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Upwork jobs

Upwork job timings match the article creation times by single-purpose accounts. I am posting the links, because it is allowed by an exception set out in the policy.

While I don't see any obvious problems with some of those articles, and inclusionists would probably argue for keeping them all, that's not the point. There is no way to know how biased the articles are, which parts are exaggerated or if any key information is omitted, without researching the sources. I don't see why editors should work on verifying those possibly borderline cases instead of focusing on more worthwhile subjects. But I know that having the articles deleted would be a pain, so I'm leaving it here.

Rentier ( talk) 17:45, 5 July 2017 (UTC)

  • I opened an SPI case Wikipedia:Sockpuppet investigations/UKranama2 Rentier ( talk) 18:27, 5 July 2017 (UTC)
    • Thanks User:Rentier. These links are indeed useful and allowed and you may continue posting them. If you run into issues please ping me. Those who disagree with this position are free to try to change community consensus. But they are not allowed to ignore or overrule a community consensus they disagree with. Doc James ( talk · contribs · email) 15:52, 6 July 2017 (UTC)
      • Thanks Doc James. I think it's an important development as there are many more cases where those came from. Rentier ( talk) 16:15, 6 July 2017 (UTC)
        • Doc James thanks for your input and guidance here. I'm glad to hear that your opinion regarding consensus status quo on the issue of permissible linking is in alignment with my own. This should be made abundantly clear both for those who come here to make reports, and those who apply oversight on the reports. As I said above, shaming or burning good faith reporting is simply not acceptable to me. Doubly so when it is in fact within the parameters of what's allowed. - Bri ( talk) 22:03, 6 July 2017 (UTC)

Glasyguyuk looks like it belongs to the group of accounts identified by the SPI investigation. Compare the edits and edit summaries of Glasyguyuk and UKranama2, or the nicknames Londukguy and Glasyguyuk. Rentier ( talk) 22:25, 13 July 2017 (UTC)

Glasyguyuk and Davisweb999 have been CU-blocked as sockpuppets. Rentier ( talk) 11:25, 22 July 2017 (UTC)

WikiOfficer

Another Wikipedia article writing/monitoring service was posted at Jimbo's talkpage. That's actually a blog post by an author who says they work for WikiOfficer, a company that pretty much advertises the use of socks: "Since we hold a good number of authoritative accounts with the Wikipedia, our edits hardly get reversed". Articles and accounts unknown at this time. ☆ Bri ( talk) 01:08, 22 July 2017 (UTC)

a post was made at WT:COI earlier this month, here. I commented on the blog posting by WIkiOfficer's founder at both places I found it on the web ( here and here) but oddly neither has comment posted yet. Hm. Jytdog ( talk) 02:42, 22 July 2017 (UTC)
  • Not likely, the wikiofficer domain was registered in March this year (Internet Archive evidence is consistent), but that account has been inactive since 2011. It can probably be confidently stated that we're looking for articles with poor English, if their website is any indication: "your page will more sections... Once the draft is ready, it will be sent you, for the approval." but that doesn't really narrow things down. One of the domains you noted appears to be out of Nigeria (a room at the University no less), maybe we are looking for related topics. ☆ Bri ( talk) 06:08, 22 July 2017 (UTC)
  • They are apparently looking for someone to write an article entitled "How A Wikipedia Page For Your Brand Can Improve Your Conversion Rates" [1] for a whopping $30. Amateur hour. -- Rentier ( talk) 11:17, 22 July 2017 (UTC)
  • According to other postings from the parent company, they are offering in the range of $3 an hour for writers, $250 a month for staff. Richard Barbrook: "Only the rich can afford to pay Northern prices in the South [but]...In the developing world, participating within the hi-tech gift economy is a necessity not a hobby." quoted in my essay. ☆ Bri ( talk) 17:09, 22 July 2017 (UTC)
  • This makes me feel like writing an essay entitled "How A Getting Caught Exploiting Third World Labour To Make A Spam Wikipedia Article For Your Brand Can Improve Your Chances Of Being Recognised As The Low Rent Cheapskate Sleezeball That You Are" but if nobody will give me $30 for it then probably I won't bother. ;-) -- DanielRigal ( talk) 17:47, 22 July 2017 (UTC)

@ Bri: Is an open admission of sockpuppetry enough to open a case at SPI, even in the absence of evidence? Surely a Checkuser would flush out any socks to see if this claim is legitimate. -- Drm310 🍁 ( talk) 16:11, 22 July 2017 (UTC)

The SPI clerks will turn away a case that appears to them to be a fishing expedition, sometimes not very nicely. At this point we don't even have a single account to bring up to them, much less a couple of fresh accounts that can be CU-compared, plus compelling evidence that they should be compared. For now the best strategy is probably to wait until we see some activity that can be traced. Things seem to work best when we develop cases pretty thoroughly before opening SPI. ☆ Bri ( talk) 16:24, 22 July 2017 (UTC)

Shimon Bejarano ‎

The user has been making some edits to the Shimon Bejarano page, asserting that his name is such, and not the previous title of Bejarno. I moved this, since a Google search seems to agree. I made it clear on the user's talk page that directly editing the COI page in question is not recommended, but continued to edit afterwards. It is difficult to do any more when the user has not replied to my comments, and continues to edit. Thanks, My name isnotdave ( talk/ contribs) 15:47, 22 July 2017 (UTC)

The COI notice should have been rather more prominent, perhaps with one of the COI templates, and should have at least included a link to WP:COI or similar. Compared to most of what we see here, this is relatively minor COI editing. Edwardx ( talk) 15:56, 22 July 2017 (UTC)
Hmm. Worth fiddling around with Template:Welcome-coi then, if we do not believe it actually works. My name isnotdave ( talk/ contribs) 16:06, 22 July 2017 (UTC)
My humble apologies, User:My name is not dave. I somehow missed that the notice you posted was a COI warning, and only studied the extra bit you added at the end. "Welcome!" as a heading threw me, but really it was entirely my fault. Sorry about that. Alas, too many COI editors ignore the warnings and carry on editing, but it's right that we try to warn them nicely first. Edwardx ( talk) 21:39, 22 July 2017 (UTC)

Janet Echelman

Editors

Graciekwillie and Artisteditorial are only here to promote Echelman and her works. —  JJMC89 ( T· C) 00:27, 23 July 2017 (UTC)

Done a little editing on Echelman. Relatively subtle POV-pushing such as "Recipient of the Guggenheim Fellowship", when they hand out c. 220 each year. Edwardx ( talk) 01:07, 23 July 2017 (UTC)
A Guggenheim Fellowship is definitely significant, even if there are several hundred a year -- it's still a very selective bunch (they're not given out randomly). Consider the hundreds of millions of people who didn't get one each year. Beyond My Ken ( talk) 07:13, 23 July 2017 (UTC)
Oops, Beyond My Ken. The point I was trying to make was that it should read "a GF", not "the GF". Not doubting the notability of a GF. Edwardx ( talk) 10:25, 23 July 2017 (UTC)
Ah, got it. Thanks. Beyond My Ken ( talk) 17:12, 23 July 2017 (UTC)
Editor Graciekwillie has stated that they work for a studio connected to (prob. owned by) the artist. ☆ Bri ( talk) 04:22, 23 July 2017 (UTC)
I'd been planning to bring this here, but am away at the moment. The artist is notable and the article isn't too bad, the individual sculptures are of questionable notability in their own right. I'd redirected one, but that was undone by the new COI editor. Justlettersandnumbers ( talk) 07:02, 23 July 2017 (UTC)
Please try again. Both accounts are indeffed for socking. ☆ Bri ( talk) 14:58, 23 July 2017 (UTC)

Draft:Pyrates Smart Fabrics

I reviewed the draft article at AfC and was concerned at its promotional nature which led me to search for the editor's full name in Google. Their LinkedIn profile is among the top search results and indicates that they work as an assistant at the company, with responsibility for "design, social media, PR and communications". Accordingly I left a COI notice on their talk page. I therefore was surprised when the editor wrote on my talk page today that they are " not conflicted with the company, but rather found out about them through a research project for my thesis. Since I couldn't find a Wikipedia article about them for basic information I wanted to create one." It seems they at least have a perceived conflict of interest. Curb Safe Charmer ( talk) 13:32, 19 July 2017 (UTC)

  • Doesn't AfC have a rule for deleting drafts like this ASAP? If not, they should.
  • You can always politely ask whether an editor is paid, but what do you do when they are obviously prevaricating? I've seen this many times and am not really sure what to do. I usually assume that this is further proof that they are paid editors (they can say what they want, but you don't have to believe them). But you do have to maintain a level of civility. Can an admin block them immediately for being a paid editor? I'm not sure, perhaps this would be a good trial case.
  • You could list the draft at WP:MfD
  • Perhaps, *perhaps* you could note on their talk page that there is solid evidence that they are paid editors and ask them to email you an explanation. Probably it would be better for an admin to do this.
  • I'd like to hear from others on what should be done. Smallbones( smalltalk) 16:31, 19 July 2017 (UTC)
  • I would go for MfD. Editor shows no signs of becoming a valued contributor, so why should we help them to get better at being a paid editor? Edwardx ( talk) 16:41, 19 July 2017 (UTC)
I'll say this much: never have I seen a legit editor put a trademark symbol in an edit summary like this ☆ Bri ( talk) 17:49, 19 July 2017 (UTC)
  • AFC reviewer comment - there is nothing prohibiting a COI / paid editor from creating a page. If it's blatantly promotional and would need a significant rewrite, then it's eligible for G11. However, if it's simply "someone clearly connected is writing about them" and it's not terrible, then no, there is no speedy-delete criteria. It could be listed at MFD, but that should be saved for a "this will never ever ever be acceptable" case - simply saying "this was written by a COI editor" is not valid for MFD.
At the end of the day, if you think there is undisclosed paid editing, then COIN is the proper location to ask the question. If it's confirmed, the user is blocked. If not, they're not. Primefac ( talk) 16:19, 20 July 2017 (UTC)
I'm always amazed at the number of qualifications people try to put on the ToU. Of course there is a prohibition on an undisclosed paid editor from creating an article - or making any other edit for that matter - it's called the Terms of Use. If you are paid and don't declare, you can't edit. So AfC is not responsible for deleting these drafts, MfD can't be used, speedy deletion can't be used. OK then, it's a clear case of undeclared paid editing, an admin should block the editor. We should of course get the proper tools to delete the draft at AfC, and MfD, and speedy deletion. And I hope nobody would consider opposing that given that our only tool now is blocking the editor. Smallbones( smalltalk) 17:15, 20 July 2017 (UTC)
I'd have to slash and burn if it were an article. little could remain, particularly the nonsense claims for the fabric properties. I'd like to know about getting rid of potential articles that remain in draft form. This should go before it gets to article space. - Roxy the dog. bark 18:38, 20 July 2017 (UTC)
This isn't a hypothetical; see this for example. Clearly paid editing via a sock, nobody even debates that. Except for minor recategorization-type edits nobody else has touched it. Yet we wikilawyer ourselves into accepting this crap. ☆ Bri ( talk) 20:58, 20 July 2017 (UTC)
Yes, but in that case the socialite just wasted her money using Wikipedia as a social register. It isn't promotional. The only issue is that she isn't notable in her own right, and notability is something of a will-o-the-wisp, as opposed to promotion, where I know it when I see it. Robert McClenon ( talk) 00:15, 23 July 2017 (UTC)
The article has now been speedily deleted as promotional. There was also an MfC discussion to which the connected editor did not contribute. Curb Safe Charmer ( talk) 19:30, 23 July 2017 (UTC)

