 07:55, 17 February 2024 (UTC)[reply]
@Abecedare, I know this is a long shot since Abecedare is inactive at the moment, but Abecedare dealt with much of HB's harassment during April-August 2023 and can affirm how blatant and unusual HB's block evasion has been. Southasianhistorian8 (talk) 07:58, 17 February 2024 (UTC)[reply]
Btw, I only included a small sample of diffs from certain pages, there are far more individual diffs in each page, but for brevity's sake I had to include only a few of them. Southasianhistorian8 (talk) 08:05, 17 February 2024 (UTC)[reply]
You can see just 3 days before Jaagit and Supmananger filed SPIs against me, I had to deal with HB's sockpuppetry on the page Anand Karaj-[270] leading to the page having to be protected. Jaagit and Supmananger were clearly HB's sock/meatpuppets and were accordingly blocked by admins.
You can note that HB has an extensive history of using a certain proxy/VPN that has a listed ISP of FedEx-[271] for at least 2 years. These FedEx proxies were also being used to block evade after MehmoodS was blocked. See the 199.82.243.0/24 range on the 28 Jan 2023 SPI-[272]. You can clearly see these exact same FedEx proxies were being used to file frivolous SPIs against me by posting on different admins' talk pages comparing me to some Prince of Roblox sock-[273]. See how this 192 IP is the same FedEx proxy-[274]. [275] See how this 199 IP is the same FedEx proxy-[276]. [277]. See how this different 199 IP is also the exact same FedEx proxy-[278]. I tried to inform Courcelles that it was HaughtonBrit's proxies which were making these comparisons, HaughtonBrit edited on the talk page right after me, confronting me, with this FedEx Proxy-[279] and [280]. You can also note that this exact same 170 proxy was the same who filed a SPI report against KamalAfghan-[281]! I think I have conclusively proven that I am a frequent target of these SPIs by HB. You should also note the timing of these SPIs, the proxies posting on various admins' talk pages was right near or on the same exact date as the 2 year anniversary of the creation of my account (Sep 28, 2021). Finmas then makes a Prince of Roblox SPI against me on the 1 year anniversary of my unblock (Dec 30, 2022) much like the HB confirmed proxies comparing me to Prince of Roblox, this in addition to the fact that this account followed me to the Operation Blue Star talk page thread much like HB's other CU blocked account Rivanwam. How in the absolute world is this not bleedingly obvious duck behaviour? Southasianhistorian8 (talk) 09:49, 17 February 2024 (UTC)[reply]
Adding my comment to The Wordsmith's t/p which got Dazzem blocked: Good day. I saw that you partially actioned HaughtonBrit's SPI-[282]. However, the other sock Dazzem is unblocked, I believe owing to DatGuy's statement: "Dazzem (talk · contribs) is Possible, but hasn't made enough edits for a behavioural block. I've blocked them for a week for other loutsocking." I'd like to address this, the whole situation is so convoluted because of HB's brazen sockpuppetry, gaslighting, and frequent oscillation of IPs (both IPv6s, v4s and proxies) that it's head spinning. I will try my best to reiterate my case for Dazzem being an obvious sock of HB.
Just to get this out the way, HB's MO on Wikipedia is to aggrandize and augment Sikh military achievements on Wikipedia, since the Sikhs were historically involved in major conflicts with the Afghans, HB tends to be active in Sikh-Afghan conflicts, but also Mughal-Sikh, Anglo-Sikh, Maratha-Sikh conflicts and more. He edits from Pittsburgh or other nearby places in Pennsylvania-[283]. Bbb23 commented-"In addition, MehmoodS has demonstrated by their own admitted use of IPs in the past that they edit from Pittsburgh, and the IPv6s noted in the diffs geolocate to Pittsburgh.". After his accounts Javerine and Ralx888 were blocked, this user has been hounding me non stop with various 2601:547 and 2600:1016 IPs which geolocate to Pittsburgh, or occasionally with different Pittsburgh IPv4s. See block logs-[284], [285], [286]. I listed some of the harassment on the SPI page as well.
In March, a user KamalAfghan appeared, making edits aggrandizing the Afghans. HaughtonBrit immidiately began a campaign against him- for example you can see Javerine (HB confirmed sock) reverting KA-[287], and then HB 2601 IPs hounding him after Javerine was blocked-see 11 HB IP edits editing in close proximity to KA-[288]. More hounding: [289], you can see 14 HB IP edits editing in close proximity to KA-[290]. 8 edits (from both HB's confirmed sock Ralx888 and 2601:547 IP) here-[291]. 12 edits in close proximity to KA here-[292]. You can also see the 2601:547 IP trying to recreate a deleted battle that HB made, which was later declined due to sockpuppetry-[293]. Eventually HB started approaching admins just before KamalAfghan was blocked on May 18 discussing the possibility of sockpuppetry-[294] and [295] (you can note that these messages were made on the same day KamalAfghan was blocked). Somehow, Ponyo caught wind of this and promptly blocked KamalAfghan.
Since then HB has frequently been posting to Pnnyo's talk page regarding KA's sockpuppetry-
[296]
[297]
[298]
[299]
[300]
[301]
[302]
[303]
[304]
[305]
[306]
[307]
[308]
[309]
[310]
[311] (here Ponyo locked her talk page meaning that if HB wanted to canvass, he'd have to do it with an account)
You can see the 2601:547 IPs and the 71 IPv4 geolocate to Pittsburgh, and some of them are FedEx ISP proxies. HB has been abusing a certain proxy network that provides IPs that have a listed ISP of FedEx for years now. [312] + [313] when I filed a SPI on him on Jan 2023 which led to MehmoodS's unblock request being denied, I pointed out how he was using these FedEx proxies to block evade. He has been abusing these proxies since 2020, there are hundreds of diffs of him using them to evade his block and engage in edit warring without an account so he could avoid punishment, but this example is the most glaring- HB was having a disagreement on the page Battle of Saragarhi, making numerous edit both through accounts as well as these 192 and 199* FedEx proxies; he was engaged in a discussion with an admin utcursh-[314]. To troll and gaslight his disputant, he made an account impersonating utcursh, which he pointed out: "Pretty silly of you to create an account impersonating me (User:AtmaramU). The latest sources that you've added are not great either." and [315]-"After posting here, the anon (192 and 199 FedEx proxies) created an account impersonating me (User:UAtmaram), and added a few other sources to the article." and [316]. AtmaramU is a confirmed Hb sock.
You can see on KamalAfghan's SPI, with the exception of Maplesyrupsushi, all of them were filed by HB's FedEx socks-[317]. Dazzem makes the same post on Ponyo's talk page-[318] regarding KamalAfghan despite being a brand new editor. And this was right before HB's confirmed 2601:547 Pittsburgh IPs were harassing Leviathian12, whom HB believed to be a KA sock-[319]. In fact, the most current KamalAfghan SPI report is by the confirmed 2601:547 HB sock-[320]. Just goes to show this user tries to gaslight and be as outlandish as possible, so that anyone who reports him seems like they're exaggerating or being overzealous because no one would act that absurdly.
You can also note that 170* and 199* FedEx proxy who filed the SPI on KamalAfghan and were canvassing on Ponyo's talk page was also on Courcelles' talk page trying to get me blocked by saying I'm a sock of PrinceofRoblox-[321] and [322], [323]. Which is basically what Finmas (now blocked HB sock) was doing [324].
I'm sorry- I know this is pretty convoluted, but Dazzem is 110% a sockpuppet or at the very least meatpuppet of HB, it isn't even a matter of suspicion or plausible deniability. Their behaviours match 1:1. If you want me to clear anything up or have any questions, please let me know, I think it's imperative that a a brazen block evader and gaslighter like HB be shut down swiftly. He has been harassing and hurting people and disrupting Wikipedia for far too long. Southasianhistorian8 (talk) 01:57, 2 March 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Comments by other users

