Wikipedia:Sockpuppet investigations/Sarandioti

Report date September 13 2009, 04:52 (UTC)

Suspected sockpuppets

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

Evidence submitted by Alexikoua

Though Sulmues expressed a desire to quit wikipedia and prior to his block on December 4th was not particularly active, beginning 1-2 December, he underwent a transformation to an extremely active user that showed interests in articles that he was never previously interested but that Sarandioti very much was. My guess is that the real Sulmues was contacted off-wiki by Sarandioti, who convinced him to give him his password so that he could avoid detetection, since all his previous socks were detected and blocked:

[[1]]

Sarandioti's last confirmed sock account was Muzakaj. While account Sulmues took a wiki break on Dec. 5-28 [[2]]), during this period (Dec. 5-15) Muzakaj was very active.

Additional comfirmed sock account of Sarandioti are listed here: [[3]], while his most active sock accounts were User:AlarichusUser:Muzakaj User:Kreshnik25.

• Both userpages Sarantioti/Sulmues like Nietsche's anarchists quotes :

SA: [[4]] SU: [[5]]

as well as this sock account: AL: [[6]]

Share same interests in the articles: Cerciz Topulli,Bajo Topulli:

SU:[[7]] SA:[[8]][[9]]

• An obsession with Jakup Veseli and inserting him in the notable people section at Margariti.

SU:[[10]][[11]][[12]] SA:[[13]][[14]]

• Sulmues was advocating why a number of Albanian accounts, his sockmaster account included, were banned in the past:

[[15]] [[16]] [[17]]

• He was also obssesed with the -notable peoples- section in Gjirokaster and also questioned the ethnicity of the Greek mentioned in the same section:

SU:[[18]] SA:[[19]]

• Same situation in Korca, also he considered specific Greek personalities as not enough notable:

SU:[[20]] MUZ:[[21]] [[22]]

• Ironic, offending comments against the same users:

SU:[[23]] SA:[[24]][[25]]

• Both accounts considered article Cham Albanian of Top importance in the importance scale making the same scale adjustment:

SU:[[26]] SA: [[27]]

Extremely hostile against what he called the 'Greek team': SA: [[28]] SU: [[29]]

• Instists on fighting and accusing User:Athenean:

SU:[[30]] SA: [[31]][[32]]

• Accusations against User:Future Perfect at Sunrise, making weird conclusions that he is cooperating with Greek users:

SA:[[33]] SU:[[34]][[35]]

• Use of capitals to emphasize specific words:

SU:[[36]], [[37]] KRE: [38] [39] [40] [41] [42] [43] [44] SA:[45] [46] [47] [48] [49] [50] [51].

• Greek is often mentioned with -g- while Albanian always with -A-:

SU:[[52]] [[53]][[54]]

SA: [55] [56] AL: [57].

A new guise

This times, Sarandioti followed a more clever wp:duck strategy, carefully hiding specific points of his personality after studying the two past spi investigations against him [[58]].

• For example he coninued to edit in athletics (like Sulmues' pre-December contribution), however day by day this interest faded and now he isn't interested in athletics any more (at least in his last 1,000 edits).
• On early December he insisted on posting his contribution link on top of his userpage, like saying 'look at me I'm not a sock'[[59]][[60]].
• A Teddy bear took the place of Satan & infant A. Hitler in his userpage.Alexikoua (talk) 23:52, 17 February 2010 (UTC)

Comments by accused parties

This is an outrageous accusation, which I of course reject, as I have done with other bad-faith accusations received from the Greek editors: the first one being this (User_talk:Moreschi#Sulmues.3DGuildenrich). It's unbeleivable what kind of accusations these people (Athenean and Alexikoua) are able to file. The fact that I share the same interests with these users (Albanian related) doesn't link me to either Sarandioti or Guildenrich. sulmues (talk) --Sulmues 00:15, 18 February 2010 (UTC)

Comment related to the Athenean's comment below: the only reason why I started to edit a lot from December is that I saw that you had made sure to report every Albanian editor that was working on Wikipedia and was finding the Greek sources very weak. Their edits on Albanian related topics were much better than the Greek ones. However in December there was nobody left. I had to fill in their shoes. I am the only Albanian editor left now (the last of the Mohikans in the English Wikipedia) and I'm sure you won't stop: I'll get reports from you in the future very often. So far I have been reported unjustly at least 8 times from the tandem Alexikoua-Athenean. I'm getting used to it. sulmues (talk) --Sulmues 01:22, 18 February 2010 (UTC)