Joanna Pickering

Joanna Pickering was created by User:MMGNYC, who was blocked for being "an account for the publicity company MMG in NYC". Since then, editing of that article has been taken over by User:Jordon RB and the IPs listed. Aside from stuffing the Joanna Pickering article absurdly full of puffery, they have also been involved with the article Gustaf Heden. In 2015, a person claiming to be Gustaf Heden proposed the article for deletion, saying "I am Gustaf Heden and this was a page created by my ex (whose name is made pretty obvious by a quick read of the article) and I would like it deleted, as its erronoeous and no more than a supposed tool for her self-promotion". I strongly suspect all accounts are related to the publicity company. World's Lamest Critic ( talk) 20:09, 14 July 2017 (UTC)

I neglected to mention that Joanna Pickering was a recreation of a previously deleted article. World's Lamest Critic ( talk) 20:12, 14 July 2017 (UTC)
I've done some work trying to tone down the puffery, removing content that was sourced only to WP:UGC such as IMDb and wikis. Still very much sourced to resume like sources and PRs and could do with more trimming and checking for verification. Melcous ( talk) 00:54, 15 July 2017 (UTC)
You removed the bit boasting about her having GCSEs. Not fair! That was the funniest bit. ;-)
Seriously though, that's a big improvement. I've removed a bit more but the evil part of me was tempted to leave it as it was the sort of inept PR that actually makes its subject sound like a fool. I mean, who boasts of being a "muse" in 2017 CE? I'll probably do a bit more, if I don't lose the will to live, but I'm wondering if it would be kinder to her to just get rid of the whole thing. -- DanielRigal ( talk) 14:50, 15 July 2017 (UTC)
Also did some cleanup myself but feel like I've been sucked deep into WP:BOGO territory so will stop now. ☆ Bri ( talk) 23:19, 15 July 2017 (UTC)
Wikipedia:Sockpuppet investigations/NYMMG has been filed. ☆ Bri ( talk) 04:37, 17 July 2017 (UTC)
SPI closed "nothing to do here". Speedy delete declined. Not feeling the admin love today :/ Filed 2nd AfD. ☆ Bri ( talk) 18:07, 17 July 2017 (UTC)
I just commented "delete" at the AfD. As for SPI, I've been noticing a lot of lack of love over there, as regards cases of socks involved in paid editing or COI. Maybe it's the strictness of the checkuser rules, or maybe it's just a wiki-cultural thing at SPI. -- Tryptofish ( talk) 18:16, 17 July 2017 (UTC)
This one was clearly a WP:DUCK case, even two of the editors were named NYMMG and MMGNYC for wiki's sake and one of them is already blocked. Checkuser restrictions aren't an excuse to refuse to consider behavioral evidence IMO. ☆ Bri ( talk) 18:36, 17 July 2017 (UTC)
I agree 100%. -- Tryptofish ( talk) 19:34, 17 July 2017 (UTC)
I think you're being slightly unfair here. The SPI was closed as "There's nothing to do here. All of the accounts are too old. (emphasis added)." My understanding is that CU data are only retained for something like three months. The most recent edit by any of the listed accounts was by User:104.162.105.96 in early May, which is just within the cutoff, but the next most recent was User:Jordon_RB back in March. The other accounts are considerably older, going back as far as 2013 for their most recent edits. So there's just no CU data available to make a connection. Shock Brigade Harvester Boris ( talk) 00:01, 18 July 2017 (UTC)
Just above your comment it was explained how this isn't about checkuser and account age at all. ☆ Bri ( talk) 00:19, 18 July 2017 (UTC)
In this case, it was about behavioral evidence, and while there's little point in blocking accounts that have been inactive for years, it's perfectly reasonable to look behaviorally at accounts that have edited in the last few months. -- Tryptofish ( talk) 19:13, 18 July 2017 (UTC)
HannahRM is probably another associate or sock working on Steven G. Farrell. see Special:Contributions/104.162.105.96.
I've added Dp0071125. -- Tryptofish ( talk) 00:54, 20 July 2017 (UTC)
In an unusual situation apparently involving receipt of an OTRS ticket from the subject of the article, before the usual seven-day AfD period elapsed, it was moved to Draft:Joanna Pickering and the AfD closed. ☆ Bri ( talk) 00:15, 23 July 2017 (UTC)
One of the strangest AfD decisions I've ever seen, and that's saying a lot. -- Tryptofish ( talk) 00:22, 23 July 2017 (UTC)
I thought it was weird too. I'm not saying wrong as I don't know any of the OTRS details (and I assume that we are not allowed to know). I'm just saying that it is unusual. Personally I think the draft is hopeless and it almost seems cruel to let people waste their time working on it. I have added a note to the talk page warning of this and also trying to offer some advice in the right direction for anybody who does want to edit it. It will be interesting to see if the draft is ever submitted. -- DanielRigal ( talk) 19:39, 23 July 2017 (UTC)
I've read "the urgent nature of the agreement from the subject that it would be best to delete the article until the notability issue is settled," re-read it, and re-re-read it. To the extent that I understand it at all, I still can't figure out how "would be best to delete" means "convert the article to a draft." Shock Brigade Harvester Boris ( talk) 20:48, 23 July 2017 (UTC)

Florida Municipal Power Agency

I am a COI editor and declared such. I requested a change to my company page which was declined. The message reads, "The reviewer would like to request the editor with a COI attempt to discuss with editors engaged in the subject-area first." I'm hoping that this posting will facilitate that or that someone can give me advice with how to proceed.

It looks like your request was fulfilled in December [2] If I'm misunderstanding the request please just let me know here. Smallbones( smalltalk) 20:10, 18 July 2017 (UTC)
Thanks for the response. Changes to the leadership section were declined in July, as described on the talk page. User:Jeff at FMPA
Not sure what happened there. I've made the changes and left a note on the talk page of the editor who declined your request. BlackcurrantTea ( talk) 21:32, 24 July 2017 (UTC)
Thank you! User:Jeff at FMPA

I just searched "wikipedia" on Upwork and found 280 jobs, most of which request articles or edits. I then searched "upwork" on the archive pages of this talk page and there're no mentions, so I'm not sure how many of you are aware of this issue. Some of the job proposals include the title of the article to be created/edited, so I think it's worth keeping an eye on that list, and even writing Upwork to request they at least warn users creating jobs related to Wikipedia. What do you think? -- Felipe ( talk) 16:00, 12 July 2017 (UTC)