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

Suthasianhistorian8 is the one falsely calling me sock of HaughtonBrit. You can investigate and it will be proven without any benefit of doubt that users Leviathan12 and Monabhaii are none other than socks of KamalAfghan01 [325]. Same interest in articles that were vandalized by socks of KamalAfghan01. Quick check will prove it. Suthasianhistorian8 is quite familiar with these socks and deliberately trying to prevent from this findings. This user needs to stop his harassment. Looking at the history of this editor, over half of his edits are about accusing other editors of HaughtonBrit. He is nothing to contribute but here just for his obsession over HaughtonBrit. Anyone can Check his edit history for these findings.2601:547:B00:CD18:FD46:80B6:64C7:BABF (talk) 14:50, 14 January 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Your IP isn't in the range listed in the investigation. NasssaNsertalk 03:22, 6 February 2024 (UTC)[reply]
  • Seems to me that WP:BOOMERANG WP:SPI may be in order here. I'm not seeing any clear evidence of sockpuppetry/socking. While edit warring may indeed be a problem, that's not an issue for SPI. I advise EVERYONE involved to step away, cool down, and engage in a discussion on the talk page. In one instance the IP in question changed the number of troops at a battle hundreds of years ago from 60,000 to 20,000 and had multiple sources. Assuming both sources are right, couldn't we just say 20,000-60,000 and cite the various sources? Historians and editors can reasonably disagree and still produce good work. Buffs (talk) 06:46, 17 February 2024 (UTC)[reply]
    Hi @Buffs, I appreciate your comment and would like to address it. I do concur that my analysis of Swellingtom was flawed and I mistakenly believed it to be operating a proxy, whilst the account is evidently behind this 199* IP-[326], I do realize now that it wasn't a proxy but apparently linked to Freedom Mobile, which is indeed a legitimate service provider in Canada. At the time, I conflated its ISP, Globalive-[327] to an ISP of one of HB's previously blocked proxy, Globaltelehost-[328]. Given their similar names, I erroneously believed they were somehow connected. In my defense, during that time, I was being hounded by various strange proxies and IPs which were linked to obscure businesses and institutions, which were clearly in line with HaughtonBrit's actions, and as a result I was extra vigilant about proxy abuse. I had also never heard of a Canadian ISP called Globalive up until recently, despite me residing in Canada for the past two decades, and so I believed it to be an illegitimate business which many VPNs and proxies often appear linked to. HaughtonBrit was also editing the page Battle of Chappar Chiri logged out a few months before-[329] (you can see the 96* IP geolocates to Pittsburgh like all of HB's other IP socks-[330]. He was trying to stifle a (legitimate academic) source which essentially gave the Sikhs a numerical advantage over the Mughals in terms of troops, and hence made the Sikh victory less impressive, and if you know anything about HaughtonBrit, he's extremely fixated on manipulating infobox figures to aggrandize Sikh miltary achievements. See the diffs-[331], [332], [333]. He eventually concurred that the source provided was legitimate after another editor provided an excerpt from the book-[334]. So when the 199* IP made a very similar edit on the same page-[335] which once again gave the Mughals the numerical advantage in troops, it obviously range alarm bells in my head. On top of that, the 199* IP was using the exact same edit summaries as the 96 Pittsburgh IP-[336] and [337]. The 199* IP was also editing the page Battle of Amritsar (1757) which was also edited by HB's sock Javerine 17 times-[338], both of course had the same MO. Swellingtom also massively inflated British casualties in a Anglo-Sikh battle-[339] which again, manipulating Anglo-Sikh conflicts/battles was also something HB frequently did. So while my techinal analysis was indeed incorrect, I do still believe there meatpuppetry was at play there. For someone who has made thousands of edits after their block despite swearing up and down that they would never do anything of the sort, it's very plausible and likely that meatpuppetry could have been used to further their POV.
    I would also like to address your comments about the IP/account using sources to back up their claims, I do believe I have a fairly good grasp of what kinds of sources are reliable and comply with WP:HISTRS in South Asian related history topics and which are not. I have also asked admins involved in this area about their input on source reliability numerous times. The sources the IP and Swellingtom were using were not reliable. You can see in this edit-[340], the IP added a Ashiq Muhammad source, without adding the page number which would fail WP:V , and also a Jadunath Sarkar source which is a WP:RAJ source and has been explicitly deprecated by admins. In this edit-[341] , the IP added a source authored by Rajeev Katyal-https://www.rajeevkatyal.com/. You can see that the author has no educational training in history nor was his work peer reviewed, his main expertise and career focus was in Human Resources and business and his book was self published, making him a thorougly unreliable source. Swellingtom's edit wasn't much better-[342], he added a primary source written by a British chronicler who wrote the book in the 19th century. These drive by edits, which only serve to bolster the Sikhs military achievements are a hallmark of HaughtonBrit, who doesn't care about source reliability, accuracy, or anything else.
    Finmas and Dazzem however are clearly, undeniably HB socks. If you have any questions or concerns pertaining to those 2 accounts, I would be more than happy to address them. I do hope we can have a respectful and productive discussion. Thank you. Southasianhistorian8 (talk) 01:58, 19 February 2024 (UTC)[reply]
    I think we can have an amicable discussion. As stated above, my points were contingent on accurate sources. If they are not accurate, there is a different standard. It seems to me that semi-protection for these pages is in order and would recommend that (and did) on WP:AN. I have been accused many times of being a sockpuppet (along with acts of violence, murder, etc), but, despite some issues I have with the admin corps, they really do seem to get blocks due to sockpuppetry correct...eventually. Give 'em a chance; it might take a few minutes.
    Protip: if a source is self-published, it is only accurate for minimal, and attributable claims (like "A.B. states in his self-published book <claim XYZ>"); such claims must meet all other criteria for inclusion. The fact that the author has "no educational training in history nor was his work peer reviewed, his main expertise and career focus was in Human Resources" is an attack via credentialism, not facts. Stick with "self-published" as your reason to disregard such opinions. Everything else comes across as elitism/condescension.
    Good luck! Buffs (talk) 16:22, 19 February 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Clerk, CheckUser, and/or patrolling admin comments

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02 March 2024

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Suspected sockpuppets

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1) RangersRus' first few edits are on the page Sikhism in the United States just hours after a blocked HB sock IP was editing it, exact same MO of inflating the population's numbers, changing census figures and including notable people

HB was extensively editing the page logged out a month or so before RangersRus appears, through both logged out editing and his confirmed sock Javerine. HaughtonBrit edits logged out usually with 2601:547 IPs and 2600:1016 IPs-[343] + [344].

You can see these IPs and Javerine's edits-[345], [346], [347], [348], [349], [350], [351].

A 24* Pittsburgh IP which was editing the page on Aug 27 2023. You can note that this 24* Ip range was also confirmed as a HB sockpuppet-24* IP block log.

See anon edits-[352], [353], [354], [355],[356].

RangersRus comes in just two hours later making the exact same POV edits, inflating the Sikh population's numbers-[357], [358],[359],[360],[361],[362],[363] etc.

Finmas, a now blocked sock, was making these same type of "Sikhism in X country" edits-[364].

2) RangersRus shares the same Maratha animosity that HaughtonBrit is fixated on:

HaughtonBrit usually focuses on aggrandizing Sikh military achievements, but his second greatest fixation is on diminishing historical adversaries or contenders for power. He was very active in various Maratha pages; Maratha battles, notable Maratha commanders and military leaders, Maratha empire etc. While MehmoodS was blocked, and it was uncovered that he was editing logged out, a bulk of the logged out edits had to do with his animosity towards the Marathas-see this 50* Ip edit, this IP was used by MehmoodS to resubmit his unblock request after he had his tpa revoked-[365]. You can see that Hambirao Mohite, Maratha navy, Sai Bhonsle, Mahadji Shinde are all Maratha related. Keep in mind this is an extremely small sample of his edits, there are hundreds more.

See some examples out of many hundreds: [366], [367], [368], [369], [370], [371], [372], [373], [374], [375], [376], [377], [378]

RangersRus continues this Maratha animosity-[379] here he removes content claiming that Marathas conquered a fort and simultaneously removes content claiming that the Sikhs were defeated by an Afghan ruler. Here he is voting "delete" on an article which detailed a Maratha campaign-[380]. Voting "delete" on what appears to be a battle in Maharastra in which the Marathas defeated the Mughals-[381] + [382].

3) RangersRus and HaughtonBrit have the exact same editing history; movies + religious matters, evidently to evade suspicion and make it harder to track their edits. There are far too many diffs of this, and this can be gauged through a cursory inspection of both accounts.

4) RangersRus makes 991 edits in 3+ months before making his first AFD vote, just 3 hours after my first AFD nom; subsequent RangersRus AFD votes seem like a obvious, poorly hidden attempt to vote on my AFD noms with less scrutiny

Context: In 2023, a few users unrelated to HB became extremely active on Wikipedia, making many, many article (almost 100) which aggrandized the Sikhs-[383]+ [384], the vast majority of them were poorly written and sourced, for instance, they would use a combination of primary 17th/18th century texts with Raj era sources and haigographic modern sources and sometimes with reliable sources to push articles whose end result would be something preposterous, but would depict their co-religionists in the best light possible . See this [385] for example whose infobox says the Sikhs killed 35K out of the 35.1K belligerent troops. This isn't a one off example, there are dozens of these articles on Wikipedia.