Continued based on comments of other users. I have to tell my story in Wikipedia now: I have no relationship to Sarandioti or any other user. My nickname is Sulmues, has always been, and won't change. I am the same person. My first edit was that of creating Avni Mula's page, a famous Albanian singer and composer from Gjakova. Then I had lots of fun in Wikipedia contributing on soccer pages where everybody respected me. I was never reverted. I made lots of edits to SK Tirana especially. No problems there. Then one day last summer I went to see the Kosovo page and noted that Kosovo was the only country that had three infoboxes (not one), the first one being that of a regional infobox (sic). Its Coat of Arms was not allowed to stay on top. Kosovo basically was not to be presented as a country but only as a disputed region. Abkhazia and South Ossetia did have both COA and Flag on top and one single infobox, that of their respective republic, but Kosovo did not have the right to do that in the English Wikipedia. Now bear in mind that Abkhazia and South Ossetia are recognized by only Russia and Kosovo by 65 (mostly western powers especially USA, France UK), yet the treatment in Wikipedia is preferential for the former: the latter is land of no one and it seems that this is not the English Wikipedia but the Russian one. I was appalled. I saw that Tadija, a Serbian user who is glad to spite me here, made sure to change all the Albanian names of the Albanian settlements in Kosovo. So I started in the talk pages of Kosovo to change the consensus and I obtained a voting of 10-2 (see [61]), but I was continuously reverted by the Greek and the Serbian editors, even though the voting was clear. I was eventually reported from Cinema C and Athenean and blocked twice and banned from Kosovo topics as "disruptive". Back then I had no clue one could even be blocked or banned in Wikipeda. I was in shock. Btw I still am banned from Kosovo topics until the 27 of May but I am mentioning the region to explain that there is no duck case here.

At that point (beginning of December), I saw very clear how the rules were. I could do pretty much very good contributions in Albanian sports topics and other, but as far as politics, history, and Albanian language: they were the apanage of the Greek and Serbian editors who were patrolling them. Furthermore I went to Wikipedia:ARBMAC#Log_of_blocks_and_bans and saw that per ARBCOM so many Albanian editors had been blocked and guess how: by bad faith reports of Greek editors who had provoked them and they had taken the bait in exploding (pretty much like I did). I also went to the Albanian settlement articles like Himare (Albania) and Delvine (Albania) and saw that the Greek name is used because there is a Greek minority there, but it's not possible to use the Albanian name of settlements in Greece Margëlleç, Follorina, Konica are not mentioned in Albanian even though there are Albanian minorities there.

Let's talk about Souliotes. They were Albanians but the Greek editors make sure to assert that they were "arvanites" who were later "hellenized". That nonsense has to stop. The Souliotes are Albanians and the world needs to know. I understand that the Greeks feel like they were given the independence by a bunch of Albanians and they want to hide it, but that's just the truth. Isn't this an Encyclopedia? This is no history book to be told by the winners. Again, if other Albanians such as Sarandioti, know perfectly that they are Albanians they'll state it, but again I ain't Sarandioti. Let's talk about Vangjel Zhapa, with whose money were financed the first modern Olympic games: he was a pure Albanian, lived in Greece but only after he was 33 years old. No: the Greek editors will claim he is only greek.

But that is nothing to what happens to the pages like Illyrians, Albanians, Origin of the Albanians, and Albania. They are completely patrolled by the Greek editors, and there are no Albanian editors left. All the Albanian editors have been reported by the Greek editors and blocked or banned. The Greek editors' theory can be summarized as follows: Illyrians have disappeared. Thracians have disappeared. Albanians? We don't know where they came from: they are mentioned only in the 11th century. Probably moesians? Probably Thracians? Probably this or that? No theory is plausible because they are strange and no one knows who they really are. We just don't know and no one can. Casting a shadow of mystery seems like a very good plan to make today's Albanians seem as if they are foreigners in their own land, not autochtonous, which in the Balkans would be only the Greek population. No other population in the Balkans can enjoy the autochtonous status but the Greeks, according to these editors The Greek editors by working in tandem will make every edit possible to "forget" their own sources (read Ptolemy, Polibus and Stephanus of Bysantium - all Greeks), that the Albanoi Illyrian tribe has been mentioned by Ptolemy in the 2nd century BC as Arbon, in the 2nd century AD by Polibus as Albanoi, and in the 6th century as Albonios by Stephanus of Bysantium as, see Origin_of_the_Albanians. That is proof of the continuity of the Illyrian-Albanian population and the world's historiography has already accepted it. It's the way it's studied in Albania, Russia, Germany, France, USA. In Greece there are other orders, I am affraid. I am here to work on that and change many articles that use many double standard.