@ Sophivorus: Thanks for this information. Editors are in fact aware of Upwork, but I feel that this is still important information, so I hope that you don't mind that I moved your post to here. Thanks again. -- Tryptofish ( talk) 16:08, 12 July 2017 (UTC)
Thank you for bringing up this issue. Here are some recent examples of edits resulting from Upwork jobs: #1, #2, #3, #4, #5. Note that the editors hired via Upwork are just a part (I believe it's a small part) of a wider market, see for example this list of companies that provide or facilitate paid editing services. -- Rentier ( talk) 18:54, 12 July 2017 (UTC)
Articles mentioned on Upwork:
  • if it is LSI Industries, a LCD manufacturer, it might merit a page, but there is also Language Studies International, created in 2005, which has some obvious problems. DGG ( talk ) 02:20, 17 July 2017 (UTC)
  • Karpis Maksudian wants a page for his band. Probably "Lightning Strikes". No such article yet.
  • Swati Verma (makeup artist) wants a page. Not to be confused with Swati Verma, actress.
  • London Minibus Coach Hire wants a page. No such page yet.
  • Banana Tree Restaurants wants a page. No such page yet.
  • Reelsonar.com (fishing equipment and app) wants a page. No such page yet.
  • HealthFare.ca wants a page. No such page yet.
  • Someone wants a link in Vehicle Identification Number. No spammy links seen.
  • Qode Media wants a page. No such page yet.
  • Chicago Lighting Institute wants a page. No such page yet.
  • Company wants a page on "Hybrid Kilts", with a link to their site. No such page yet.
  • Defence Unlimited wants a page. No such page yet, but the page for their CEO, Edward Banayoti looks suspicious. Created by an SPA.
  • Someone wants Stuart O'Keeffe (chef) updated.
  • Babes (band) Band "Babes" wants a page. No such page yet.
  • Cosmo Jarvis wants his page reworked.
  • Stange Law Firm (divorce, St. Louis) wants a page. No such page yet.
  • (More to come)
John Nagle ( talk) 07:50, 15 July 2017 (UTC)
Which reminds me, the Page Protection policy should be amended to specifically allow pages like Qode Media and Chicago Lighting Institute to be preemptively protected when adds like those appear. It wouldn't be a huge victory, but would help chip away at the market with minimal effort on editors' part. Easier than a bunch of SPIs after the fact. Plus, we can expect the people hiring editors to continue to be n00bs who are likely to openly disclose the topics they want written about, which works in our favor. As a group they won't learn simple evasion as quickly as the paid editors do, so a policy page protecting should yield some benefits indefinitely. Geogene ( talk) 12:29, 15 July 2017 (UTC)
We permit paid editing so long as it is disclosed. On those grounds, we cannot pre-emptively protect articles, as there is only a problem if the editor who creates it fails to disclose their relationship. Even then, we don;t have a policy permitting a paid article to be removed unless it fails one of the CSD criteria or fails AfD. - Bilby ( talk) 22:13, 16 July 2017 (UTC)
I monitored the search results on upwork for about a month in April and May, listing all the articles and ads at User:Smartse/upwork. For some of them, I had to guess the article titles from information in the ads or from other ads posted by the same users. I was pleasantly surprised by how few ended up being created, although I have to admit that from the majority of ads, it wasn't possible to work out who the subject was. I also reported some users to upwork who were obviously using socks and not disclosing paid edits. According to their ToUs their users can't break other site's ToUs so they should in theory be banned from Upwork. Unfortunately though despite spending several hours sending them evidence on users who were in breach of our ToUs they were incapable of understanding the evidence I was presenting to them. I've tried naming and shaming them on twitter as well, but with little effect. SmartSE ( talk) 16:26, 15 July 2017 (UTC)
One of the interesting things about these ads is that in many cases the payment offered is extremely low, often below the minimum wage for the U.S. You wonder what kind of quality the offerer is going to get for that price. Shock Brigade Harvester Boris ( talk) 16:41, 15 July 2017 (UTC)
The success rate is low, too. For the jobs I listed, mostly nothing has happened. For the few where something has happened, someone had already dealt with the spam. I found a total of two spammy links, and that was under Ground Support Equipment. Of course, the ads from people who say what article they want edited may reflect the more clueless Upwork customers. Some of the other ads indicate more subtlety. John Nagle ( talk) 17:02, 15 July 2017 (UTC)
The fact that the cheap and easily identifiable adverts represent a low-end of the paid editing jobs facilitated by Upwork, and that Upwork represents a low-end of the paid editing market cannot be emphasised enough. Rentier ( talk) 19:16, 15 July 2017 (UTC)
@ Smartse: Interesting. I am writing to Upwork concerning the edits mentioned in my report Wikipedia:COIN#User:L7starlight. Let's see if all the $10,000s I've earned them over the years carry any weight. If not, perhaps the WMF's legal team can write a letter? Rentier ( talk) 12:18, 18 July 2017 (UTC)
@ Rentier: Good luck. I found it very exasperating as a different, but equally clueless person replied to each message that I sent. I don't think WMF have any appetite for it. SmartSE ( talk) 13:27, 18 July 2017 (UTC)
@ Smartse: After spending many hours explaining the evidence (and yes, it was a pain and a different person replied each time), I've got the following reply: "Based on your report, I have examined the account and taken action as defined in our Terms of Service." I don't know what that means, if anything, and they understandably won't reveal any details. Rentier ( talk) 15:36, 24 July 2017 (UTC)
A few more cases. I have about forty recent ads saved, I don't have the stamina to list them all. I intend to examine the list in a few weeks.
  • Elixinol LLC had an article created
  • Whois_XML_API had an article created (I sent it to AfD)
  • A company named "ccusa" wants a page
  • Chugh LLP (law firm) wants a page ($2,500 offered)
Rentier ( talk) 19:40, 15 July 2017 (UTC)

From something Bri posted elsewhere, it looks like Fiverr's ToS are contradictory to our ToU. "Seller" = the freelance paid editor

"Privacy & Identity - You may not publish or post other people's private and confidential information. Any exchange of personal information required for the completion of a service must be provided in the order page. Sellers further confirm that whatever information they receive from the buyer, which is not public domain, shall not be used for any purpose whatsoever other than for the delivery of the work to the buyer."

In short - the paid editor may not put their client's name in their paid editor declaration. But we require the paid editor to declare their client. The ToU FAQs are clear in such a case. ("If you wish to avoid the disclosure requirement of this provision, you should abstain from receiving compensation for your edits.") The paid editor is not allowed to edit here. Could we ask Fiverr to require the disclosure of this info for Wiki jobs, or alternatively to ban postings there for Wiki-jobs? @ Doc James and DGG:

I've looked for a similar provision in Upwork's ToS but don't see it. However, it does have a section on copyright that contradicts our rules:

Upwork copyright https://www.upwork.com/legal/ "OWNERSHIP OF WORK PRODUCT AND INTELLECTUAL PROPERTY

Upon Freelancer’s receipt of full payment from Client, the Work Product, including without limitation all Intellectual Property Rights in the Work Product, will be the sole and exclusive property of Client, and Client will be deemed to be the author thereof. If Freelancer has any Intellectual Property Rights to the Work Product that are not owned by Client upon Freelancer’s receipt of payment from Client, Freelancer hereby automatically irrevocably assigns to Client all right, title and interest worldwide in and to such Intellectual Property Rights. Except as set forth above, Freelancer retains no rights to use, and will not challenge the validity of Client’s ownership in, such Intellectual Property Rights. Freelancer hereby waives any moral rights, rights of paternity, integrity, disclosure and withdrawal or inalienable rights under applicable law in and to the Work Product. If payment is made only for partial delivery of Work Product, the assignment described herein applies only to the portion of Work Product delivered.”

In short the copyright is the "the sole and exclusive property of Client"

We, of course require the poster (the paid editor) to own the copyright and give us a CC-BY license. As above, the only way not to violate either the ToU or the ToS is to do nothing - no paid editing allowed. Smallbones( smalltalk) 21:10, 16 July 2017 (UTC)

This copyright argument doesn't really work. CC means that copyright remains with the original owner. The owner then grants a perpetual license for the reuse of the work. If this is standard work for hire, and the copyright belongs to the client, the client can still allow the work to be released under a free license.
We do not require the poster to own the copyright. We only require that the poster be allowed to add the content here under a free license. We might want to make this clearer in the guidelines, but there is nothing in principal wrong with a contractor posting free material on behalf of their clients.
Similarly, there is unlikely problem with the standard Fiverr accounts with the contractor disclosing the identity of the client on WP if the client agrees. If the client does not agree, or if the client is unaware, then presumably the contractor should not have accepted the job, and they are open to being blocked for non-disclosure. - Bilby ( talk) 22:13, 16 July 2017 (UTC)
The copyright statement is your better argument. We don't require that the uploader is the actual owner, only that if he is not we require evidence that it is freely licensed. When we have evidence that it is not owned by the uploader, such as the Upworks ToS, we can be pretty strict. So a clear statement, viewable by all during the Upworks process should do it. My guess is that they won't do it without being required by Upworks, and that Upworks won't require it. In that case we have no evidence of a free license so the ToU and ToS contradict each other.
Similarly we can't assume that Fiverr clients know that their names must appear here. If it doesn't appear there as a requirement for Wiki articles that clients agree to disclose their names, we can't assume that this is allowed when their ToS say they can't disclose. If Fiverr were to post such an additional requirement for Wiki articles then we're ok. We should probably point this out to them. But until they do, the ToU and ToS contradict each other. Smallbones( smalltalk) 01:04, 17 July 2017 (UTC)
Another interesting point about Fiverr's ToS I the sentence "Sellers further confirm that whatever information they receive from the buyer, which is not public domain, shall not be used for any purpose whatsoever other than for the delivery of the work to the buyer." That says that freelancers can only send their output to the buyer, i.e. they can't post it here. The buyer can post it in Wikipedia if they want (according to the ToS) but not the freelancer.
You might object - "You're just trying to make this as difficult as possible on the freelancer." To the contrary, I think the freelancers and these sites are trying to make it as difficult as possible on us. They are making money off of an educational non-profit. They should at least try to act professionally. Volunteers have to jump through copyright and other hoops to contribute here. Paid editors should do likewise. There are no special privileges for paid editors. Smallbones( smalltalk) 01:35, 17 July 2017 (UTC)
This is just wikilawyering. Fundamentally, if a client employs a contractor to write a Wikipedia article, and presumably that client is made aware that the article will be released under a free license, there is should be no problem with this. Similarly, if the client employs a contractor on Fiverr, and the contractor informs the client that they will need to disclose that they have been employed by that client, there should be no problem if the client goes ahead with the contract and the contractor discloses the relationship on WP. If the contractor is not given permission, then the contractor should not edit WP, as they would be breaking the ToU by engaging in non-disclosed paid editing. As to "can only be delivered to the buyer" and not posted here - that's just going to an extreme when reading it. We don't need the go that far.
Simply, we don't need to invent new problems. We have a perfectly good set of tools as things stand, which are in keeping with the community's expectations. We block for non-disclosure, and delete overly promotional or non-notable articles. Our problem isn't a lack of tools, but a lack of an ability to identify paid editors. - Bilby ( talk) 02:18, 17 July 2017 (UTC)
I do not think copyright is going to be a problem or a solution-the agency's terms are general all-purpose terms, and for an article here presumably the client assigns the copyright as needed. We don't normally investigate but accept their statement.
The problem about identifying the parties is however real. I was talking to someone who told me he was a undeclared paid editor, and wanted to do it as declared; when I told him he would have to declare all the paid work, he said his agreements with the clients made it impossible. DGG ( talk ) 02:24, 17 July 2017 (UTC)
I agree. If you have to sign an NDA, or otherwise are not permitted to disclose your client, you can't meet the ToU and can't contribute to Wikipedia. That said, I don't believe that there is anything in the freelancing sites which makes this necessarily the case. - Bilby ( talk) 06:33, 17 July 2017 (UTC)
What this means is that OTRS is required for all articles created via Upworks as verification that the owner/payer releases the text under an open license. Bri and Smallbones interesting find. Doc James ( talk · contribs · email) 05:10, 17 July 2017 (UTC)
It is far too early to jump to this as a conclusion, which is stretching it at best. How about we just focus on fixing the genuine copyright problems, of which there is a huge backlog, and spend our time trying to address paid editing with the far less questionable tools that we already have? - Bilby ( talk) 06:28, 17 July 2017 (UTC)
Our problem isn't a lack of tools, but a lack of an ability to identify paid editors. It's not too difficult to identify paid or other kind of COI editors when patrolling the new pages. New user + perfect formatting + borderline notable BLP / ORG is a good indicator. Add puffery or bogus references and it's a clear-cut case. Example: Lisa Barnett. Unfortunately, at the moment, BOGOF is the community's method of choice for dealing with these articles. I noticed that DGG has been pushing to establish promotionalism combined with borderline notability as a valid reason for deletion. It seems to me to be a powerful and robust way to tackle the problem. Rentier ( talk) 07:59, 17 July 2017 (UTC)
While we've always read those situations as indicative of a sock (or, potentially, a paid editor), it can't really be seen as proof. And there's the problem. We could just delete well formed articles by new users as likely socks, but the community is unlikely to accept that as an approach without at least some additional evidence. - Bilby ( talk) 09:30, 17 July 2017 (UTC)
I've said this many times already and sadly nothing has come of it so far, but we should really have a way of automating the detection of new BLP/CORP articles created by throwaways. While by no mean proof of UPE, this would let us deal with the content, which is of course what we are mainly concerned about. The edit filter would be our best bet to start with. I did email the list months ago, but nobody showed any interest. SmartSE ( talk) 13:31, 18 July 2017 (UTC)

