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The following discussion is an archived debate of the case of suspected sockpuppetry. Please do not modify it. No further edits should be made to this page. All edits should go to the talk page of this case. If you are seeing this page as a result of an attempt to open a new case of sockpuppetry of the same user, read this for detailed instructions.

User:Trincomanb

[edit]
Suspected sockpuppeteer

Trincomanb (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · page moves · block user · block log)

Suspected sockpuppets

Elalan (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · page moves · block user · block log)

Report submission by

snowolfD4( talk / @ ) 20:33, 24 November 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Evidence
  • Both previously almost exclusively edited the article LTTE
  • Most comprehensive evidence - When the LTTE page was protected on 12 September 2006 both uses went silent at exactly the same time. And they both started editing Wikipedia again exactly the same day 25 September 2006.
  • Trincomanb has edited just 4 articles in mainspace although he has a total of 557 edits since 2 May 2006.[17] Unusual behaviour. Also the top 3 articles he has edited are also among Elalan's top 10 edited articles.[18]
  • Recently editing of LTTE article. Identical changes, almost identical edit summeries
  • Elalan (keeping intro controversial free.) [19]
  • Trincomanb (keeping the intro controversial free.) [20]
  • Trincomanb was silent since 3rd November, then suddenly popped up to vote for a TFD on 20th November[21] and an AFD the next day.[22] (and cast votes identical to Elalan in both cases).

Checkuser results in full:

The cases are TfD and AfD

I would kindly request the admins to look into this request and check whether User:Elalan is a puppetmaster of User:Trincomanb as User Elalan's page has been marked to be a sockpuppet page of User Trincomanb. User Elalan has done a lot of contributions to WP:NCSLC and also a lot of Sri Lanka related articles and to brush them aside sounds very unfair to a fellow Wiki editor. He has been accused of vote stacking for a TfD by people who actually were votestacking and this sounds more like a vendetta than anything else. Like all other Wiki editors I strongly think that deserves a fair chance to prove his point.

Thanks for your help. Sudharsansn (talk • contribs) 16:04, 26 November 2006 (UTC)[reply]

 Likely. Looks like a classic case of editing at home with one account and at school with another. Essjay (Talk) 11:42, 27 November 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Looks like no effort is being made to prove otherwise than a clear-cut predefined notion that they are sockpuppets. Would like to have a complete check. Thanks Sudharsansn (talk • contribs) 15:12, 27 November 2006 (UTC)[reply]

 Clerk note: Why do you think this is not a complete check? Essjay has looked at the accounts and provided you with his analysis. Further details of IP addresses and such will not be released. Thatcher131 16:23, 27 November 2006 (UTC)[reply]

For one, I use a password protected university proxy server to access university subscribed content and internet. Its a pain to switch between that and my home isp assigned ip so I leave it untouched. Why was this mislabeled as a school ? Couldn't the checkuser person have identified that? This raises some doubts. Did the checkusers consider all the technical configuration that could have caused this ? Just some thoughts. With technical observations why is there no second opinion ? Trincomanb 01:20, 28 November 2006 (UTC)[reply]
If I get caught editing wikipedia at my workplace, I'll be fired! There is no second guessing on that one. Thats not such a surprise is it ? To circumvent monitoring at work, I 'tunnel' to my home computer using ssh Elalan 02:25, 28 November 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Addendum User Trincomanb struck out his votes for the afD [23] and tfD [24] in question and notified the relevant admins after being notified of Essjay's opinion on this. Elalan 02:59, 28 November 2006 (UTC)[reply]

