User talk:ToBeFree

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Suspicions of sockpuppetry

I am not familiar with the SPI process, so I need an admin with CU permission to take a look. Sadko was topic banned from the Balkans from 2021 until July 2024. Vanished user 297861 was created in 2022, immediately started to make a large number of edits (160 edits in the first week) and in the first day added themselves to the Serbia WikiProject Participants [1], suggesting that the person using the account had prior knowledge of the editing process. Vanished user's original username was Nickpunk and Sadko was noted in the report that got them topic banned to refer to other editors as "punks". There seems to be a correlation between the periods when Sadko was inactive with the periods when Vanished was inactive. The interest topics also correlate [2]. A few days after Sadko's topic ban was removed [3], Vanished put a "Retired" tag on their talk page [4]. I would like a CU to see if this is merely a coincidence or there is some truth in my suspicions. Excine (talk) 20:09, 25 July 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Hi Excine, this is

possible. Guerillero is a checkuser himself and may want to have a look, too, but if Sadko actually did this, they invested a noticeable (but not unlikely) amount of effort into keeping their accounts as separate as they were able to. ~ ToBeFree (talk) 22:00, 25 July 2024 (UTC)[reply]

First off, ToBeFree, thanks for the ping. Very appreciated.
Let's see what do we have here... Editor wih total of 284 edits who was last active in June 2023 has reported for me 'using socks'. The funny thing is, I have never interacted with this person, but they seem to think a lot about my areas of interest, editing habits and what not. That's not something you see every day on WP, at least I do not. And even more interestingly, these... claims get posted (without so much as a ping) just a few hours after I publicly told another editor that I'm traveling and have little time for WP. My guess is that there will be more comments on this topic.
Very important context aside for a minute... The claim is absurd and illogical. Why would I need a sock if I planned and worked hard to have my topic ban lifted? It makes no sense, but I have seen editors get banned easily in cases like this. Therefore, I'll provide a more thorough analysis, set aside my doubts about the report, and assume good faith, considering this might simply be a significant error on someone's part.
Note: I'm somewhat familiar with Nickpunk's work and I have no idea why they decided to retire this summer. For example, they expanded an article I created on another project. Considering that I have never been banned or warned on sr.wiki, I have reported myself to admins with CU permissions.
The two of us talked at some point. The two writing styles are quite different.
Never have I called anyone a punk, that is simply untrue, nor do I use or like that word for that matter. And I'm not a particular fan of punk music either. : ) A quick google search showed me that there are several members of internet communities in Serbo-Croatian with similiar nicknames. For example.
I have 50K+ edits on EWP under my belt and I have edited thousands of pages. Comparing my editing history with any editor active within the CEE area would produce a solid overlap.
Editor Interaction Analyser clearly shows that the other editor paid far more attention to certain pages than I did.
There is a bunch of topics and articles where the two accouns have zero overlap. My interest is far broader. Another note, they do not post edit summaries, I try my best to do so. Nickpunk/Vanished user's other edits clearly show that they are very interested in everything related to Novi Sad, which has never been a big priority for me. They have wide knowledge of the city, its streets and corners, which I do not possess. The only topic where this editor and myself actually had a common interest is Architecture of Serbia. They know a lot about birds, a topic area which I do not edit.
Nickpunk has greatly improved Jovan Soldatović, which has been on my watchlist for years. I noticed a rookie mistake regarding style, they left a flag icon in the infobox, which I removed. If this was my 'carefully crafted sock', how moronic would it be to make edits on the same page, just after the other editor made their edits? This editor had no real knowledge of how WP works and they made a lot of newbie mistakes, which can easily be checked via their TP history page.
(!) It is quite easy to determine that I have no other active accounts on EWP. In fact, when Nick was making his edits here and here, I was patrolling IP edits during the same minute, please see here and here. And here is another example of the two editors working in the same minute of the same day: Sadko - Nick. I could provide more examples, if needed.
My time is limited at the moment and I had little time to polish this reply, but I hope that this answer will be enough for the moment. P.S: Sorry for the long post and thanks for taking the time to read it. — Sadko (words are wind) 01:54, 26 July 2024 (UTC)[reply]
Thank you very much for the detailed analysis, Sadko. Looking at all this, I think there's not much to worry about here. You shouldn't have to defend yourself against sockpuppetry accusations, though; I'm sorry for making it look as if you'd have to write a long defense statement. If the suspicion had turned out to be true, I'd have blocked; that didn't happen. Welcome back to the topic area and don't let these reactions (here and on your talk page) discourage you, please. ~ ToBeFree (talk) 10:06, 26 July 2024 (UTC)[reply]

My pleasure. Thanks for the kind words. That sort of approach has not stopped only on my TP, but it was taken further. Sorry for commenting on that, but, sadly, things are not what I expected them to be on WP, coming back after some time, and if one did not know any better they would think that I was some kind of Wikipedia Putin. : ) Best. — Sadko (words are wind) 17:37, 26 July 2024 (UTC)[reply]

~ ToBeFree (talk) 14:13, 27 July 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Block evasion

Hi again! Sorry to bother you but on 6 July I wrote to you about 67.83.125.225 (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · logs · filter log · block user · block log). You blocked the user for one month and asked that I let you know if the bad edits continue after the block. Well, the block has not yet expired but it appears that the user is evading the block, now using IP 201.229.68.170 (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · logs · filter log · block user · block log). The behavioral evidence seems clear to me; they are editing the same set of articles, making similar edits. For example, compare Special:Diff/1231917275 with Special:Diff/1166474658, or Special:Diff/1231916612 with Special:Diff/1236661676. CodeTalker (talk) 22:43, 25 July 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Never mind, @ScottishFinnishRadish has already blocked the new IP for a year. Thanks, SFR! CodeTalker (talk) 22:52, 25 July 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Glad to help. ScottishFinnishRadish (talk) 22:53, 25 July 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Thanks both