Here's a thought: Suppose we were to directly contact the people posting those requests for work on Upwork with a boilerplate notice basically saying, "We're from Wikipedia, we see what you're doing there, and you can't do it that way. If you want an article on your company/product/band, create a Wikipedia account, and make a request (disclosing your COI) on the appropriate noticeboard". bd2412 T 17:46, 19 July 2017 (UTC)

Except they can. We don't prohibit paid editing. - Bilby ( talk) 17:47, 19 July 2017 (UTC)
True, but I'm betting that our typical paid editor picking jobs off of Upwork isn't going about it the way they are supposed to. bd2412 T 20:10, 20 July 2017 (UTC)

I've created a watchlist at User:Bri/COIbox55 (the "related changes" feature is nice for this). It picked up Babes (band) created by an editor who has also done bands and entertainers like Kate Berlant, Hibou (band), Mathieu Santos, Day Wave ... maybe we need a new case for this. ☆ Bri ( talk) 05:07, 25 July 2017 (UTC)

That one is complex. At the moment, we cannot show that the editor who created it was being paid. It seems unlikely to be independent, but it is hard to show this. It would be better to let this sit for now. - Bilby ( talk) 05:14, 25 July 2017 (UTC)

MADRASS2014

See this ANI thread, oddly started by the editor. As has been pointed out there, their edits look very much like a paid editors, and they have said that they edit under multiple accounts since 2005 ( diff). I have looked through the three articles for sock networks but have not identified anything clear. Wanted to post here in case anybody else is interested to look or this rings a bell for anybody. Jytdog ( talk) 04:12, 22 July 2017 (UTC)

I keep thinking that Chitranjan Singh Ranawat, which the editor in question was very quick to point out wasn't created by them, but whch is similar to Kenneth K. Hansraj, might hold a clue, but so far I've come up empty. Also Randall B. Griepp may be related in some way. Beyond My Ken ( talk) 04:32, 22 July 2017 (UTC)
I found what may be a connection between MADRASS2014 -- who says that "project management" is one of their recent interests -- and User:Neritasenter whose contributions on Commons [3] include a number images of people receiving project management certfication. They also uploaded a picture of the Indian Sri Lankan filmmaker Chandran Rutnam, for whom Paul Mason (producer) was the executive producer. Their images there all appear to be professional PR images, although they're marked as being the original work of the uploader. (I plan on tagging them for deletion). Beyond My Ken ( talk) 22:49, 22 July 2017 (UTC)
Neritasenter's editing here on en.wiki is to articles about the same people he uploaded images of on Commons: Ravi Karunanayake, Dietmar Doering, Chandran Rutnam and Noolaham Foundation. They all have the earmarks of paid editing, and at least one ( Dietmar Doering) is of dubious notability. Beyond My Ken ( talk) 23:11, 22 July 2017 (UTC)
Per the ANI discussion, MADRASS2014 has been indef'd for block evasion. -- Drm310 🍁 ( talk) 05:27, 25 July 2017 (UTC)

More Cleveland Clinic stuff

Should Top 10 medical innovations (Cleveland Clinic) exist? Evidence of notability is very thin. The main independent source is from CNN, but it's one of those "special to CNN" things and it was written by someone who describes herself as a "SEO Specialist and Digital Content Analyst", not a mainstream reporter. Shock Brigade Harvester Boris ( talk) 15:42, 23 July 2017 (UTC)

@ Bluerasberry: You were involved in the 2015 COIN case, do you have an opinion on this? ☆ Bri ( talk) 16:59, 23 July 2017 (UTC)
Boris, There don't seem to be any COI editors associated with the article and, in its present state, it is not promotional. It's not even linked from any other articles (apart from a "See also" in Cleveland Clinic). A COI/paid editor would have made sure there were multiple incoming links. Having said that, the small amount of information in it, the lack of incoming links, and it's relative lack of coverage per se (the articles are mostly rewrites of press releases) suggest that it should simply be merged into Cleveland Clinic, possibly into the "Research and education" section. The list is announced at the Cleveland Clinic's annual "Medical Innovation Summit" and gets coverage by the regular reporters in the Cleveland Plain Dealer [4]. Voceditenore ( talk) 17:08, 23 July 2017 (UTC)
That's a good assessment of the situation. I'll put a merge tag on the "top 10" article. Shock Brigade Harvester Boris ( talk) 19:14, 23 July 2017 (UTC)
  • I redirected it, and it was reverted with edit note it should not be redirected because is different topic and very important article about Medical Sciences.. Oy. Jytdog ( talk) 06:35, 25 July 2017 (UTC)
@ Bri: The article has since been speedy deleted. I saw it and it had citations. It should have gone to AfD. Jytdog's redirect also was appropriate to advance conversation.
I checked Wikipedia:WikiProject Awards and prizes. I was looking for policy guidance. I think someone drafted a policy about when to mention awards in articles and I was looking for more information about that.
I would call this particular case a wiki article about an award. It is common for wiki articles to mention awards, and it is common for Wikipedians to have to judge the extent to which an award is a reliable indication of merit. Before this article was deleted there were no sources discussing the award itself, and the sources only presented the award lists as pulp pop science content. While I do not think the article would have passed AfD, I think it is fair for any new user to want to know more about Wikipedia's policies. If we had more clear guidance on when awards can have their own articles and when awards can be mentioned in other articles, then I think lots of confusion would be cleared. Blue Rasberry (talk) 14:47, 25 July 2017 (UTC)
It is kind of weird to call it an award. In my view the publication is a pretty interesting PR device for CC - they claim great inventive and clinical prowess, and they forecast what inventions will change medicine in the next year. I don't know anyone who pays any attention to it. I am half curious how accurate they have been, but I don't have time to devote to digging in to find out. The citations were mostly churnalism or self-citations; there were two decent refs about one year's predictions but even they were kind of "woo!". It is a perfect thing for the 24 hour news cycle and its interest in Hot Medicine. Jytdog ( talk) 16:06, 25 July 2017 (UTC)

Woolrich

The user has removed references, added unreferenced content, and done lots of interesting stuff to the article. @ Toddst1: suspects COI, and I think it's quite apparent for myself, adding 'quality' to this sentence. My name isnotdave ( talk/ contribs) 13:54, 25 July 2017 (UTC)

Google the second editor - it's a real name, self-outing. The COI is unambiguous. Toddst1 ( talk) 16:52, 25 July 2017 (UTC)

User:Bilingual2000

Long term likely paid for

New users. Possibly the same?

All working on the topic area

Doc James ( talk · contribs · email) 02:11, 25 July 2017 (UTC)

SPI here [5] Doc James ( talk · contribs · email) 03:31, 25 July 2017 (UTC)
I've had suspicions about one or more of these. I proposed deletion on Roy C.J. and apparently visited some others. It's obvious now. He denied COI on my talkpage so I dropped it, without much else to do in these cases until it's blindingly clear. ☆ Bri ( talk) 03:49, 25 July 2017 (UTC)
SPI have found concerns. I have blocked Bilingual2000 for TOU violations. Have also moved the Nina article to draft. Any further thoughts? Doc James ( talk · contribs · email) 15:42, 25 July 2017 (UTC)

Further accounts

One of the above accounts has been linked to these socks [6]

Which raises concerns about this not yet blocked account

Doc James ( talk · contribs · email) 16:11, 25 July 2017 (UTC)

Yes. Would be useful to have a bot pick it up. Doc James ( talk · contribs · email) 19:22, 25 July 2017 (UTC)
Let's see...Their first two edits use templates, their third one creates an article in a single edit, complete with infobox, and their fourth one uses reFill. Amazing progress for a brand-new editor! See also
BlackcurrantTea ( talk) 21:03, 25 July 2017 (UTC)

New articles

Looks like this may be created soon by this family of socks

By the way I have described a way that appears to be used to side step copyright review of images here [7] Doc James ( talk · contribs · email) 16:24, 25 July 2017 (UTC)

Yes, that method has been known for quite some time, it's quite useful in finding UPEs. I believe it was also what helped expose User:FoCuSandLeArN (among others) as a UPE. jcc ( tea and biscuits) 16:34, 25 July 2017 (UTC)
We need to improve collaboration between WP and Commons on this. Doc James ( talk · contribs · email) 16:46, 25 July 2017 (UTC)
It's Flickrwashing right? ☆ Bri ( talk) 17:05, 25 July 2017 (UTC)
Yes exactly. Asked here about improving the bot that does the review [8] Doc James ( talk · contribs · email) 19:31, 25 July 2017 (UTC)

Undisclosed paid editing by Highbrows Engineering and Technologies

Articles

Accounts

Highbrows Engineering and Technologies is a Pakistani company that offers wikipedia biographies for $349 and company pages for $449. The full offer is available at http://archive.is/oPy8v. The company's founder appears to be a veteran Wikipedia editor (20,000+ edits), although as far as I can tell, he has never used his main account for work, and didn't make any edits this year (that account is not listed here).

They state on their website "Our Wikipedia veterans create or correct it in a way that it conforms to all Wikipedia policies and sticks on the wiki, even gets updated for free by the Wikipedia volunteers later on.", which should be dedicated to those who oppose deletion of articles created by undisclosed paid editors.