In Jan 2024, I had made it clear that I would start nominating these articles for deletion and informed both users (whom HB has clear rapport with-[386], [387], [388], [389]) of my intentions to take action if they continued inundating the encyclopedia with these badly written articles, and subsequently made my first nom for AFD-[390].

You can note the time of my first deletion nomination- 14 Jan 20:34. RangersRus who had 991 edits up until that point and had never made a single AFD vote up until that point, suddenly began voting incessantly in various AFDs, right from that very moment, he made his first AFD vote just two-three hours after I made mine-[391] note the time of his vote being 23:52 14 Jan on a battle concerning a Maratha victory. His second AFD vote is also concerning a Maratha victory/campaign-[392]

RangersRus has made almost 60 AFD votes since then-[393] (control+f and type deletion in the box).

RangersRus also voted to delete a battle in which the Sikhs were defeated-[394]. This was a AFD in which HB made 4 edits logged out or through proxies + made 9 edits logged out from 6 Jan to 7 Jan [395] on the article's talk page, note the 2601:547 IPs. We have already established that HB edits from Pittsburgh or other nearby places in Pennslyvania when he is editing logged out with non proxy IPs, primarily with oscillating IPv6s, but occasionally with IPv4s-2601:547 block log, [396], [397].

See this 173* IP edit on the Battle of Akhora Khattak voting delete-[398], you can see it is a Pittsburgh IPv4-[399]. A 208* proxy also voted delete on this AFD- you can notice that this proxy was used in the same time period as when HB was editing logged out with 2601:547 IPs on multiple occasions-[400], [401]. The 2601:547 and 2600:1016 IPs were used by HB to edit the page Sikh Empire over 20 times during the summer of 2023. In July 2023, a user named Sutyarashi made some edits on that page which reduced the Sikh Empire’s territorial extent. On July 6, HB’s IPs (50* IPv4s and 2601:547 IP) and Sutyarashi got involved in a edit war-[402]. The next day it was a 208* proxy that filed an edit warring complaining against Sutyarashi-[403]. The 208* proxy was blocked for block evasion of a 73* Pittsburgh IPv4 by Ponyo-[404]. You’ll note that among the 73* IP’s contributions are edit warring with KamalAfhan-[405], various HB Pittsburgh IPs have been filing SPIs against KamalAfghan and engaging in confronting their work-[406],[407],[408]. Also see Dazzem (a blocked sock)’s edit-[409]. The 23* proxy that voted delete on the AFD is the exact same as HB’s 2601:547 IP, note the same edits hounding Leviathian12-[410] and [411] which is why it was blocked for block evasion-[412].

RangersRus also voted in the last 2/3 AFDs I nominated-[413] voting to keep an article which was clearly poorly sourced/non notable because it mentioned a Sikh victory, and this [414] (though this seems to be a tactic to continue voting on my AFDs with less scrutiny).

5) The thinly veiled AFD votes above matches his previous sock Elifanta23

Elifanta23, days after creating his account, follows me to an AFD, and overall acts as nuisance just to frustrate and hinder me [[415]]. Was later blocked by an admin whom HB had been attempting to gaslight before [416]. Elifanta23 even made the same comments on this SPI [417] trying to absolve himself, similar to what was made by the 2601:547/540 Pittsburgh IP in the previous report-[418] and what RangersRus is doing now despite the fact that I never pinged him.

TLDR TIMELINE:

1) RangersRus creates his account on Aug 21, 2023

2) 2 hours after a 24*Pittsburgh IP that was blocked by Abecedare as HaughtonBrit's block evasion , edits the page Sikhism in the United States (August 27, 16:00), RangersRus makes the same types of edits (Aug 27 18:00)-[419]

3) 4 Jan 2024, I inform CanadianSingh1469 (a user whom HB has significant rapport with, see Ralx888 and Elifanta23 + more IP canvassing in my diffs) that I plan to go to ANI/AN if he continues to create poorly sourced , written and extremely tendentious articles- [420] + [421]

4) On 14 Jan 2024, HaughtonBrit makes harassing edits against a user Leviathian12-[422], openly, brazenly posts on this very SPI trying to gaslight admins-[423] and makes a SPI on KamalAfghan-[424]

5) Later that day, I nominate Third Battle of Anandpur for deletion-[425] on 14 Jan 20:34.

6) RangersRus makes his first AFD votes on 14 Jan 23:52 and 15 Jan 0:08-[426] and [427] despite being on Wikipedia since August and having well over 990 edits

7) 15 Jan 2:14 RangersRus makes a delete vote on a AFD discussion in which HaughtonBrit voted 4 times logged out to delete as well[428]. See how this 173 IP which voted delete geolocates to Pennslyvania-[429]. See how this 208* IP which geolocates to Denver and has an ISP of Zayo Bandwidth matches this 208* IP-[430] which was following me to the page Anand Karaj in June 2023, you can see in the edit history, this 208 IP is in between HB's 2601:547 IP ranges-[431] (See edit on 14 June 00:56). Also see this 208* IP editing right after HB-[432]. The 208* IP was also blocked by Ponyo for block evasion of a 73* IP which geolocated to Pittsburgh-[433] + [434] + [435]. See the 23* IP which voted in the AFD of Akora Khattak, they were harassing Leviathian12 like HB's 2601:547 IP was doing-[436] + [437].

8) RangersRus votes on my next AFD on 16 Jan 13:18-[438]

9) RangersRus goes on a mass AFD voting spree, according to his own words, 60-70 votes since Jan 14

10) RangersRus votes to keep a poorly sourced article aggrandizing the Sikhs on my AFD vote on 28 Fed 23:47-[439]

Edit: It should be noted that my first few edits to this report weren't well written and omitting some key details and a timeline (I wrote it very late at night), hence the patrolling admin's comment. I've since trimmed some superfluous details, added more diffs, and expanded on central points. I can also elaborate on any questions about editing similarities, if need be. Southasianhistorian8 (talk) 12:15, 5 March 2024 (UTC)[reply]

@Drmies, The Wordsmith made the comment less than one hour after I made my first draft report, which as I said before, was not well written and was omitting a bunch of key details. I've since added more diffs and expanded on central points, making it more concise [440]. It should also be noted that Finmas and Dazzem, which were exceedingly, unquestionably obvious HB socks, were dismissed by CUs before. I have to disagree with your statement "Socks of this LTA can get blocked for their disruptive behavior regardless of whether we establish a connection." MehmoodS[441], just one of many HB socks was active on Wikipedia for 10 months and had over 3500 edits before it was discovered he was a sock account, which by the way he vehemently denied leading to his talk page access being revoked, but later confessed to it, and despite promising up and down that he would never do any sockpuppetry, he was making hundreds of edits logged out and even had an account Javerine he created a few months before the unblock request. Admins were seemingly about to unblock him before I intervened and detailed his extensive block evasion. HaughtonBrit himself was active on the site for one and a half years. Since his accounts Ralx888 and Javerine were blocked, this user has been hounding me non stop with logged out editing and proxies. I know this user very well, I've been dealing with him since 2021 and I'm extremely confident that RangersRus is a sock account. Perhaps it would be helpful if an admin active in South Asian topics could review this case. Southasianhistorian8 (talk) 17:14, 6 March 2024 (UTC)[reply]
Southasianhistorian8, what would certainly be helpful is more concise reports. You don't have to disagree with me, BTW. Maybe Yamla, who blocked one of these accounts, can have a look. Drmies (talk) 17:17, 6 March 2024 (UTC)[reply]
I think this SPI is pretty concise, admittedly it's long, but that's beyond my control and I think I did my best to keep it as short as possible. Given the complexities of this topic area and extremely extensive, idiosyncratic nature of HB's sockpuppetry, I really don't blame people for being confounded and not fully grasping just how bizzare this user's actions are. If possible, perhaps @Abecedare could give his input as he was actively dealing with this user during the summer of 2023 and he knows just strange this whole situation is. Southasianhistorian8 (talk) 17:23, 6 March 2024 (UTC)[reply]
Also pinging @RegentsPark, since he's a prominent admin in these topic areas and familiar with HB's behaviour. Southasianhistorian8 (talk) Southasianhistorian8 (talk) 17:51, 6 March 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Comments by other users