information Note: The check has been run, and the result announced. The result is that upon review of the technical evidence, it cannot be confirmed absolutely that the two users are the same individaul (hence not {{confirmed}}), but the results are consistent with a user editing from home and school. In such a case, it is up to the community to decide if the rest of the evidence (that is, the editing patterns of the two users) are consistent with sockpuppetry. Checkuser is not magic wiki pixie dust, and it does not provide an undisputed decision on sockpuppetry; it is one piece of evidence among many, and must be considered along with the rest of the evidence. Now, this is not the place for extended discussion of who is or is not a sockpuppet; take that to ANI.  Clerk assistance requested: Clerks, please process the case and archive it as necessary. Essjay (Talk) 02:41, 30 November 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Essjay with this varying degrees of probability as you claim, do you have verifiable yet significant statistical evidence to conclude its "Likely" and "Looks like a classic case of editing at home with one account and at school with another" based on past checkuser cases ? A simple yes or no to this question would suffice. If its a yes, can you please present evidence of past statistics of checkuser cases to support your claim. If its no, is it not safe to conclude your comment is mere speculation on your part, without supporting statistical evidence Elalan 17:31, 30 November 2006 (UTC)[reply]
As an acquainted party and also voicing concern over my WP:NCSLC project mate who has made valuable contributions to the project and related articles, I would really like to question the doubtful nature of these results. When no information is being given out, such as the 'supposed' similarities, IP address similarities or just anything at all, how are we to conclude or 'inconclusively' conclude that this is a sockpuppet account. If Elalan is a sockpuppet, then proof is warranted. If he is not, he should be acquitted and the tag should be removed from his page. I am sure this looks like a more conslusive result. Thanks Sudharsansn (talk • contribs) 18:27, 30 November 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Checkuser results in full added by Elalan 22:39, 30 November 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Checkuser Results

A checkuser has been done and the conclusion is

 Likely. Looks like a classic case of editing at home with one account and at school with another. Essjay (Talk) 11:42, 27 November 2006 (UTC)

—The preceding unsigned comment was added by user:snowolfd4

Comments

This sockpuppet report has very dubious reasoning and some could say is motivated by vendetta . The user:snowolfd4 has an ongoing content dispute [25] and abusive behaviour issues under investigation (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:WikiProject_on_open_proxies). One of the explicit death threats had a signature of the accuser which appears to have been mistakenly inserted [26], with message remaining and signature removed within a minute [27]. The death threat appear to have been issues by proxy ip and was not found to be connected to user:snowolfd4, though he is the prime suspect. I had also helped expose his friend user:Lahiru_k (aka Mystic) (aka Arsath) attempts at vandalism, sock puppeting and massive voting rigging on a TfD (see [28]). He has chosen to request for arbitration on this [29]. I have also compiled behavioural evidence (see [30] to support the checkuser results which indicated Lahiru_k complicity in all the noted mal-practises. Just today this happened [31]

Now to the 'evidence.':

Could it be that myself and other were attracted to wikipedia due to the misinformation won the LTTE article and chose to do something about it ? There are many people of Tamil descent who feel the same way. Demonizing Tamil nationalist groups and spreading false information about them is hardly honest and just brings more despair for everyone in Sri Lanka. There is always two or more sides to a story and that is described within NPOV.

The LTTE article was subject of barrage of propaganda and misinformation by user:snowolfd4 and his band of government supporters. Similar POV pushing is evident here [32] from before which was [33] and here [34]. There are many more examples of obvious POV pushing.

A edit history of LTTE shows this. This user kept insisting on having this statement in the intro, which myself and many in the community were against. I had on numerous occasions compromised with accuser on the intro, only to see another government supporter come and tear it up. This user then initiated a mediation cabal, where his arguments were completely shot down and now chooses to ignore it [35] .

The LTTE article had been facing a revert war between myself, Dutugemunu, Trinncomanb, the accuser and others [36]. I have stayed largely away from this not wanting to be lured into yet another dispute with this guy.

The supposed most 'comprehensive evidence' is hardly credible. The claim that myself and Trincomanb went silent the same time on 12th September has some red herrings. You can look at the contribution histories shown. Yes there appears to be a coincedence with both us 'being inactive' during that time, but this hardly appears to show anything unique nor unusual. That other stats have got some fancy graphs, but what does that show ?

It shows two completely different trends . My contributions have steadily increased since I joined wikipedia, while Trincomanb's participation has steadily decreased since the beginning of school year. Trincomanb as he points out below doesn't have much free time and this is evident in his recent editing habits. I have been involved with other wikipedia editors particularly, user:Sudharsansn and user:RaveenS, helping to clean up numerous Sri Lankan civil war related articles. Elalan 01:48, 30 November 2006 (UTC)[reply]

As for Trincomanb editing 4 articles in mainspace being unusual ? Says who. Maybe he isn't confident he can edit other articles. Maybe he is not interested ? There are many such reasons possible.

I do know of Trinncomanb and is a friend. I should say I have not chosen the same paths he has taken in numerous occasions. In certain occasion he did seem unnecessarily confrontational with user:snowolfd4 and I have privately cautioned him on that through email. For example here, I wanted to insert NPOV dispute tag [37]. He wanted to have it reverted and revert ensued between him and snowolfd4 [38]. See between October 13th to October 18th.