Now, the evidence:

  • https://www.upwork.com/jobs/_~01f6978e09244a5694 - done between February and March 2017 by the Highbrows agency, the ad states "Im looking for someone to write up 2 wikipedia articles. One organisational, other Bio". The client is based in Parramatta, his previous ads mention the name Edway. The public history shows that he has later requested "editing", which was done in May 2017.

The four articles are part of a group of 20 articles listed above, which share the following similarities:

  • all were created by SPAs,
  • all were bombarded with similarly formatted references,
  • all use the same style of editing and markup,
  • most of the SPAs redirected their user pages to their talk pages,

and several other characteristics that I won't describe, so as to not make it too easy to avoid detection in the future. Not all SPAs are necessarily from the Highbrows agency, though it's likely that most are, and all look suspicious.

Rentier ( talk) 21:24, 25 July 2017 (UTC)

User:Rentier you done an SPI? Doc James ( talk · contribs · email) 21:50, 25 July 2017 (UTC)
Started a case for a subset of the accounts, Wikipedia:Sockpuppet_investigations/Vaedsa (most of the 20 I listed would be stale). Rentier ( talk) 21:56, 25 July 2017 (UTC)
Case is now [9] Doc James ( talk · contribs · email) 22:41, 25 July 2017 (UTC)
Yes, I was waiting for CU confirmation but the behavior is highly indicative of Highstakes00, I think we've found the company/person behind this sockfarm. Is it worth contacting WMF Legal as this sockfarm is particularly persistent? jcc ( tea and biscuits) 22:44, 25 July 2017 (UTC)
@ Jcc: That's a good question. At the very least, the WMF should be able to convince Upwork to take down the violator's profiles. I contacted Upwork regarding another freelancer's violation and they "took action" based on my report. The WMF would have infinitely more clout. Rentier ( talk) 00:04, 26 July 2017 (UTC)
It seems that all non-stale accounts were confirmed. Rentier ( talk) 22:46, 25 July 2017 (UTC)
Any idea whom (if anyone) I should email the details of Haider's main account? (the one with 20k edits) Rentier ( talk) 22:49, 25 July 2017 (UTC)
Have deleted a bunch of the articles that are obviously paid for and from this group. Doc James ( talk · contribs · email) 22:58, 25 July 2017 (UTC)

The name "Haider" was used by a UPE in the past. I'll have to look it up. ☆ Bri ( talk) 23:12, 25 July 2017 (UTC)

(reply to a comment that has disappeared, regarding an editor not related to Highbrows) I think that the Wikipedia identity of this freelancer may be unravelled by a careful examination of this client's history, but I'm more inclined to pity the freelancer's rates than to dig deeper. The Highbrows guys, on the other hand, charge their clients upwards of $100/hr. Rentier ( talk) 00:21, 26 July 2017 (UTC)
On other sites he uses various combinations of the names Syed Hassan Haider Naqvi. Highbrows blog mentions a co-founder, but I've not found a name; much of the site's unavailable due to 502 errors. BlackcurrantTea ( talk) 00:35, 26 July 2017 (UTC)
The main account identified here is just Highstakes. Highstakes has been going for a long time and has been discussed on various noticeboards, and is mostly identified through behavior, although that is harder as of late. The second account is BiH, who had a long break but seems to have returned to paid editing. However, that's unrelated to the main issue. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Bilby ( talk • contribs) 02:31, 26 July 2017 (UTC)

(completely lacking of a NPOV - See editions and editwars she is currently engaged with it) (completely lacking of a NPOV - See editions and editwars she is currently engaged with it)

Another sockfarm

sockfarm

Wikipedia:Sockpuppet investigations/Susana Hodge uncovered a sockfarm, now the usual cleanup... a sampling of articles listed above. Bri ( talk) 22:30, 10 July 2017 (UTC)

@ DGG, Doc James, and Smartse: or other administrator. How big do these lists of undeclared paid edits have to get before we can consider mass deletion? This is going to take a lot of going-over by GF editors to clean up. - Bri ( talk) 02:20, 11 July 2017 (UTC)
Some of the articles existed before these editors worked on them. One can easily revert edits by paid editors based on their individual merits.
Using WP:G5 is controversial for this purpose. If all the accounts are obviously not new and there is very likely a prior blocked account in this sock farms history I am supportive of applying it to articles that only this user has worked on. Doc James ( talk · contribs · email) 02:28, 11 July 2017 (UTC)
There's no evidence that the Hodge account was used for anything other than paid editing. Accordingly, I suspect that the Hodge account was used to clean up collaborators' edits, for example Alexander Torrenegra and Christine Heppermann possibly (both created by one-and-done SPA editors). The collaborators weren't all swept up in the initial SPI for whatever reason. Which means there's a lot of undiscovered junk and possible links to follow for the entire group. And finally, this is clearly not an individual's first edit, which means Hodge was preceded by some other account(s). But will heed your advice and apply G5 only if an article hasn't been touched by other editors. Bri ( talk) 02:36, 11 July 2017 (UTC)
Here's something to look at: "I will fix this for you" at Draft:Beini Da followed by creation of the article a couple of days later. Which raises questions about Wikipedia:Sockpuppet investigations/Shinywxn. However an employer-client relationship is also likely. - Bri ( talk) 02:45, 11 July 2017 (UTC)
Yes you often see poor quality paid editing by an actually new editor. The professional paid editors than step in and using socks and for money "help out". This is what we likely have here. Doc James ( talk · contribs · email) 02:49, 11 July 2017 (UTC)

As is often the case with paid editors, the refs frequently do not support all the content they are attached to. One basically needs to go through and verify everything :-( Doc James ( talk · contribs · email) 04:31, 11 July 2017 (UTC)

at a low enough level, mass deletion can in principle be considered, but they need checking first.And if we're going o check, we might as well tag them one by one, or at least delete them one by one. I've done a few. So far I haven't seen anything worth saving except Julian J. Bussgang, which I am working on. As usual, I think DocJames and I take the same approach. DGG ( talk ) 05:33, 11 July 2017 (UTC)
Thanks everyone for the work on this, which grows out of the #Foundr section, above. Please note also that there is another such list at WT:COI#Related pages, which you may perhaps want to see. I prod-ed several pages yesterday, and in searching I saw several pages that were mostly BLPs of artistic-type persons, where I felt that it might be possible that they are notable, so I did not tag them, and I think some of them may be listed here, so I agree very much with the need for individual checking. -- Tryptofish ( talk) 17:39, 11 July 2017 (UTC)
This piece verifies that this is a paid group of editors with undoubtedly older blocked accounts. [10]
As such I think WP:G5 and WP:G11 is very reasonable for most of these that are edited by no one else.
User:Susana Hodge is not the master it is just the oldest account we have found per this edit [11] Doc James ( talk · contribs · email) 05:29, 12 July 2017 (UTC)
When I looked over Susana Hodge's edit history, I noted quite a few edits like that one, where they came in on an already existing page. I've thought about it, and I don't think that it proves much, one way or another. Could mean an earlier sockmaster account (but one does not stand out, that I could see, although I could easily have missed it), or it could be hires to expand those pages, or it could be "good hand" edits. However, your point that we may well have missed the real sockmaster (because checkuser can only look back a short distance into the past) is a very important and very real one. -- Tryptofish ( talk) 16:21, 12 July 2017 (UTC)
My main point User:Tryptofish is that with their first edit being so amazingly formatted, so large, and promotional to boot, the chance of this being their first edit ever is around zero. It becomes less once we discover that they have a whole bunch of socks that were created before their "main account" was even blocked. Their editing history proves they are an expert Wikipedian purposefully breaking our rules and in no way are any of these accounts new based on their editing. Doc James ( talk · contribs · email) 20:52, 12 July 2017 (UTC)
Yes, that's a very good point, I agree. -- Tryptofish ( talk) 21:50, 12 July 2017 (UTC)
Possible that they are different, overlapping groups of socks, but they are SPAs on a page later worked on by Hodge. -- Tryptofish ( talk) 16:35, 12 July 2017 (UTC)
Often we see the inhouse COI editors fail to get an article through. Ie possibly these first accounts. When they fail they than turn to paid professionals which is the group above. Doc James ( talk · contribs · email) 20:54, 12 July 2017 (UTC)
Another good point. -- Tryptofish ( talk) 21:50, 12 July 2017 (UTC)

Declining at AFC

It is interesting that they declined this AFC.I would imagine they than asked the creator to hire them... Doc James ( talk · contribs · email) 06:43, 12 July 2017 (UTC)

Notifying AFC about this - all this account's reviewswill have to be checked. Roger (Dodger67) ( talk) 09:23, 12 July 2017 (UTC)
Very good catch. This fits in the Orange Moody extortion pattern, which has shown up at least twice in the last month or so. There is a new warning with linked warning page on WP:AFC. It might help to put a similar warning on this page (at least we'll know where to find it when needed). Where would be the best place for it? — Preceding unsigned comment added by Smallbones ( talk • contribs) 16:02, 12 July 2017 (UTC)
Warning:There is an on-going scam targeting AfC participants. See this scam warning for detailed information. Smallbones( smalltalk) 16:01, 12 July 2017 (UTC)
  • Comment:--The AFC stats of the entire sock-farm has been Checkedchecked.That particular review was the lone contribution in the field. Winged Blades Godric 12:33, 13 July 2017 (UTC)
  • Comment--I am actively evaulating the notability of all the articles. Winged Blades Godric 13:09, 13 July 2017 (UTC)

Other potential socks

Scorpion293 was editing for "over a decade", [12] the account was created on 16 April 2013, sleeper until 4 September 2014. In hindsight, that's a lot of red flags. Both accounts have a similar choppy style, [13] but that's common in non-native English speakers. Both accounts work a lot of page curation/AFD. The Susana Hodges account seems to actively avoid using English as much as possible. Geogene ( talk) 03:20, 13 July 2017 (UTC)
One of their socks created this [14]
Another one created this [15]
Similar in style to [16]
Doc James ( talk · contribs · email) 00:16, 14 July 2017 (UTC)
Have raised this here Doc James ( talk · contribs · email) 00:26, 14 July 2017 (UTC)

In a not completely unexpected development, the SPI team has stated ""Susana Hodge" is revealed to be a person outside the United States who actually advertises Wikipedia paid editing services on LinkedIn." ☆ Bri ( talk) 17:09, 23 July 2017 (UTC)

Financial regulators

I just noticed that a probable (very probable) undeclared paid editor created Malta Financial Services Authority. It's not the first time I've suspected that they are here creating articles on legitimate governmental financial regulators. See Archive 107 for earlier finds involving sockmaster Euclidthalis and his socks active at Cyprus Securities and Exchange Commission and UAE's Securities and Commodities Authority.