~ ToBeFree (talk) 00:51, 26 July 2024 (UTC)[reply]

IP vandalism at St Margaret's Hope

Blocked already but same editor you blocked nearly two weeks ago. Thought I'd give you a head's up. –Skywatcher68 (talk) 19:33, 26 July 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Oh. Thanks, Skywatcher68, I have now semi-protected the page. ~ ToBeFree (talk) 21:05, 26 July 2024 (UTC)[reply]

BLP issue at Emmanuel Todd

Maybe the references aren't exactly reliable, I don't know, but removing them and the supported content without discussion seems problematic. –Skywatcher68 (talk) 12:01, 27 July 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Hi Skywatcher68, it's an interesting situation for various reasons. Thanks for sharing. ~ ToBeFree (talk) 14:21, 27 July 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Frankly, I would undo that entire string of recent IP edits going back to before this one. The user appears to have a strong personal point of view about Todd. -- Cl3phact0 (talk) 14:41, 27 July 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Hi Cl3phact0, do feel free to – I only removed a half-deleted, broken section. ~ ToBeFree (talk) 14:56, 27 July 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Noted, thanks. (Adding Skywatcher68 for information.) Is the best practice just to undo each successive edit one by one, or is there a better method? Cheers, Cl3phact0 (talk) 15:06, 27 July 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Cl3phact0, see Help:Reverting – in a nutshell, simply click the timestamp of a version you like, then "edit", enter a summary explaining the revert, then publish. ~ ToBeFree (talk) 15:07, 27 July 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Ok, thanks. I'll try that (I don't do a whole lot of undoing other folks work in general). Cheers, Cl3phact0 (talk) 15:13, 27 July 2024 (UTC)[reply]

It looks like I may have inadvertently removed the page protection too (which, if true, shouldn't be so easy to do – but that's another matter). Could you take a quick look? Thanks, Cl3phact0 (talk) 16:20, 27 July 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Cl3phact0, that's just the lock icon template displayed at the top right of the page. It's automatically added back by a bot sooner or later, and can be manually added back by anyone. No worries. ~ ToBeFree (talk) 16:47, 27 July 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Got it. Page protection is an aspect of the project where I should probably improve my knowledge. Thanks again for your help. Cheers, Cl3phact0 (talk) 16:53, 27 July 2024 (UTC)[reply]

All good

~ ToBeFree (talk) 18:07, 27 July 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Pau Cubarsí

Why did you lock the article on the preferred version of a political vandal? Kingsif (talk) 20:55, 27 July 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Hi Kingsif, this appears to be a longer dispute between checkuser-blocked Panenkazo, block-evasion-blocked 186.211.107.65 (talk · contribs · WHOIS) and surely more; it is pretty chaotic and I don't have a full overview yet. Describing the edits as vandalism is easy but far from being obviously correct. It took you a few seconds to complain here; please take the same amount of seconds to state at Talk:Pau Cubarsí why Special:Diff/1237005223 is preferable and perhaps why Special:Diff/1237039463 should be reverted. I can then replace the short full protection by longer semi-protection to ensure that disagreement with your talk page explanation is discussed at the talk page instead of through reverts. ~ ToBeFree (talk) 21:05, 27 July 2024 (UTC)[reply]

If you checked the longer history, you would see I was the first user to add the information that the IP vandal is trying to remove. Kingsif (talk) 21:21, 27 July 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Based on the content, it's clearly a politically-driven vandal, and so waiting for them to edit beyond a final warning and get AIV blocked is the easiest way to deal with it. Locking the article right as it hit that final warning, did not help. Please don't step into these situations with wide-ranging article protection without knowing what's happening, and then accusing someone who has been at the heart of the issue of not paying attention. Kingsif (talk) 21:23, 27 July 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Kingsif, are you sure? Special:Diff/1233675588 was before your first edit to the page. ~ ToBeFree (talk) 21:25, 27 July 2024 (UTC)[reply]

And while that's a concern, I'm referring to this. The inclusion of "from Catalonia", when there are sources, was agreed in a 2018 RfC. Panenkazo block evades and, importantly, did not add sources for the content at Cubarsí. My edit today, had a source. The IP removing the source is trying to give weight to removing it all. Kingsif (talk) 21:28, 27 July 2024 (UTC)[reply]

And it still doesn't make sense why you'd not wait for the disruptive IP on the verge of being blocked, to be blocked so the reverts immediately stopped. Kingsif (talk) 21:29, 27 July 2024 (UTC)[reply]

I'll try to find the RfC, but linking to it at least once somewhere, ideally on the talk page of the article, would have helped a lot and would still help a lot. The entire discussion could have been avoided by one single user referring to the RfC. ~ ToBeFree (talk) 21:31, 27 July 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Okay, it's at MOS:CONTEXTBIO / Wikipedia talk:Manual of Style/Biography/2018 archive § RfC on use of Spanish regional identity in biography leads. I'll now add this information to the article's talk page... ~ ToBeFree (talk) 21:37, 27 July 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Done at Talk:Pau Cubarsí. Regarding the full protection, we'll remain in disagreement about whether you and/or AntiDionysius should have used the article's talk page instead of reverting and complaining about protection. ~ ToBeFree (talk) 21:45, 27 July 2024 (UTC)[reply]

IPs who want to remove references to Catalan/Catalonia, generally don't engage with discussion and ignore reasoning that they know exists. Better to let them walk into committing persistent vandalism. Kingsif (talk) 22:00, 27 July 2024 (UTC)[reply]