As for similar edit summaries and identical changes. That particular change had been the product of endless edit wars and a clear majority in the community felt there shouldn't be representations of pejoratives in the intro. I had been open to changes expressed by the government supporters but compromises never materialized. I do remember now that Trincomanb did insist on an intro without controversy, although no one was listening. I was also guilty of not listening to him then. He had given up with the government supporters then. In mid october, there was growing agreement with Trincomanb's earlier proposal. In fact at least one or more admins agreed on this (see [39]). Trinncomanb who I believed initiated this idea and I supported him on this. Hence I chose to have nearly identical edit summary as Trincomanb to make clear there was community support for Trincomanb's changes. Thinking this is nefarious is insincere and again contravenes WP:AGF.

About the TFD vote and AFD vote, If you look carefully, all though both of us voted on this, my vote and Trinncomanb's vote aren't identical . Here is my votes for [40] the TFD.

For the TFD I voted for "Very Strong Keep" and justified my reasoning. You can see how long the discussion was on this. Trinncomanb voted for "Strong Keep". On the ongoing AfD (here [41], I voted for "Very Strong Delete" and he voted for "Speedy Delete" claiming it was a "POV fork", which I am not sure what it means.

Snowolfd4 is hinting at some great conspiracy theory in all this which is a blatant contravention of WP:AGF. A simpler explanation is that Trincomanb could look at other user's contribution history and have decided to voice his support in these deletion votes. The contribution history of all users is public for a very good reason!

As can be seen here there is a lot of dubious things about snowolf's 'story'.

I urge this accuser to launch a checkrequest. One better, I will ask for a checkrequest on myself. Hopefully this will stop this nonsense. Elalan 17:32, 25 November 2006 (UTC)[reply]

After hearing this ongoing saga questioning Elalan's credibility, I have voluntarily recused myself of my votes on the article for deletion and template for deletion due to doubts raised from the checkuser case Elalan and Sudharsan had launched. I have gone ahead and notified the relevant admins in charge of this as well. I believe this is the right thing to do considering the lingering doubts and poisonous atmosphere created by this debate. I will make full statement on this matter once I find time later in the day Trincomanb 16:22, 27 November 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Comments by Trincomanb:There are numerous instances where I had healthy difference of opinion with Elalan's contributions. Elalan in his first few edits wanted to add this to the intro of LTTE [42]. I wasn't pleased with statement and knew this was going to trash the intro I had worked on with Credmond, Ulflarsen, Arvind (Vaddakan), Realstarslayer and others. I had this to say about this [43].
I was the first one who mentioned the idea of a "controversy free intro" [44] and repeteadly preached it [45] It really became a slogan after that.


However Elalan and others were willing to go with an intro that mentioned the ban or the terror label [46] and didn't go along with my idea. Elalan had compromised with the government supporters. I felt abandoned. Nevertheless when compromises were reached there would be a new government supporter unhappy with the wording and whole thing came crumbling down. This warfare of sorts carried on till August 23rd, when user Tyronen asked for ceasefire. Elalan who was more involved in the edit warring was tired and had this to say [47]. I was largely sitting on the sidelines was highly skeptical of this truce and made the following statement [48]. Trincomanb 00:54, 30 November 2006 (UTC)[reply]
On August 21st, Ulflarsen had thought of a solution to the ongoing revert war and here is the conversation:

Seems we have most of the facts, now is the time to get them together. I would argue there are three positions here, pro GoSL, pro LTTE and then neutral - mostly foreigners I guess, like myself. What about deciding to let a group of three, each representing her/his position regarding the LTTE? Until they have reached consensus we could just lock up the article - or leave it as now with the NPOV tag. Or maybe better - we leave it with the NPOV tag now, but when the group has made its final version, it is inserted, and the page locked. Any edit after that would need to go through the group. If there is interest in this proposal I suggest each group of editors agree on a person that can represent them. Ulflarsen 14:12, 21 August 2006 (UTC)

I like this idea and is a workable start, but what about having two people representing each side. This is primarily for logistics etc, so that in case one person is not availabe or gone temporarily then someone else representing that side can fill in. Elalan 15:21, 21 August 2006 (UTC)

Good idea. If we have two neutrals could I suggest Arvind and Ulflarsen? Addhoc 15:57, 21 August 2006 (UTC)