I'm not sure what that's about but suspect that there's a growing nexus of UPE around forex and binary trading who want to legitimize themselves somehow. ☆ Bri ( talk) 19:02, 25 July 2017 (UTC)

See also Afiniti, Ltd (  | talk | history | protect | delete | links | watch | logs | views) by Ronnyprone. GAB gab 00:33, 26 July 2017 (UTC)
Certainly Euclidthalis was involved in Banc De Binary and also lots of other Cyprus topics. One thing I noticed was that the block notice on his contributions page says "for copyright violations" rather than for sockpuppeting. Is there a better way to find out sockpuppeting blocks without going through the confusing SPI pages? Smallbones( smalltalk) 16:35, 26 July 2017 (UTC)
@ Smallbones: Well, if the master wasn't initially blocked for socking, then it's an indication that they only started socking afterwards. Piecing together the histories of these cases can be pretty tricky at times. GAB gab 02:32, 27 July 2017 (UTC)

Jeh: Long term vandalism, undisclosed affiliation with Microsoft.

Nothing to do here ☆ Bri ( talk) 15:54, 9 August 2017 (UTC)

The following discussion is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.

Contrary to what his user page states this guy does work with Microsoft, is not as developer, prolifically spams links to MSDN blogs published by O' Rielly Media, Microsoft's marketing arm, and generally promotes misinformation. He also receives directly or indirectly personal gain from providing these links. Though he will categorically deny it if asked. However I can supply plenty of supporting evidence. The relationship is not transient. His business partner is a moderator on Technet also. The 3GB Barrier link above are just one example.

The one other constant is articles involving memory limitations for Windows and Intel IA-32 processors are deliberately made so ambiguous no consumer would understand them, which seems to be the goal. On Stack Exchange, Jeh uses the misleading Wikipedia articles he edits as source material. Which in turn lead to MSDN and O 'Rielly and Microsoft. It's an infinite circular reference. Probably not him alone.

Further, Jeh has just been caught trolling under a different username. All this has been going on so long possibly it's one account with several people. How does someone like myself take this further without giving his name and more evidence publicly?

Also, I checked his user page yesterday and the vandalism alert thing was at 4, an hour later it was down to 3. What's up with that?

On a side note, Wikipedia is impossible to navigate for users not familiar with the templates and layout. It took me half an hour just to find this page. 01:39, 7 August 2017 (UTC)01:39, 7 August 2017 (UTC)~~ — Preceding unsigned comment added by 122.59.228.76 ( talk • contribs)

O'Reilly Media is not part of Microsoft. Are you thinking of Microsoft Press, some of their books are or were available with O'Reilly's Safari Books Online service and their books were distributed by O'Reilly as part of a wider agreement. Although even Microsoft Press isn't really Microsoft marketing arm but rather Microsoft's publishing arm. Nil Einne ( talk) 05:03, 7 August 2017 (UTC)
BTW one reason you may be having problems navigating is due to a failure to read, as you did not follow the big red text at the header of this page and notify Jeh. I have done so for you. Nil Einne ( talk)
Anyway I don't really see anything actionable here since there's no real evidence presented. As the header also says, as does the header when editing, you are not permitted to engage in WP:OUTING so you cannot link Jeh to anyone on other sites unless Jeh has done so themselves via their account on wikipedia. Likewise if you believe Jeh has engaged in sockpuppetry here on wikipedia, you should only mention the other account here if you are able to provide public evidence without linking to other sites of this sockpuppetry. Note that any sockpuppetry on other sites does not generally concern us here on wikipedia. If you are unable to provide any public evidence without engaging in OUTING, you need to follow what it says at Wikipedia:Conflict of interest#Avoid outing and email the evidence privately to Wikipedia:Arbitration Committee. Nil Einne ( talk) 05:14, 7 August 2017 (UTC)

I should clarify that it's not just alleged sockpuppetry on other sites that doesn't generally concern us. Any other alleged misbehaviour on other sites is also likewise not generally something that concerns us. That means, for example, if someone uses wikipedia to support their statement in some other site but fails to disclose they edited the article in question on the other site and you feel the other sites rules require them to do so, it's not something we will deal with here. You need to take it up with the other site. (An exception would be if the editor is editing articles solely to win arguments without regards for whether they are actually improving the article, because on that case there's misbehaviour here.)

Also, without commenting on the merits of using O'Reilly Media books and MSDN, it's not circular referencing to use them unless they are taking the information from wikipedia, or some other place that took it from wikipedia. I would imagine O'Reilly Media books and MSDN and predominantly primary sources and use person experience and analysis including of the software code in some instances rather then just taking the information from wikipedia anyway. Note even if Jeh wrote the MSDN article or O'Reilly Media book, this still would most likely not be circular referencing, regardless of whether it was appropriate.

P.S. I said the sockpuppetry thing because your statement on trolling is unclear. Are you claiming that Jeh is using multiple accounts here on wikipedia? If so you claim they were caught but I'm not seeing any signs of this. If you're able to provide the evidence available on wikipedia of this you should do so, as the normal signs like Jeh's block log and WP:SPI are empty, unusual for someone who was 'caught'. If you meant they were caught doing this elsewhere, well that's why I brought up the irrelevance bit. If you're claiming they were doing this here, but they were caught elsewhere, well unless you're able to make the case for it using only diffs from en.wikipedia you need to present it to arbcom.

Nil Einne ( talk) 06:55, 7 August 2017 (UTC)

As Nil Einne has stated, the accuser here has provided no evidence, only accusations.
Far from "undisclosed", I disclosed my association with Microsoft - and Intel and AMD and just about every other OEM in the PC/Windows business - on my user page. And this disclosure was discussed right here at the COI NB. Hardly "undisclosed".
There is no COI involved in linking to MSDN articles, which are after all free on the web for anyone to read (it's not as if I wrote them, or get money when people read them). MSDN articles by the likes of Mark Russinovich are "horse's mouth" references; why shouldn't I link to them? I suspect the IP is just annoyed at my using them because they so often have made mincemeat of the IP's claims.
So now the IP wants to get me blocked from editing in this field! I wish I could say this was unexpected.
I'm not a Microsoft employee; I receive no compensation from anybody for anything I post to Wikipedia; and neither I nor the company in which I'm a partner benefits from any of my posts.
Heck, if anything I'm giving information away that people might otherwise pay me to provide! Yeah, there's a business plan for you.
The fact that the IP thinks my edits are "misinformation" or "ambiguous" further belies the IP's claim of COI. If my writing is that bad, then why would it lead anybody to pay me money? The IP's evaluation is likely due to the IP's laboring under a number of key misunderstandings about the principles of the field. Misunderstandings which I have tried to correct, over and over, and (apparently) not just here.
On evidence though, only the IP seems to be confused; my edits have been approved and expanded upon by many other editors here. (Oh wait... I suppose they're all in on it. Right, IP?)
In sum the IP's attack here is motivated simply by my refusal to agree that the IP is right on several technical points, when in fact the IP is not merely wrong, but in many cases "not even wrong".
Yes, due to OUTING issues, plus a technicality re SPIs, this will probably have to be conducted in private, unless admins can see what is going on without further ado... which I think is at least 50% likely. Jeh ( talk) 07:18, 7 August 2017 (UTC)
The IP points to my edits to 3 GB barrier as evidence of my supposed COI, claiming I "prolifically spams links to MSDN blogs published by O' Rielly Media"
Well, let's check that out. This will be pretty easy, because almost all of the references that are in the article were added by me in a series of edits of 2010-06-08 (prior to that it only had one inline ref and three add-ons, more about those in a moment).
In those edits I added links to the following sources (if I've counted correctly):
  • An article at pcmag.com
  • An article at wired.com
  • A book by Tom Shanley, published by "Mindshare Inc."
  • A document at Intel.com, "Pentium Pro Family Developer’s Manual" (ref'd twice)
  • An MSDN product description page documenting Windows' physical memory limits - referenced twice
  • An MSDN article by Mark Russinovich - referenced two times
  • An Intel specification, "Intel Chipset 4 GB System Memory Support" (referenced four times)
  • A page at ubuntu.com
  • A page at fedora.com
There was already a ref to a page at macrumors.com.
So... if we count the pages that I added refs to, that's two Microsoft pages (only one of them a "blog") out of nine. If we count the actual references, it's four references out of 15. Either way the vast majority of the refs I added were not to pages at microsoft.com, let alone to "MSDN blogs".
I checked the entire page history - I don't believe I added any more refs after that batch.
Per prior talk page discussion I also deleted the links to dansdata.com (personal blog, not recognized as a SME in the field), codinghorror.com (ditto), and to an MSDN page by Raymond Chen which provided no refs for anything in the article. (Uh oh! I'm not doing my msdn-pushing job very well if I'm removing links to MSDN!)
Seriously... what there justifies the claim of "prolifically spams links to MSDN blogs"? Jeh ( talk) 12:23, 7 August 2017 (UTC)
n.b.: I'm not going to do analyses like this on every page the IP brings up. I wouldn't have time for anything else this week. I trust the admins who look at this case will follow my example here. Jeh ( talk) 12:23, 7 August 2017 (UTC)

I don't have time right now to read through all the text above, however I never said O' Rielly was part of Microsoft. Don't mince words. O'Rielly publish Windows Internals and the Techmet blogs. "Jeh"'s company runs Windows Internals Developer Seminars. O "Rielly pay affiliates a commission for sales of that book. This involves Salesforce and Amazon also. This is only the tip of the iceberg. Thew whole thing is one big marketing campaign. I also will not discuss any information which I may have in public. Least of with the persons involved. I will disclose this in private though like I said. And yes my IP probably does look familiar. An associate of mine once attempted to address the situation with Jeh. He went about it the wrong way.. That person is no longer in the country, he moved to the USA. 122.59.228.76 ( talk) 21:39, 7 August 2017 (UTC)