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

Bogus case of revenge SPI. I fail to see how these allegations are tenable. I do not remember my earlier edits and its plausible that Sikhism in the United States and Rohtas fort were one of the many pages on mainspace that showed up on recent edits list and I took interest in what I considered was unwarranted edits that didn't run parallel with the source and Rohtas Fort was a case of no source available and that is why the bare comment was removed. My interest in Deletion sorting list of India began when Battle of Udgir showed on recent edit list. Pages like Battle of Rohilla, Third siege of Anandpur and Battle of Akora Khattak AFDs are one of the many that were listed in the deletion sorting list that I would go through often to help with votes. I voted Delete for Third siege of Anandpur because it was poorly sourced and poorly written page and it was nominated by accuser himself. There were no complains. Battle of Akora Khattak was another where I voted for Delete because it was too poorly written and poorly sources with snapshots from Google books and my vote didn't matter because other voters thought that it was a keep. Battle of Rohilla is in near path with Battle of Akora Khattak but had more than passing views by very reliable scholarly sources. The vote didn't get prized by the accuser and so he created this SPI case. I am not connected with any religious or community to take precedence over. My votes are exclusively on the evaluation of sources. From 67 to 70 AFDs that I voted for, it should be unconcerning if I voted on the three pages that the accuser has concern on. Administrators can run a check on the quality of edits done by me and I hope these allegations can be dropped. RangersRus (talk) 21:52, 2 March 2024 (UTC)[reply]

How do you know about this SPI? I never pinged you.......Southasianhistorian8 (talk) 21:57, 2 March 2024 (UTC)[reply]
your reply to my vote on the AFD of Battle of Rohilla brought me here. I hope that is not a problem. RangersRus (talk) 22:03, 2 March 2024 (UTC)[reply]
It's not that you edited the page Sikhism in the United States, it's the fact that you did so two hours after a blocked HB sock was editing it-[442]. It's not just that you made a vote on my AFDs, it's the fact that your first AFD vote was three hours after my first AFD nom, despite the fact that you had 990+ edits and 3 months on Wikipedia up until that point, and then began mass voting in AFDs, you admit that it's been 60-70 now, and many of your votes line up exactly with HB's MO, your first 2 AFD votes were to delete battles which detailed Maratha victories, you voted in a AFD which HB voted in 4 times logged out, and in 2 out of 3 of my AFDs. Southasianhistorian8 (talk) 06:52, 3 March 2024 (UTC)[reply]
Can you not duplicate and reduplicate these long texts in your reply. I do not know what anyone's MO is but I do not have any. I do not know who makes edits to a page 2 hours before or after or who creates an AFD 3 hrs before or after. Sikhism in the United States as I am reiterating again plausibly was shown on recent edit list where I made warranted edits parallel to the sources long time back and have never been to that page since. I do not make my edits by taking a precedence over any community. That is why in many AFDs I voted for, pages are connected with different communities and subjects with different religious and ethnic background. If I voted for an article to be deleted that had Maratha Victory, it was by evaluating the sources that other voters also studied and voted the same on. It was the same result for the page that had Sikh Victory that I voted Delete for because it was too poorly sourced and written. Same for page that showed Kerela victory. These allegations are inane and waste of time for anyone to mull over. RangersRus (talk) 12:54, 3 March 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Clerk, CheckUser, and/or patrolling admin comments

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06 April 2024

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Suspected sockpuppets

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In case, admins would like more info on HB's usual IP ranges and some of the proxies he uses, please refer to this-[443]

HaughtonBrit (while block evading) had been extensively edit warring with a competing sockmaster Kamal Afghan01 through both SPAs and logged out editing. Some examples of edit wars between the 2: [444], [445], [446]. HaughtonBrit filed 3/4 of the SPIs against KamalAfghan with his blocked proxies/usual Pittsburgh IPs-[447], [448], [449]. His previous SPA Dazzem was blocked for requesting Ponyo to take a look at accounts he believed to be KA socks, in co-ordination with his proxies and usual IP ranges-Dazzem's post to Ponyo's t/p & [450], [451]. He also hounds users whom he believes to be KA socks-[452], [453].

Historian2325, despite his limited number of edits, seems to always "conveniently" show up to continue HB's campaign against KA , pushes the same MO/POV as prior HB socks, and was recently found to be acting in glaringly obvious coordination with another blocked HB sock. Here are diffs of Historian2325 being used to edit war/counter KA-This too was immediately after his SPAs Javerine and Ralx888 were blocked, [454], [455], [456], [457], [458], This was a draft made by KamalAfghan's sock, Historian2325 edit warred with KA here, the only way Historian2325 could have found about this draft was if he was tracking KA much like HB.

Examples of similar POV pushing: Historian2325 decreases the Sikh troop strength and claims that British suffered heavy casualties in the Battle of Ferozeshah. MehmoodS also inflated British troop strengths in the same page; On the page Nepal-Sikh war, Historian2325 mainpulates infobox figures, decreasing Sikh troop strength and casualties whilst inflating the Nepalese's numbers and casualties. Same MO as his other FedEx proxies/accounts/IPs-[459], [460], [461]; On the page Battle of Ramkani, Historian2325 changes "Inconclusive" to "Sikh victory" much like other HB socks-[462]

The page Afghan-Sikh wars has been a fixation of HB for years making 50-100 edits on the article and its t/p with SPAs and logged out editing over the years- For example much of the article's t/p is littered with HB's socks trying to aggrandize the Sikh side as much as possible-his usual 199 FedEx proxy, HB's blocked 134 proxy, his SPA MehmoodS, his blocked account Dekhoaayadon etc. Historian2325 makes the same POV edits as HB used to-[463], [464], [465]. On the same day (March 16) the page is ECP and 3 hours after Historian's last edit to that page, Dekhoaayadon is created. He promptly accuses a competing editor Paathan2024 if he is a sockpuppet on the t/p and files a SPI against him a few days later-[466], [467], heavily mirroring the accounts Dazzem and his posts to Ponyo's t/p requesting action against KamalAfghan. Dekhoaayadon gets blocked as a HB sock on April 3. During that time Historian2325 was completely inactive, just 2 days after Dekhoaayadon's block, Historian2325 makes a post on the t/p asking why pages that HB's previous SPA Javerine created are deleted-[468] + [469]. replaced with shorter version Southasianhistorian8 (talk) 08:20, 3 May 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Turns out my previous suspicions on how HaughtonBrit was evading his block was correct-[470]. According to Ponyo, Finmas, a SPA, who was previously determined by CUs as "Unrelated" and then "Inconclusive", was editing solely from VPNs. HaughtonBrit used to hound me primarily through logged out editing, but since September 2023 he also started using a bunch of different proxies into the mix, some of which managed to "pass" Wikipedia's proxy checker and spur, even though it was pretty obvious that they were proxies because they were linked to some business which was not a legitimate ISP. I will list all the proxies I've dealt with. Southasianhistorian8 (talk) 01:14, 8 April 2024 (UTC)[reply]
2 admins have stated that a CU check on Historian2325 is warranted-[471]. Southasianhistorian8 (talk) 17:03, 12 April 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Alvin1783, a newly activated account, immediately starts creating articles in which the Sikhs were victorious. Definitely not ones which would indicate that he's a new user. The articles are designed and worded and sourced EXACTLY the same way as HB's SPA Javerine's articles- they have the same typical article length, same images, similar grammatical style, same MO/POV, same content demarcation, same use of Article Wizard. The fact that he created his account in July 2023, days apart from other sock accounts like Supmananger and Elifanta23, yet only became active 6 months later also suggests that this was a burner account.

Alvin1783's edits are consistent with numerous other HaughtonBrit sockpuppet accounts which tend to follow me to pages and counter my edits with either SPAs or logged out editing This edit here, done to counter my edit just a day before indicates following. The same page was targeted by HB before-[472], [473], [474], [475], [476], [477] etc. He also followed me to the page Battle of Chenab (now deleted) within hours of my edit.

He has the same fixation and overlap on Afghan-Sikh conflicts.

Same POV pushing edits on Battle of Akora Khattak, a page that was extensively targeted by HB in the past with dozens of edits on both the article and its t/p as recently as January of this year; admins also sock struck his comments on the page-[478]. HB also voted 4 times logged out on the article's AFD-[479], the blatant sock puppetry was even noted by another user-[480] . — Preceding unsigned comment added by Southasianhistorian8 (talk • contribs)

This account is possibly using proxies which geolocate to Germany-[481] & [482].HB has edited and blocked evaded extensively with various proxies.