Also I think the neutral camp has to be accepted neutral by both the pro GOSL and pro LTTE sides with consensus. Each side should be able to wield a veto when deciding the members of the neutral camp. We can't have self declared neutral folks who claim to be neutral but arent considered neutral by one or both sides. Elalan 16:01, 21 August 2006 (UTC)

In contrast to what some users here feel, I do feel everyone should be free to participate and this process cannot become some elitist/segregated committee of sorts which is against the aims of Wikipedia. In any event, I do think users Arvind and Ulflarsen should be given special roles as observers/advisers in support of the neutral camp. Regardless of what other users may feel about their stance, they have demonstrated willingness to be involved in the article. It should organized such that their expertise in this field is what should count (ie work in the SLMM or peace and conflict studies) and not their POV. Everyone involved deeply in this conflict has a POV and hence I agree with Arvind, it should be a complete outsider. Trincomanb 19:26, 21 August 2006 (UTC)

As you can see, my opinion and Elalan's were complete opposite. He was willing to go along with committee idea and I felt that the whole organization of it was elitist. I felt everyone needed to participate.
On August 30th, I wanted to change the subject and thought of improving the military section [49]. Elalan was a participator in these things and wanted to work on the special forces section [50].
I wanted to work on the LTTE fighting brigades and have not had time to finish it yet. Since the start of the school year, I did not have much time to work on these things. My contribution history is evident of that. Eventually this whole proposal went nowhere. Trincomanb 00:54, 30 November 2006 (UTC)[reply]
To emphasize, Elalan's view on the intro was to include the bans, but mention the number of countries that didn't proscribe the organization [51]. My view was different. I felt the intro should remain controversy free [52]. Trincomanb 00:54, 30 November 2006 (UTC)[reply]
This is what user Tyronen had to say about this issue:

The issue isn't whether the countries should be listed - they are, in the appropriate subsection. But do they need to be in the intro? In fact, does the ban itself even need to be in the intro? Already the whole-article-in-the-intro movement is coming back by piling on counterpoints, and the ban was the beginning. I still think a minimalist one- or two-sentence intro is the best way to keep the peace, and this is a proposal that has been been supported by people on both sides. Tyronen 23:20, 29 August 2006 (UTC)

Eventually everyone else came around to what I had concluded a month or so before. I think Elalan was willing to compromise with government supporters, but they kept throwing him off, adding new sentences and making all sorts of provacations. This is what transpired and resulted in the present intro:

It has to be made certain Sri Lankan Ministry of Defence, AsianTribune, army.lk and perhaps Tamileditors.com is not a reliable or unverifiable source of information. Elalan 15:27, 6 October 2006 (UTC)

As per earlier discussion and suggestion from Tyronen, I have removed anything controversial out of the intro. Let the intro be simple and straight forward as possible. Let the reader decide whether LTTE is a terrorist organization or freedom fighters from all the facts. Please see the Hezbollah article as comparison. Trincomanb 02:37, 13 October 2006 (UTC)

Completely agree with the controversial free, neutral intro. Elalan 02:42, 13 October 2006 (UTC)

I concur, the LTTE are freedom-fighters, not "terrorists", irrespective of what India (which seems to be ignoring the feelings of Indian Tamils) or anyone else says. I would also suggest that Terrorist attacks carried out by LTTE be renamed to something more neutral. Cerebral Warrior 08:32, 13 October 2006 (UTC)

Hate to be cliched but One man's freedom fighter is another mans terrorist and Wikipedia is all about NPOV. In Wikipedia terms though, the LTTE is neither, they are a secular sepratist group with an established military and political system. I must agree that the term terrorist activity not be coined for all of the LTTE's activities, specifically those against political religous or military targets as the base definition of a terrorist is someone that uses terror as a weapon on a civilian populous. Sharz

As is evident from all these examples, Elalan and myself have had healthy differences of opinion on these issues and its just incorrect to claim we are sockpuppets. Trincomanb 00:54, 30 November 2006 (UTC)[reply]
Comment: I am not sure how the check user works but given the controversy created by ISP usage from home, work, school, tunneling, and multiple servers here and the accused voluntarily removing his votes in the given XFD’s as well as the by the amount and quality of edits done by User:Elalan compared to user User: Trincomanb, I suggest to the concluding admin to take into account all these mitigating factors before his/her conclusion as User:Elalan is User: Trincomanb sock puppets. ThanksRaveenS