Due to commitments in real life I won't be able to respond to all queries at once. All I really want to know is how to contact administrators, only other option is to "out" Jeh" which isn't going to benefit anyone. I'm not that guy. Will be checking back here periodically to read replies. 122.59.228.76 ( talk) 21:51, 7 August 2017 (UTC)

Oh, so now the accusations have shifted from "prolifically spams links to MSDN blogs published by O' Rielly Media" to some COI re the Windows Internals book from Microsoft Press? Which the IP thinks is really published by O'Reilly?
(That's a side issue... but I've checked the covers, spine, and frontmatter of the various editions of that book that I own, and I've yet to see any evidence that O'Reilly has anything to do with them.)
Whatever. Whether O'Reilly is involved or not, I will state here that neither I nor any organization I'm associated with is an O'Reilly affiliate, an Amazon affiliate, a Microsoft Press affiliate (do they have affiliates?), a Salesforce ... whatever, do they have affiliates? Customers? Whatever, neither I nor any etc. has ever dealt with them. I have no financial interest whatsoever in sales of that book nor in sales of any other product from Microsoft or O'Reilly. (Unless someone bought some stock in my name and didn't tell me! ... no, I don't think so.)
btw, in the article mentioned by the IP as "evidence" for this COI charge there is not a single reference to the Windows Internals book - let alone any that were added by me.
The fact that a company offers seminars titled "Windows Internals", with variations, does not imply any business relationship with any entity associated with a book titled Windows Internals. Nor does it imply that the seminar company buys copies of the book, gives out copies of the book, recommends the book, or anything of the kind. (David Solomon's seminar company used to give out copies of the book to their seminar attendees, but that company is no longer offering seminars.) "Windows internals" is simply a name that is descriptive of the subject matter. At least two other companies I know of offer similarly named seminars. Heck, DEC called the seminar they offered with analagous info "VMS Internals".
And I might add that the "Windows Internals" seminars that I assume the IP is talking about existed before the book the IP is talking about was called that.
The IP writes: This is only the tip of the iceberg. Thew whole thing is one big marketing campaign. Oooh, scary! I'm getting this mental image of a wall in the IP's home covered with hardcopies of dozens of web pages, connected in various odd ways by strings of red yarn stretched between pushpins. I hope the IP will post a picture of it! It will be fascinating to know what connections the IP has invented.
Seriously, the real underlying issue here is that the IP is convinced that I am deliberately posting misinformation. Why does the IP think that? Because I disagree with the IP so often. Reality is that everything I've written on Wikipedia on the topics in question (mostly Windows memory management) is consistent with what you'll find in Windows Internals, MSDN articles by e.g. Mark Russinovich and Raymond Chen, Intel and AMD architecture manuals, etc.
But the IP just can't see it. The sad truth is that the IP is laboring under a mental model of Windows memory management, and of x86 and x64 memory management, that simply does not fit reality. (Stuff like "16-bit page table entries", for example. There has not been a 16-bit PTE in the entire history of x86/x64.) The IP tries without success to explain much of Windows' behavior in terms of this flawed (actually "not even wrong") mental model, and as a result the IP has several times expressed confusion, distrust of authors like Mark Russinovich, a belief that nearly everybody writing in the field is deliberately obfuscating things, beliefs that various standard Windows utilities are showing wrong data... etc., etc., etc. The evidence doesn't fit the IP's model, therefore the evidence must be wrong. The IP is confused by what he or she reads, so the material being read just must be inherently confusing.
Like the old saying, "fish aren't aware of water", the IP is unaware of the deep underlying flaws in its model, so it never occurs to them that their underlying assumptions need to be thrown out.
Nope, anybody who tries to point out how things are actually fairly consistent and understandable just must be wrong. And so there must be some ulterior motive for posting such "misinformation".
And since the IP can't produce evidence or argument that I'm wrong, the IP is now trying to get me blocked from editing with this ridiculous COI charge.
The fact that the IP has found very little, if any, support here for its strange ideas seems to have no weight on the matter; the IP may well think that the others who have spoken up against him or her are all part of the conspiracy.
Since the IP clearly doesn't think I can say anything of any value, I'm not going to try to explain reality any more. But I strongly advise the IP to check out the tech questions with another authority before continuing. s/he could email one of the authors of Windows Internals; could ask questions at one of their blogs' forums; could ask questions at the forums at osr.com (lots of very good tech people there, and I don't participate there). See what they say about the tech disputes. Jeh ( talk) 04:41, 8 August 2017 (UTC)
Another point regarding this one big marketing campaign accusation, a point of which the accusing IP may be unaware:
I have never mentioned my full name, nor my company name, nor linked to any web pages of the company at any time here. But, more: when longtime serial sockpuppet Janagewen did mention my name, or the company name, I immediately asked for WP:OVERSIGHT on those edits. And got it.
So those mentions are not only removed from active pages, but also from the page histories. (And I will do the same again if those names appear on Wikipedia in the future.)
Not even admins can see the edits that were redacted at my request, but I believe that oversighters can. And should this accusation go much farther I encourage the investigators to pursue that evidence of my keeping a barrier between my involvement in the industry and my continuing to improve WP articles in my fields of expertise. Hell of an "advertising campaign" when I not only forbid myself to mention the company, but I keep others from doing so as well! Jeh ( talk) 11:35, 9 August 2017 (UTC)
  • Comment--Close thread.I am not seeing anything that is actionable here.Echo Nil Einne. Winged Blades Godric 07:03, 8 August 2017 (UTC)
  • Comment--@IP editor:--Our capabilities as volunteers are severely restricted.If you feel that the real-life-identities of the UACs you mentioned matters, tread off this board and contact ArbCom.Outing is hardly tolerated at any excuse. Winged Blades Godric 07:03, 8 August 2017 (UTC)
  • There doesn't appear to be anything here to act on. Will archive the thread unless there is an objection from someone other than the initiator. ☆ Bri ( talk) 02:09, 9 August 2017 (UTC)
The discussion above is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.

Draft:MT Finance

A Google search for this person's full name indicates that they are "Head of SEO" at an agency. I believe they are an undeclared paid editor with a conflict of interest on multiple articles that they've created or contributed to. Curb Safe Charmer ( talk) 15:07, 26 July 2017 (UTC)

We have now heard back from the editor in question. In this diff, they deny being a paid editor. I find this extraordinary. As can be seen here, it is beyond doubt that he works as Head of SEO at a digital marketing agency that lists (on that same page) MT Finance as a client. Thus Danieltannenbaum has a conflict of interest, even if, by some stretch of the imagination, they had created the article in their own time. It must be declared before they edit further. Curb Safe Charmer ( talk) 17:17, 26 July 2017 (UTC)
Hi there, I fully accept what you have said. Despite this conflict and please forgive my lack of experience on Wikipedia, MT Finance are one of the leaders (if not the main leader) in the bridging finance industry. They have won Business MoneyFacts Bridging Lender of the Year for the last 2 years and have recently signed a deal worth £125 million which was mentioned in the press. Are such achievements not worthy of a Wikipedia page? There are companies of a similar size like Montello and LendInvest that have pages. Danieltannenbaum ( talk) 17:34, 26 July 2017 (UTC)
Let's take things one step at a time, Danieltannenbaum. Your first step is to properly declare your association with MT Finance and your agency as described here: User talk:Danieltannenbaum#Undisclosed paid editing. Then, there's the question of whether the company should be the subject of an article in this encyclopedia. The place to discuss that is on the article's talk page. Thirdly, there's the question of what part you may play in editing the article, given your conflict of interest. The only way for you to contribute to the article now is described here. Curb Safe Charmer ( talk) 17:56, 26 July 2017 (UTC)

Have blocked the account in question until disclosure occurs. This article likely also needs looking at Daniel Green (English businessman) Contain a fair degree of outing. Doc James ( talk · contribs · email) 18:17, 26 July 2017 (UTC)

Stone Point Capital

The only edits by this editor have been to create Stone Point Capital, which has since been speedy-deleted. The editor was asked whether they have a conflict of interest and did not answer. Robert McClenon ( talk) 21:54, 26 July 2017 (UTC)

See also Jcaceres.ny ( talk · contribs · deleted contribs · logs · filter log · block user · block log). GAB gab 01:40, 27 July 2017 (UTC)

Allen Hershkowitz

We had some problems with this article before, after which I did a lot of cleanup and didn't return to the article. An editor who expanded it ~2x in December has just disclosed a COI. The expansion needs a look-see and maybe more ToS declarations are in order. ☆ Bri ( talk) 15:09, 27 July 2017 (UTC)

Andrew Huang (musician)

A google search reveals that the subject is the editor's client. Essabowser agreed to make a disclosure two weeks ago, but hasn't done so yet. In any case, the article could use some attention. Rentier ( talk) 15:58, 27 July 2017 (UTC)

Paolo Zampolli

NikoPat1 has been expanding businessman Paolo Zampolli's article since the beginning of the year with mostly unsourced positive content. They also uploaded a number of copyright violating images most of which have been deleted. They claim to have taken File:Paolo_Zampolli_portrait_standing_by_UN_flag.jpg themselves in Zampolli's office. That would suggest that they are either associated with Zampolli or in their employ. World's Lamest Critic ( talk) 16:07, 27 July 2017 (UTC)

User:Styles01

The user denied having a conflict of interest after being asked by another editor. But granting permissions to a book cover of a non-notable book via an OTRS ticket, the outing of Candice Hutchings's date of birth (surely this needs to be removed and oversighted?) combined with the fact that when I nominated Candice Hutchings for deletion, the paid editor Essabowser, who had until that moment been nearly exclusively devoted to tending a single article (see my earlier post), suddenly became interested in the AfD process, makes me think otherwise. Rentier ( talk) 16:25, 27 July 2017 (UTC)

Looks like a fan of Hutchings' veggie cooking and nothing more. I don't think there's a case to answer; let the AfDs play out. Ritchie333 (talk) (cont) 22:18, 27 July 2017 (UTC)

Percival Crabb

Reverted, indeffed ☆ Bri ( talk) 23:31, 9 August 2017 (UTC)

The following discussion is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.