Thanks @Yamla: for looking into it, I would like to point out that I've come across some HaughtonBrit proxies which managed to pass Wikipedia's ProxyChecker and spur.us, but they were pretty clearly HaughtonBrit; all these proxies had one thing in common and that was that they would be linked to some obscure "ISP" or business, instead of being linked to a known company like AT&T, Comcast, Verizon, they would have a listed ISP of "Level 3 Communications" or "AIC Communications" or "Align Network", one one occasion the ISP was some HVAC contractor. He's also used some regional IPs which geolocate to Ohio. The behavioural evidence for Historian2325 strongly suggests meatpuppetry to me since he seems to consistently be doing HB's bidding despite his lack of presence on Wikipedia; continuing edit wars for him, asking why pages his SPA created were deleted and vice versa HaughtonBrit socks continuing edit wars for Historian2325 . There's so much fishiness going on here, for example this account Festivalfalcon873 created around the same time as Javerine, after a one year hiatus, suddenly returns and the first thing he does is to request an undeletion request and deletion review of an AFD by Noorullah (AFDs in which HB is 100% keeping a track of and using SPAs to vote in)-[483] (the fishiness of the situation was also noted by other users in the DR). Knowing HaughtonBrit, there's no way he'd just roll over and allow these AFDs to proceed without doing something about it, there's definitely something nefarious going on behind the scenes which involves extensive sockpuppetry/burner accounts/meatpuppetry to create certain articles and impede AFDs. Southasianhistorian8 (talk) 22:27, 6 May 2024 (UTC)[reply]

It should also be noted that Finmas was found to be "Unrelated" and then "Inconclusive" even though the behavioural evidence was airtight and acting in tandem with HB proxies. Southasianhistorian8 (talk) 18:44, 7 May 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Comments by other users

[edit]
Accused parties may also comment/discuss in this section below. See Defending yourself against claims.
@Southasianhistorian8 Adding on -- Another account User:Festivalfalcon873 immediately began editing after a 1 year hiatus after AFD's were opened on User:Alvin1783's pages. Here was Falcon's last edit on his hiatus: [484] and here's him editing a year later: [485] He himself opens numerous AFD's such as shown here: [486] and comments on Alvin's: [487].
Alvin's behavior is almost the same as most HaughtonBrit accounts, creating numerous pages of Sikhs against the Afghans such as: Siege of Lahore (1800), backed with the same sources that were almost universally seen across all his sockpuppet accounts. Just look at [[488]] and ctrl + f "Afghan", it's a pretty common reoccurring theme for these accounts. Alvin's first edits were making some of the pages as mentioned.
Lastly, check falcon's edit history. [489] Noorullah (talk) 23:37, 8 May 2024 (UTC)[reply]
Pinging @Yamla Noorullah (talk) 23:38, 8 May 2024 (UTC)[reply]
I don't see why you are accusing me and actually stalking my pages when, first of all, I have no relation to that "Haughtonbrit" and didn't its Exsistence until I was mentioned here. Secondly, Festivalfalcon is a different person and resides in a different country than me. I'm new to Wikipedia and wanted to grow it. You may freely offer advice or assist me make improvements to my articles, but can you accuse me outright of doing something wrong? Kindly refrain from acting in such a childish manner. I won't accuse you of being Noorullah's sock puppet, nor vice versa as you both target my Pages. Alvin1783 (talk) 23:53, 8 May 2024 (UTC)[reply]
Lame attempt at gaslighting once again, you've followed to me 3 different pages now, Maratha-Patiala clashes, Battle of Chenab, and Guru Tegh Bahadur within hours of my edits, something HaughtonBrit did thousands of times. The only reason I even found about you was because YOU followed me to the M-P page. Admins and everyone else needs to know that this is a predatory sockmaster who preys on people's supposed naivete. He gets a kick out of deceiving others and making fools out of others; just look at the user talks of other SPAs like Finmas, Supmananger, Elifanta23, MehmoodS, Ralx888, Canon8, HaughtonBrit, AtmaramU and see how this playing none the wiser is a common tactic of HB to try to make admins sympathize with him. Southasianhistorian8 (talk) 00:14, 9 May 2024 (UTC)[reply]
Try something fresh, buddy, rather than making the same accusations. I started Wikipedia because I wanted it to grow while also combating anti-Sikh propaganda, which has been prevalent here for some time. By the way, I didn't know you before you and Noorullah began deleting my pages. At this point, you're making some random claims without a basis. Leave this childish behaviour and your unhealthy obsession with Sikh pages and bring better arguments next time, Buddy. Alvin1783 (talk) 00:25, 9 May 2024 (UTC)[reply]
Admins, this is what I'm talking about, this sockmaster created such an insane, convoluted web of lies over the past few years that the subsequent difficulty and delay in dealing with his mess is something he leverages to prolong his block evasion, and he cheerfully gloats about this and tries to further bait people. What a sad state of affairs this is. Southasianhistorian8 (talk) 00:38, 9 May 2024 (UTC)[reply]
You might need therapy at this point, trying to establish himself as a victim of a "sockmaster," whatever that means, and quit acting like a child its only getting Pathetic. Alvin1783 (talk) 00:45, 9 May 2024 (UTC)[reply]
Thanks for proving my point. Southasianhistorian8 (talk) 00:47, 9 May 2024 (UTC)[reply]
Thanks for proving my point. Alvin1783 (talk) 00:49, 9 May 2024 (UTC)[reply]
Final comment: Admins, I implore you to take a look at the user talk pages of the aforementioned sock accounts and you'll see that Alvin1783's and their behaviour is a 1 to 1 match in terms of childishness and deception. Southasianhistorian8 (talk) 00:51, 9 May 2024 (UTC)[reply]
I understand your worries and respect how serious you are about Wikipedia's integrity. However, I feel your argument contains fundamental misconceptions and assumptions that should be addressed.
1. While you have observed parallels in editing patterns and thematic focus between my contributions and those of other users, correlation does not indicate causality. As authors to an encyclopaedia, we must depend on verified evidence rather than guesswork. I beg you to examine the possibility that our theme commonalities are merely the result of shared interests in certain historical topics, rather than evidence of sockpuppetry.
2.We are going away from productive debate by accusing me of dishonesty and wrongdoing without actual proof, which may violate Wikipedia's behavioural rules. I encourage us to prioritise content enhancement and verification, which are the foundations of our joint efforts here.
3.I wholeheartedly support a neutral investigation into these issues. If there is any uncertainty regarding my activity, I welcome administrative review. I am willing to face whatever examination deemed appropriate by the community.
4.I joined Wikipedia to positively contribute to the discussion of historically significant events, especially those that are underrepresented. My goal is to enrich this platform with well-sourced, balanced, and helpful information. I am dedicated to following Wikipedia's content regulations and working respectfully with all members of the community.
Good Night. Alvin1783 (talk) 01:03, 9 May 2024 (UTC)[reply]
For @Yamla
This is a matter is a concern of casting aspersions under WP:CASE as subjecting myself and another user Alvin1783 through false accusations of attacking other editors on the platform without substantial evidence and baseless allegations in regards sock puppeting.  The problem with these baseless allegations is that it costs nothing to unscrupulous appellant to throw other editors under Wikipedia: Sockpuppet investigations, at which multiple members of the community end up wasting their time on responding to baseless allegations that are a great cause of casting aspersions. The  "WP:SHOT" principle should be applied here to casting aspersions in regard to those raising false allegations where some form OP:blocked should be the resulting closure toward the one raising disruptions. The fact should be clear here, my page created of over 2 years was put on Afd without any part of notification or partaking of me in the discussion, with both the users raising allegations, Noorullah and Southasianhistorian, partaking on the deletion vote to speed the process of deleting my hardwork. This should be seen as a coordinated attack. I am not the best editor or know all these codes too well as it can be seen through my work, so accusations of sockpuppeting of being perviously on this platform, should go out the window. However I have every right to come back and defend my hardwork which is being attacked by the same users Noorullah and Southasianhistorian8, who are raising allegations in this investigation. A trend of opening Afd specifically to target myself and Alvin and others should be seen as abuse of the system and categorized as "WP:HA" "WP:PA" and attempting to disclose location of users should be seen as "WP:PRIVACY". Overall this should be considered abuse of power and should result in a “Wikipedia:BP” due to the continuous disruptions & opening multiple baseless Afd in an attempt to indirectly attack the user itself and then raise casting aspersions (as this one) to silence the user.
Festivalfalcon873 (talk) 20:34, 9 May 2024 (UTC)[reply]
Admins in a couple of hours, I will be filing a SPI agains Festivalfalcon and one more SPA and I am 99.9% sure that the evidence will irrefutably prove sock puppetry going on. Like I said this a extremely experienced and predatory sockmaster who exploits people's supposed naivete and gets off on it. Southasianhistorian8 (talk) 20:40, 9 May 2024 (UTC)[reply]
The admins should recognize this as a clear case of caste aspersions & if they are free to verify via any investigation or checking IP , and they will know I am not similar to any other user on this platform. The fact that I barely know the codes on here or know any of the users mentioned in this investigation, should be crystal clear of the baseless allegations being raised. However the “”boomerang”” principle should be applied to the accusers raising disruptive SPI and wasting the time of the admins. @Yamla Festivalfalcon873 (talk) 20:50, 9 May 2024 (UTC)[reply]
Yamla knows very well that HB is a deceitful and desperate sockmaster. He's dealt with you before-[490]. Southasianhistorian8 (talk) 20:52, 9 May 2024 (UTC)[reply]
They can check or do any investigations they like. If they are false accusations, then the ones raising casting aspersions should be dealt with. Festivalfalcon873 (talk) 20:55, 9 May 2024 (UTC)[reply]
You were notified of the AFD's, Festivalfalcon. [491] Noorullah (talk) 01:51, 11 May 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Clerk, CheckUser, and/or patrolling admin comments