  • Comment:

I think it has been very unfair to block Elalan indefinitely when the case has still not been confirmed with any statistical evidence or just any information at all. An issue was raised, Essjay suspected something very inconclusively and now it is being declared to be a sockpuppet issue - a lot of coherence is lacking and it appears as if this whole thing has been foisted upon him. Elalan has contributed immensely to WP:NCSLC and has done a lot of good work. As per the Checkuser request Essjay has clearly mentioned that it very inconclusive and that it could not be confirmed at all. Furthermore, it has been mentioned in his block log that he has done 'abusive work' which to me is a very derogatory statement to use against a fellow editor who has a lot of edits and contributions in Eiki. I would be very glad if the admins concerned could provide a clarification on his indefinite block, which sounds too harsh towards any editor with all the contributions by his side. Looking fwd to hear your opinion on this issue.

It is not at all clear to me what evidence you require. When two accounts edit in the pattern described, it is reasonable to infer that they are linked. The "likely" outcome implies (though cannotg state for privacy reasons) that the geographical areas of the IPs involved are also consistent - if one were editing from Uzbekistan and the other from Australia that would emphatically not be a "likely". So this does seem to be a case of strong circumstantial evidence, especially since there are not so very many active editors on the articles in question. Guy (Help!) 23:11, 3 December 2006 (UTC)[reply]
Please note the opinions of 2 administrators on this matter, which I will copy below for reference. --snowolfD4( talk / @ ) 23:42, 3 December 2006 (UTC)[reply]
User:Shell_Kinney on WP:ANI [53]
I'm sad to have to say this since I suggested that Citermon bring this up here, but I've spent a good deal of time going through the contribs of User:Trincomanb and User:Elalan in the hopes of finding something that might help their case. Unfortunately, back through September, I have yet to find a time they edited simultaneously. In fact, when both accounts edit on the same day, one shows up approximately twenty minutes after the other one stops and vice versa. Both accounts also disappeared from Sept 13 to the 25th when they resumed editing the same day in the same pattern. The checkuser may have only been likely and not confirmed, but the editing evidence doesn't look good. Considering that these accounts were used to help reach consensus on the same article and have voted on the same AfDs, I can understand why one was blocked indef. Shell babelfish 20:17, 1 December 2006 (UTC)
User:Steel359 on his talk page [54]
Apologies for a somewhat slow reply to this, I wasn't around yesterday and the only reason I'm here now is to sort this out. I made my decision based on Wikipedia:Suspected sock puppets/Trincomanb - their editing pattern, !voting the same way, using exactly the same edit summaries, etc. Also worth noting is that some comments made by Elalan appear (to me at least) to strengthen the sockpuppetry case than weaken it ("For the TFD I voted for "Very Strong Keep" and justified my reasoning. You can see how long the discussion was on this. Trinncomanb voted for "Strong Keep". On the ongoing AfD (here [41], I voted for "Very Strong Delete" and he voted for "Speedy Delete"" and "My contributions have steadily increased since I joined wikipedia, while Trincomanb's participation has steadily decreased since the beginning of school year"). "I voted very strong delete but he voted for speedy delete, and over here he voted for strong keep but I voted for very strong keep" appears to be Elalan's defense, and it isn't a very strong one. He's also bringing up WP:AGF repeatedly. I get suspicious when people do that. I checked WP:ANI before replying here, and it appears Shell Kinney (talk · contribs · blocks · protections · deletions · page moves · rights · RfA) has done a thorough check of their contribs and found that there's little there in terms of the times of their contributions to suggest they're different people [55]. And then we have the CheckUser, though given the existing evidence it was almost unnecessary.
Sechzehn: it is not one account per IP, and simply sharing IPs doesn't result in all but one account being blocked for sockpuppetry. It's only when two accounts appear to be working together that sockpuppetry issues are raised. -- Steel 15:05, 2 December 2006 (UTC)
Conclusions
  • 11:32, 1 December 2006 Steel359 (Talk | contribs) blocked "Elalan (contribs)" with an expiry time of indefinite (Abusive sockpuppet)
  • 11:48, 1 December 2006 Steel359 (Talk | contribs) blocked "Trincomanb (contribs)" with an expiry time of 1 week (Sockpuppeteering) MER-C 08:59, 31 December 2006 (UTC)[reply]
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