Furthermore, in the article albanian language Athenean is eager to show that Illyrian has nothing to do with Albanian and makes three edits to blank 72 references ([[62], [63], and [64]) that span from 3 centuries worth of work by first class scholars that start with the polymath Gottfried Leibnitz. The Greek's aim is to make this academic proved theory "just one of the theories" and not the most plausible one.

This is the n'th bad faith report that I have gotten from the Greek editors. I am by myself and they work in tandem. I am no Sarandioti or anybody else, but Sulmues, a very honest intellectual that works and contributes for free in Wikipedia. I demand that once that this investigation finishes I receive excuses from all the users that are accusing me, especially Athenean, Alexikoua and Tadija. I still have not received excuses from Athenean when he falsely accused me to be Guildenrich. Now Alexikoua is doing the same and I will demand his excuses as well, as this is no circus. I demand respect because I have been an excellent contributor in many articles by almost 4k edits.

sulmues (talk)

Comments by other users

Excellent report. There is definitely something strange going on here. First, I note that Sulmues' edits prior to Dec 1 2009 were almost exclusively related to soccer [65] (his first 500 edits or so). In his early days, he also never once showed the slightest interest to anything related to Greece or Greece-Albania articles. Nor did he show the slightest interest in fixing up his userpage. Starting Dec 1, something happens: Sulmues goes into overdrive, starts fixing up his userpage and becomes very interested in articles that Sarandioti & socks were interested in, e.g. Kitsos Tzavelas, Souliotes (a particular favorite of Sarandioti and his sock Keshnik25), while his interest in soccer articles is present but slowly fading. If we look at his 500 most recent edits [66], his interest in soccer has evaporated, and he has instead become obsessed with things Sarandioti was, namely adding Jakup Veseli to the list of notable people in Margariti [67], which was one of Sarandioti's very first edits and one of his favorite obsessions [68]. This is a fairly obscure individual and a fairly obscure small town in northwestern Greece that very few people would know about, so this is even more strange. Also very telling is his changing of importance to Cham Albanians to WP:SQ, another Sarandioti (and Kreshnik) favorite. The shared obsession with the "Notable Individuals" section of Korce and Gjirokaster is also very odd. As if that weren't enough, the references to Nietzsche on the userpages of both User:Sulmues and User:Alarichus (a sock of Sarandioti) quacks VERY loudly.

Sulmues has also been extremely active since his return from his December 28 block, performing over 3000 edits in less than two months, while prior to December he had performed only 500 edits in a year and a half. Strange behavior indeed for someone who explicitly and repeatedly stated that he "wanted out" of Wikipedia: [69] [70].

Here's what I think may have happened: Following his outburst, the real Sulmues decided to quit wikipedia. Sometime before December 28, he was contacted off-wiki by Sarandioti and persuaded to hand over his password. Since the real Sulmues had decided to quit wikipedia, he presumably didn't care. Then on December 28, Sarandioti in the guise of Sulmues bursts on the scene. At first he is careful to edit soccer articles and not focus too much on the articles that Sarandioti was interested in, but gradually and carefully, he reverted to form, with the result that the current Sulmues edits articles that Sarandioti was interested in and has largely forgotten Sulmues' old interests. The transition was done smoothly and gradually over a period of two months so as to not raise suspicion. Sarandioti has tried various sockpuppetry methods in the past, but always got caught. Presumably, he has learned from his mistakes and past SPIs and has become really good at covering his tracks. Athenean (talk) 00:56, 18 February 2010 (UTC)

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I must say something. As i was deeply involved in blocking two of Sarandioti's socks, Kreshnik and Muzakaj, i had that "honor" of knowing Sarandioti's way of editing quite well. This is such a DUCK, that i cannot say almost anything else. Souliotes, marvelously spotted Nietsche's quotes, notable peoples section, i also had problems with Kreshnik with Gjirokastër, which was vandalized also by him. ([71]). Putting obvious sockpuppet a side, all Sulmues edits are quite often so POV, (as Sarandioti's), that editing articles that are under ARBMAC restriction (entire Balkan) can be highly disputed and unwanted in this way. Athenean's version from above sounds a bit odd, but from this user, i will expect absolutely anything. Sarandioti = Sulmues. --Tadija (talk) 12:42, 18 February 2010 (UTC)

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Clerk, patrolling admin and checkuser comments

Checkuser request – code letter: E (Community ban/sanction evasion )

Current status – Endorsed for Checkuser attention.    Requested by Alexikoua (talk) 23:52, 17 February 2010 (UTC)

I am fairly certain that this case passes WP:DUCK, a checkuser would be useful in proving this beyond any doubt.Alexikoua (talk) 23:52, 17 February 2010 (UTC)

 Clerk endorsed. PeterSymonds (talk) 23:59, 17 February 2010 (UTC)