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  • Note that Historian2325 was checked in April 2023 and found to be unrelated to HaughtonBrit. I will leave the report open for a Clerk to review to see if further action is needed.-- Ponyobons mots 22:40, 10 April 2024 (UTC)[reply]
    I ran CU based on the additional sockpuppet and additional discussion after Ponyo's statement. I loathe these HaughtonBrit investigations. It's very, very tricky to pull useful information out. Frankly, I think in the future we should probably just block on behavioural grounds. Anyway:
  • Historian2325 still appears Red X Unrelated.
  • Alvin1783 is  Inconclusive so  Behavioural evidence needs evaluation.
Note that one of my VPN detecting tools (out of three) is not currently functioning. Nevertheless, I looked hard for proxy use. Other checkusers may have more luck but I'd hate to subject them to HaughtonBrit SPIs. --Yamla (talk) 21:59, 6 May 2024 (UTC)[reply]
  • I have blocked Alvin1783 (talk · contribs) as clearly a sock of Ganda Singh (talk · contribs). The two tag-teamed at Guru Tegh Bahadur before the latter was blocked as NOTHERE (stylistic overlap between the two makes me confident that these are socks and not meatpuppets). Given that these account were operating in parallel before either was blocked, and editing in the same area and with the same POV as HB makes me inclined to believe that HB is the sockmaster and I'll go ahead and tag them as such. Abecedare (talk) 22:06, 7 June 2024 (UTC)[reply]
  • Accounts which could be connected have been indeffed, Historian2325 appears unrelated and inactive. If disruptive editing resumes, that can be handled through the normal channels.  Requested actions completed, closing The WordsmithTalk to me 16:26, 12 June 2024 (UTC)[reply]

10 May 2024

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Suspected sockpuppets

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RangersRus
Gubara90 creates his account on August 16, he starts off making edits to Indian movies/entertainment/actors-actresses related pages. This however was a ruse so he could evade scrutiny in order to recreate deleted pages made by his SPA Javerine-[492] & [493]. On August 21 16:50, the account is blocked as a DUCK of HB. Exactly one hour later RR creates his account on August 21 17:50-[494]. "Incidentally", RR also predominantly edits Indian movie/entertainment/actors-actresses pages which serves as a ruse to evade scrutiny for his DUCK edits to history and religion related pages. HaughtonBrit himself used to sporadically edit movie articles as a tactic after his prior account WorldWikiAuthorOriginal was blocked-[495]

Close proximity editing to HaughtonBrit's blocked IP on the page Sikhism in the United States: IP inflates various census figures; changes 200,000 American Sikhs to 500,000. Inflates low end estimates from 78,000 to 200,000 etc. + [496]. In the middle of these edits, the IP removes the block evasion notice from its talk page. RangersRus, a mere 6 day old account at this time, jumps in 2 hours after the IP's edits, making the same type of edits + [497]. The page was extensively edited by other HB sock accounts like Javerine-[498]. Edits to Sikhism in X country has been a common feature among HB socks-Elifanta23 and Finmas

HaughtonBrit's MO includes militantly aggrandizing the Sikh side and vitiating pan Indian groups, in particular the Marathas. Marathas and Afghans are particularly anathema to HB. Usually, when a user shares the same Maratha-Sikh overlap, it's HB or his SPA. I will list 5 diffs highlighting this (to save space) but please understand there are 100x more such examples- Unlike Marathas who made an ignominious exit from the Punjab, the Sikhs did not allow Abdali to take on Lahore without a fight, Removes Maratha Victory from infobox, replaces it with a treaty, Adds content stating a Maratha figure acted treacherously against the Sikhs, Removes content claiming a Maratha figure ruling Punjab, Accentuates Maratha defeat in infobox

In fact, when MehmoodS was blocked, he was brazenly block evading to continue his campaign against Marathas. See the contributions for the IP that resubmitted MehmoodS' unblock request after his t/p access was revoked + [499]; campaign against Marathas- [500], [501], [502]. He even edited Maratha pages from airports believe it or not -edit from his home state's airport, exact same MO and geolocation as his 50* IP, Calgary Airport edit a few days after, numerous edits from Toronto Airport. This really goes to show just how unhinged this sockmaster's actions are.

RangersRus continues this same MO-removing content claiming Marathas took over the Rohtas fort and the Sikhs being defeated as a 10 day old account. HB's SPA Javerine made two articles about Rohtas-[503]

My first AFD nom of 2024 was in January 14 20:34. RangersRus, up until that point had ~1000 edits and had been on Wikipedia for 5 months; he had zero activity in AFDs whatsoever, not one vote, not one nomination. 3 hours after my nom, on January 14 23:51, he votes in his first AFD. Now let's look at his first 3 AFD votes:

1) RangersRus's first AFD vote ever is to delete an article in which the Marathas were victorious. See Wikipedia mirror of the article

2) His second AFD vote is also to delete an article in which the Marathas were victorious. See Wikipedia mirror of the article

3) His 3rd vote is to Delete an article in which the Sikhs were defeated. That article had been extensively targeted by HB socks in the past- with 8 edits by HB's SPA Ralx888 and 1 logged out edit in the very same day of its creation-[504], 5 edits on the t/p within 2 days of its creation leading admin Abecedare to sock strike and then 9 edits in Jan 2024-[505]. HaughtonBrit also made 4 delete votes (!) logged out to the AFD. HaughtonBrit's proxies and IPs, along with RangersRus, were "coincidentally" the only delete votes.

It's a clear case of following and sly hounding, which as we've more than thoroughly established years ago, HB employs SPAs, logged out editing, and proxies to counter my edits non stop. Immediately after January 14th, RangersRus goes on a mass AFD voting spree, making 65-70 votes in a span of two months from Jan-March, according to his own words. The obvious conclusion to draw from that is that he knew he messed up and the numerous votes help to disguise himself; making DUCK-like AFD votes more legitimate at face value.

Since then, RangersRus has been sabotaging my AFDs, consistently voting to Keep extremely poorly written and sourced articles which promote religious heroism, making terrible, IDHT arguments to litigate. See [506], [507], This one in particular really highlights how RR is following me, he timed his vote right after another user, Jttrs, expressed his intention of changing his vote from Keep to Delete; the AFD had been listed for almost 20 days at that point. While RR seems to consistently vote to defend Sikh interests, conversely, he consistently votes to undermine Marathas and other pan Indian groups-[508], [509], [510], [511], [512].

On April 21, RangersRus took a Wikibreak, making zero edits to Wikipedia whatsoever, when does he return? Hours after I return to voting at AFDs, voting to delete poorly written/sourced articles promoting Sikh heroism on 28 April 3:39 and 4:01. RangersRus comes back immediately, votes in a bunch of irrelevant AFDs, and 2 days later votes to Keep the Battle of Kalnaur; an obvious counter to my vote

RangersRus also votes in line with another obvious HB sock/burner account, Festivalfalcon873, who out of vindictiveness, nominated various articles in which the Sikhs were defeated for deletion: Votes to Delete an article which an HB sock nominated in quick succession + thus far, voting in line with Festivalfaclon in 3/5 of his AFDs.

RangersRus also undermines Noorullah's AFDs-making nonsense arguments, reinstates extremely poorly sourced content promoting Sikh heroism; claiming that 100 Sikhs defeated 5000 Afghans, claiming that an author to which only one book written in 1935 can be traced back to is reliable to push Sikh heroism. HaughtoBrit has an extensive history of targeting Noorullah's edits. See edits from his most recent sock Dekhoaayadon-[513], Javerine, MehmoodS etc.

RangersRus also somehow found about the SPI filed against him in March a mere 9 hours after it was filed, despite not being pinged, which also very strongly suggests following me around. He claims that he found about it because of my response to him on the Rohilla AFD, despite it being 3 days before and he wasn't pinged there either; he also voted in 7 different AFDs between Feb 29 and March 2.If RR was indeed a legitimate user, why would he be following the creator of an AFD, 4 days after his vote there, 9 hours after I filed an SPI, when RR votes in numerous AFDs, making 7 votes in between the Rohilla vote and the creation of the SPI. It would logically follow that I would have zero significance to him, just another blip in the radar, just one out of the 70 AFDs he voted in up until that point. The obvious conclusion is that he was shaken and wanted to undermine my report, calling it bogus and insulting me there. As you'll see later, HB socks somehow consistently finding out about my SPIs, and desperately proclaiming their innocence here is an extremely common theme.

HB sabotaging my AFDs is not something new; we have at least one blocked sock Elifanta23 whose actions strongly resemble RR's actions. HB sock voting to undermine my AFD in 2023 and then desperately proclaiming his innocence on HB's SPI, minutes after it was filed

Lastly Abecedare, an admin involved in South Asian topics, who has extensively dealt with HB's nonsense before, also agrees with me that RR is a SPA. "The behaviorual evidence is indeed suspicious & further noting that RangersRus and HB's POV is aligned and that RR has stylistic overlaps with HB which is something I've noticed as well. RangersRus and HB talk and argue the exact same way, their behaviour in religion/history topics is a 1:1 match. Southasianhistorian8 (talk) 13:53, 10 May 2024 (UTC)[reply]
Festivalfalcon873
Festivalfalcon873 creates his account in November 2022, roughly the same time as another SPA, Javerine, who created his account in August 2022.


In April 2023, HB's blocked IP expresses his desire to create Battle of Sirikot in order to counter KamalAfghan's creation of the Battle of Nara, a battle in which the Sikhs were defeated. Who ends up creating this article? Festivalfalcon873-Thank you for making Battle of Sirikot! and [514].

Festivalfalcon also removes Battle of Nara from the infobox of Hari Singh Nalwa, once again consistent with HB's vexation at the creation of the article-[515], [516]. Festivalfaclon gives a Wikilove message to Ronnie Macroni, asking him to update the page

Smoking gun #1: Festivalfalcon posts on Abecedare's tp requesting protection for the page Battle of Sirikot, his second message is once again expressing contempt at the page Battle of Nara, and asking Ohnoitsjamie and Abecedare to move the article to the draft space. A mere 1 hour later, HB IPs go to Ohnoitsjamie's talk page, further requesting pages that KamalAfghan made to be moved to the draft space; the title of his post being "Pages with unreliable sources need to moved to draft space". Abecedare commented in the thread: "Ohnoitsjamie, fyi the 2601 IP is a block-evading sock of HaughtonBrit."

We have already more than thorougly established, by the way, that HB was engaged in numerous edit wars with, filed 3 out of 4 SPIs against KamalAfghan, and has a blocked sock Dazzem that was blocked for DUCK edits and acting in tandem with HB's IPs/proxies in asking for an admin to take action against KA's suspected socks-[517]

Festivalfalcon also uses AFC wizard to submit his articles much like Alvin1783 and Javerine. All 3 editors have the exact same MO of aggrandizing the Sikhs.

After a prolonged break of almost a year, Festivalfalcon comes raging back, asking for his article to be undeleted, making personal attacks against other editors-[518], [519].

Out of obvious vindictiveness, he starts nominating articles in which the Sikhs were defeated, "incidentally" involving himself in AFDs, suppressing articles in which the Sikhs were defeated, promoting articles in which the Sikhs were victorious at the same time that Alvin1783's articles are nominated.

AFD #1

His second AFD nom is an article in which HB was extensively editing with HB's SPA Ralx888 making 7 edits to the page, edit warring with KamalAfghan, in the very same day the page was created [520].

His 3rd AFD is one in which HB made 20 edits, extensively edit warring with KamalAfghan, making 15 edits with his SPA Ralx888, and 5 edits logged out

His 4th AFD is one in which HB made 7 edits to, again edit warring with KA leading to Abecedare protecting the page, citing HB's sockpuppetry in the edit summary

His 5th AFD is an article in which HB made 14 edits throughout the page's history, the most being as recent as Jan 2024-[521]

The smoking gun #2 which undeniably proves that Festivalfalcon is a sock is his attempted nomination of the page Battle of Qarawal, which is what HB's SPA Javerine attempted before [522] in order to counter Noorullah's nomination of the page [523]. Javerine was vexed and passionately trying to get the page Battle of Qarawal deleted. The fact that Festivalfalcon873 continues this effort is so obviously a duck quacking into a megaphone at this point. Keep in mind, Noorullah has created 23 pages, so why did Festivalfalcon choose this page out of all 23? The article is decently written and sourced so it's undeniable this was out of vindictiveness and revenge rather than a genuine effort to improve Wikipedia

Festivalfalcon's spiel on the HaughtonBrit SPI is incredibly similar to Alvin1783's and RangersRus

In addition to Alvin1783 and Festivalfalcon873 being obvious burner accounts and having similar names, it is Festivalfalcon873 that emails the AFD closer for a page that Alvin1783 creates-[524]

See editor interaction analyser: RangersRus and FestivalFalcon are both working in tandem to vote stack/bolster support in AFDs. Given the enormous amount of similarities both accounts have with HB, it's very solid evidence of sock accounts being employed to vote stack at AFDs, which is what HB has undeniably done before [525] and [526]

Regarding the CU checks, somehow, someway, HB manages to consistently trick CUs.

  • During MehmoodS' unblock request in Jan 2023, Yamla found no evidence of block evasion despite the fact that MehmoodS was making numerous edits every single month for 7 months up until his block (which he admitted to-[527]) and was operating a sock account Javerine at the same time.
  • Finmas was first deemed "Unrelated" and then "Inconclusive" and Dazzem was deemed "Possible" despite both being obvious socks.
  • Ponyo stated that Finmas was using exclusively proxies as was his other sock account Dekhoaayadon-[528]
  • The sockmaster has at the very, very least 16 blocked sock accounts including Supmanager over the past 4 years and has been editing Wikipedia every single day, hounding me incessantly ever since I joined Wikipedia, employing sock accounts, IPs, and proxies to impede my work.

For example, this proxy 65.205.15.158 (talk+ · tag · contribs · filter log · WHOIS · RBLs · proxy check · block user · spi block · block log · cross-wiki contribs · CheckUser (log)) was employed to continue HB's edit war, making the exact same edits as his actual IPs which geolocate to Pennsylvania. The 65* proxy manages to pass Wikipedia's proxy checker as well as spur https://spur.us/context/65.205.15.158, obscures HB's actual location, and if you search the ISP "AIC Communications" there are zero legitimate ISPs under that name.

Same thing for this proxy as well 207.189.217.195 (talk+ · tag · contribs · filter log · WHOIS · RBLs · proxy check · block user · spi block · block log · cross-wiki contribs · CheckUser (log)) which he employed- it passes Wikipedia's proxy tools and spur, it obscures his actual location, and if you search up the ISP "Accelerated Connections", it's obvious that it isn't a legitimate ISP.

65.211.34.66 (talk+ · tag · contribs · filter log · WHOIS · RBLs · proxy check · block user · spi block · block log · cross-wiki contribs · CheckUser (log)), another proxy that he used, passes Wikipedia's proxy checker as well as spur. But it's so obviously a proxy, the "ISP" Friendwell Managment LLC is a property management company!

There are numerous other examples of this. He's making a fool out of everyone. Southasianhistorian8 (talk) 23:21, 13 May 2024 (UTC)[reply]

He also manages to use legitimate regional ISPs like Armstrong- 24.154.162.189 (talk+ · tag · contribs · filter log · WHOIS · RBLs · proxy check · block user · spi block · block log · cross-wiki contribs · CheckUser (log)) (note the IP's similarity to this blocked HB IP 24.154.112.204 (talk+ · tag · contribs · filter log · WHOIS · RBLs · proxy check · block user · spi block · block log · cross-wiki contribs · CheckUser (log)); both have the same ISP of Armstrong) and Agile Networks 67.219.155.230 (talk+ · tag · contribs · filter log · WHOIS · RBLs · proxy check · block user · spi block · block log · cross-wiki contribs · CheckUser (log)), which obscure his real location of Pennsylvania and instead make it seem as if he's editing from the neighbouring state of Ohio...if he can make it seem as if he's editing from a state to the west, surely he can do the same for states to the east as well. Given the large number of IPs and proxies at his disposal and his history of tricking CUs., behavioural evidence should be the basis of blocking, not CU checks Southasianhistorian8 (talk) 00:12, 14 May 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Comments by other users

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

This Bogus SPI case is a repeat of previously closed SPI with Wall of texts, full of all inane allegations and is continous case of WP:BULLY and revenge threat to stop me from voting. I hate to repeat myself. All editors have right to vote on AFDs and I am active on Wikipedia:WikiProject_Deletion_sorting/India and I have voted on AFDs by Suthasianhistorian8 before in his favor where I found his nomination to be right. When I voted against because I did not see the nomination to be right, he makes this sock threat for fifth time now with this repeated SPI case. Southasianhistorian8 filed SPI before for same allegations that two admins @The Wordsmith: and @Drmies: found no connection [529]. Southasianhistorian8 also filed incident on ANI against admin The Wordsmith for misunderstanding his SPI case and the incident was closed with closing statement "No consensus has or will emerge to find fault with TheWordsmith's or Drmies' SPI findings.". Suthasianhistorian8 also did forum shopping WP:OTHERPARENT to try to block me. He is forum shopping again now. I fail to see how any of his repeated allegations from previous SPI are tenable. I do not remember my earlier edits and its plausible that Sikhism in the United States and Rohtas fort were one of the many pages on mainspace that showed up on recent edits list and I took interest in what I considered was unwarranted edits that didn't run parallel with the source and Rohtas Fort was a case of no source available and that is why the bare comment was removed. My interest in Deletion sorting list of India began when Battle of Udgir showed on recent edit list. Pages like Battle of Rohilla, Third siege of Anandpur and Battle of Akora Khattak AFDs are one of the many that were listed in the deletion sorting list that I would go through often to help with votes. I voted Delete for Third siege of Anandpur because it was poorly sourced and poorly written page and it was nominated by accuser himself. There were no complains. Battle of Akora Khattak was another where I voted for Delete because it was too poorly written and poorly sourced with snapshots from Google books and my vote didn't matter because other voters thought that it was a keep. Battle of Rohilla is in near path with Battle of Akora Khattak but had more than passing views by very reliable scholarly sources. The vote didn't get prized by the accuser and so he created initial SPI case. I am not connected with any religious or community to take precedence over. My votes are exclusively on the evaluation of sources. From many many AFDs that I voted for, it should be unconcerning if I voted on the some pages that the accuser has concern on. This WP:BULLY behavior of Southasianhistorian8 continued on an AFD. Southasianhistorian8 had no problem with my vote when in his favor but had one when not in his favor and tried to make accusations and attacks on an AFD Wikipedia:Articles_for_deletion/Battle_of_Haidru_(1828)_(2nd_nomination). Admin Liz said "It is not appropriate to accuse an editor of being a sockpuppet in an AFD discussion. If you have concerns, file a case at SPI. If there is no confirmation of sockpuppetry through an SPI, then you are just trying to tarnish the reputation of an editor which is a personal attack. Please conduct a discussion elsewhere." This revenge and BULLY behavior and wikihounding is at its peak now with this repeated bogus SPI and should come to an end. This user has repeatedly violated Wikipedia's civility policy. RangersRus (talk) 14:26, 10 May 2024 (UTC)[reply]

@Noorullah21: in case he wants to add any information regarding Festivalfalcon873's nom of Battle of Qarawal which is what HB's previous SPA Javerine did before.

@Seawolf35 I think the RR section is pretty well written, I know I've had some issues with bloat before, but trust me there's no bloat or filler there, the sock-master just did such a bad job that listing all of his blunders and all the essential evidence takes that long. You have to remember that this sockmaster has been on Wikipedia or the past 4 years, and in just the past year alone, has made dozens of burner accounts and thousands of edits. It's simply not feasible to explain the sockpuppetry in 3-4 sentences. That's why I think it would be a great idea for SA admins like User:RegentsPark and User:Abecedare to take a look at this because they can understand the nuances in his edits and MO, and both of them have dealt with HB before. Southasianhistorian8 (talk) 19:48, 10 May 2024 (UTC)[reply]
I dont know who these people are or this HB guy. I came back as Southasianhistorian and Noorullah vindictively deleted my page. AGF should be the standard for Wikipedia rather then [WP:HA] against me and casting aspersions to silent users who are still learning how to edit on this platform. Festivalfalcon873 (talk) 22:05, 10 May 2024 (UTC)[reply]
The AFD's raised against you were not attacks nor harassment, they were as a result of the poor quality of the pages backed by poor sources. You yourself noted that you are not the best editor which can be seen through your work in one of the paragraphs you posted above.
"I am not the best editor or know all these codes too well as it can be seen through my work,"
You did a counter AFD against one of my pages for little reason in return in this diff. [530] Noorullah (talk) 01:50, 11 May 2024 (UTC)[reply]
I am not the best editor in regards to knowing all the WP codes when writing these comments (my work), which also takes the whole SPI argument raised against me out of the window that I was falsely accused of in an attempt to silence me. I never said my page was poorly sourced , infact the AFG against my page provided inadequate reasoning in attempt to cancel universally accepted authors and it was pushed to delete by the same group of people in the form of a coordinated attack. Festivalfalcon873 (talk) 05:10, 11 May 2024 (UTC)[reply]
I'm not gonna argue about the sources because this is not the place to do so, but these AFD's were raised for a reason, and it's not a "coordinated attack", it's just editors that are in the same field seeing said AFD's. Noorullah (talk) 00:23, 12 May 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Do note, two of the IP users' addresses do seem to come back to hotels, so they're unlikely to be useful for identifying socks. -- Aunva6talk - contribs 02:49, 14 May 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Clerk, CheckUser, and/or patrolling admin comments

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23 August 2024

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Suspected sockpuppets

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HaughtonBrit is an incredibly pertinacious sockmaster, who since his accounts Javerine and Ralx888 were blocked, has been creating numerous burner accounts with varying levels of activity as a tactic to push his POV edits with as little scrutiny as possible, and to make dealing with his sockpuppetry as difficult as possible.

Back in April 2023, HB was fixated on a page called Cis-Sutlej states, making a total of 69(!) edits through his sock account Javerine and engaging in an extensive edit war with another user-[531]. After Javerine was blocked, HB attempted to push his version of the article through block evasion and logged out editing-[532], [533], [534], and inserted the same content in another page; his attempts were subsequently shut down by admins-[535], [536] who protected the page due to HB's sockpuppetry.

Note how Maaza20's edits are identical to HB's edits and push the same POV-[537], [538].

BigMan1020 was created mintues after HB's previous socks Alvin1783 and Festivalfalcon1783 were sock blocked-Alvin1783 was blocked on 7 June 21:53, FF was blocked by Abecedare on 7 June 22:53. BigMan1020's account was created on 7 June 23:13. Both accounts were tag teaming on the page Battle of Anandpur, leading to their blocks. One of BigMan1020's first few edits is the same page right after Alvin and Festivalfalcon ostensibly testing the waters and highlighting "Sikh victory" in the infobox, which is something HB does with most of his accounts.

Maaza20 and BigMan1020 (in particular) are clearly HB's burner accounts. In addition to Maaza20 and BigMan, HB is operating other burner accounts which I am aware of, some active, some dormant, I will report those accounts when they are causing a significant amount of disruption. Southasianhistorian8 (talk) 01:22, 23 August 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Edit: Please also note that given HaughtonBrit's extensive ability to procure numerous IPs and proxies, and his track record of deceiving CUs multiple times where they found no evidence of block evasion even though he was making hundreds of edits logged out and through accounts, multiple admins have stated that HB's socks should be blocked based on behavioural analysis not CU checks.

Comments by other users

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

Clerk, CheckUser, and/or patrolling admin comments

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  • I'll block Maaza20 for the reinstating of the IP's edit. Izno (talk) 04:54, 29 September 2024 (UTC)[reply]
  • I did check both accounts. Both checks were more or less useless, as noted. On that note, I'm not sold by Bigman1020. Down-capitalizing the word victory, which this account has now done in 10ish of its dozen edits, is not in the realm of "this account is a bad editor much less a sock". If/when convincing disruption resumes, please feel free to re-report here. Closing. Izno (talk) 04:59, 29 September 2024 (UTC)[reply]
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