If you take a look at this person's contributions, you will see that they have added books by 'Brian James Crabb' on various warship articles. Has been warned about COI. My name isnotdave ( talk/ contribs) 09:25, 5 August 2017 (UTC)

I have reverted every single edit this user has made, which has been to add the book to articles; the citation was not necessary. My name isnotdave ( talk/ contribs) 09:37, 5 August 2017 (UTC)
He's still at it. Kendall-K1 ( talk) 12:24, 5 August 2017 (UTC)
I've given a one and only warning. Next step is the banhammer. Mjroots ( talk) 13:56, 5 August 2017 (UTC)
@ Mjroots: He's back. Got that hammer handy? Is this something we would go to ANI for, or are there admins at COIN who can handle it? Kendall-K1 ( talk) 22:57, 7 August 2017 (UTC)
(sigh) banhammer applied, indeffed. Mjroots ( talk) 05:31, 8 August 2017 (UTC)
The discussion above is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.

Wikipedia article as a landing page for a product

A few weeks ago I came across an unusual Upwork job (it was several years old) that asked for substantial additions to the article Sang Sinxay. I believe that the end goal was funnelling users to the sales page http://www.sinxay.com/ I just found Frank Fox (author), which does something similar. Both websites use the same hosting provider, but that's the only connection I can see. Rentier ( talk) 16:12, 31 July 2017 (UTC)

I have removed the remaining book details in Sang Sinxay. Even according to Amazon's own fawning "review" the book is not an authoritative work. Also, "Sinxay Press" doesn't seem to be an independent publisher (see here). GermanJoe ( talk) 16:56, 31 July 2017 (UTC)

Austin Petersen

Auggyp has made several edits to the Petersen article, including here, and here. as well as a number of older edits going back quite some time. The last two were removing information concerning Petersen's religion that was decided by consensus on the talk page should be in the article. He's also likely in violation of the WP:1RR that applies to political articles, and Bunco man might be too, but considering he was re-adding material that consensus determined should be there, I'm inclined to call WP:IAR for Bunco and let it slide. Auggyp, not so much. As for the COI issue, Petersen himself uses the nickname on Youtube so it is likely the Auggyp account is Petersen himself, or at least someone closely connected to him. Smartyllama ( talk) 19:15, 31 July 2017 (UTC)

The issue was settled on the talk page for the article a while back. Auggyp is Austin Petersen and he is trying to cover up his interviews and admissions/debates online, in which he insisted he was an atheist. Bunco man ( talk) 19:31, 31 July 2017 (UTC)

Sefaria requested edits

As an edit request patroller, I am seeking additional input on a block of requests related to Jewish texts. User:LevEliezer is affiliated with the website Sefaria, which posts freely licensed complete texts of Jewish manuscripts. They have requested on several articles that editors add an external link to the texts on their website, and their edit requests on Haggadah, Midrash, and Sefer ha-Ikkarim have been open since April 2017.

Because LevEliezer's other edit requests have received conflicting evaluations, I am hoping that discussion here can form a consensus on the remaining ones. A user at WikiProject Judaism expressed support for the requests in general, I granted the edit request on Talk:Mekhilta_of_Rabbi_Ishmael, and their edit request on Talk:Talmud/Archive 1 was similarly accepted. On the other hand, their edit requests on Talk:Sifre and Talk:New Jewish Publication Society of America Tanakh were turned down. I am minded to grant the remaining requests, as links to copyright-compliant full text versions of books are in line with WP:ELYES, but would like to hear what other editors think first. Thanks, Altamel ( talk) 00:52, 24 July 2017 (UTC)

A few ideas off the top of my head. Translations of of the Christian Bible can be fairly controversial, but I don't think anybody would have any problem linking here to King James vs. New Jerusalem vs a Catholic or an Orthodox translation. When you get into what people might call "sects", linking to their translations might be controversial here. Please just make sure Sefaria is fairly mainstream and isn't connected to to what others might call a sect.
In 10 minutes searching, especially [17], it Sefaria looks pretty mainstream. But please do check further.
Sefaria is very much an open project. Everything is licensed public domain. It also seems something of a wiki with contributions from the public. That works both for and against it IMHO.
LevEliezer seems to be going about this in the right way. Overall, based on a very quick review, I'm in favor. Smallbones( smalltalk) 03:14, 24 July 2017 (UTC)
I agree. I'd have added them Saturday had I not noticed MrOllie had removed a number of them. The works are public domain; several articles have no link to the primary source (e.g. Sifre) or none in English ( Sifra), and this would be a benefit to readers. BlackcurrantTea ( talk) 03:55, 24 July 2017 (UTC)

This has been a process of me learning the ropes. I had originally made the edits directly, and MrOllie reverted them, citing the COI policy, and not the quality of the links. I figured out the right way to make requests, given my COI, but the original reverts have stayed there as a stain. Since then, I've had a few conversations with editors e.g. Sir_Joseph and with WikiProject Judaism. I haven't yet heard a strong argument against, but of course, I have a COI.

Regrading the texts themselves, I've been proposing links to texts where Sefaria has full versions, sourced from reputable editions. In Hebrew, those are generally public domain to begin with. In English, we often facilitate the release of texts into the commons and/or clarify the legal status of uncertain texts. I'm not generally proposing links to texts where all we have is an incomplete community edition. LevEliezer ( talk) 08:52, 24 July 2017 (UTC)

There have been no new comments for a week, and all the editors who commented here seemed to be in favor of granting these edit requests. I have done so accordingly. I thank everyone for their feedback. Altamel ( talk) 01:42, 2 August 2017 (UTC)

T-Systems

Possibly also:

Recurring deletion of the "Controversies" section.

The IP ( User:84.1.149.4) whois resolves to the company in question. I suspect that the two users are also operated by the company (they have only made the same edit to the company page), but I don't have any evidence for that. Lonaowna ( talk) 12:01, 28 July 2017 (UTC)

@ Lonaowna:--See Wikipedia:Sockpuppet investigations/Vezernyul.Also filed for temporary semi-protection of the article. Winged Blades Godric 15:08, 28 July 2017 (UTC)

Chris Booth

Looks like the article subject writing his own article. John Nagle ( talk) 05:21, 28 July 2017 (UTC)

@ Nagle:--The fellow is prob. notable.Article heavily trimmed.Soft-block sought on ChrisBooth. Winged Blades Godric 11:01, 28 July 2017 (UTC)
Agree on notability. Removed some uncited early-life stuff. John Nagle ( talk) 18:55, 28 July 2017 (UTC)

Query: possibly paid editing

After I nominated the above article for deletion, I was a recipient of a curious message on my talk page, stating that article was created by X (who self-identifies as an "experienced Wikipedia writer") and that the poster was trying to get in touch with them. I've asked to have the PII / LinkedIn link removed from my Talk page, but the gist of the message is here: [18]. A couple of minutes googling has lead me to a Talk page of an editor who has been banned from Wikipedia for undisclosed paid editing in 2015. I see that they have created about 75 articles prior to their ban, mostly BLPs of entrepreneurs, speakers and authors, all vaguely promotional and most still live. Related questions:

  1. Would it be okay to link these articles here?
  2. Editor Divaslorry is likely a sock, since their first (and only) edit was to create the article in question, almost perfectly formed. If these two accounts are connected, then it's likely that the banned editor is still creating such promotional articles. Should anything be done about it?

I would appreciate some guidance, as I've not been a regular at this board. K.e.coffman ( talk) 03:03, 29 July 2017 (UTC)

  • As for the first question, yes, absolutely and I or others likely may have encountered them at one time or another if they're instantly suspicious (I was here when 2015 bannings happened regarding articles). After all, sockpuppets or campaigning users are easy to spot even if on separate things. The second, nothing technically could be made about it since Sockpuppets Investigations only accepts currently active cases; even if the IP is somehow them, they wouldn't accept the one alone itself. — Preceding unsigned comment added by SwisterTwister ( talk • contribs) 03:38, 29 July 2017 (UTC)
  • @ K.e.coffman: Yes, please link those articles. As to whether anything can be done about the accounts, Divaslorry is stale (likely over 90 days since their last logon given their last edit was in 2015) so they cannot be CU checked to the master (which would be stale itself). Interestingly the article quite a bit was edited by User:Susana Hodge, another known paid editor. There's nothing much we can do but watchlist the article and look out for recreations. A note should probably be left explaining to the IP who posted on your talk page that hiring undisclosed paid editors is against Wikipedia's terms of use; his best bet is probably to wait until someone with no conflict of interest thinks it worthwhile to create an article on him. jcc ( tea and biscuits) 09:32, 29 July 2017 (UTC)

Four new sock farms

See this SPI for more details Note: the named master was determined to be unrelated by CU evidence, but this is large enough I thought it worth posting here to get more eyes on it quickly. Groups 1-3 are possibly related. Group four is unique.

Sock farms

Group 1

Group 2

Group 3

Group 4

Created articles

I am listing the articles created by each group. Group 1 also did editing extensive editing of subjects that already had an article.

Group 1

Group 2

Group 3

Group 4

Four sockfarm Discussion

Group one will need additional work going through articles that they added substantial content to, but I didn't have the time to add those to this list now. TonyBallioni ( talk) 20:33, 27 July 2017 (UTC)

I believe group 4 is associated with Plarium. Bbb23 and I are discussing this group in more detail. GAB gab 20:46, 27 July 2017 (UTC)
See also:
GAB gab 20:56, 27 July 2017 (UTC)
  • Please also note that Group 1 socks appear to also have create or add poorly sourced disparaging information to articles, and that there may be major BLP issues through the contributions. TonyBallioni ( talk) 22:43, 27 July 2017 (UTC)
Further accounts of concern
Yinonk ( talk · contribs · deleted contribs · logs · filter log · block user · block log)
Associated with User:Mollybloomin it appears
Doc James ( talk · contribs · email) 02:20, 28 July 2017 (UTC)
These two might not be technical matches to any of the groups, but if you go through some of these articles and look at the histories, you'll see many other accounts that are stale for CU that match behaviorally with group 1. I suspect this is a paid editing ring going back for a while. TonyBallioni ( talk) 02:29, 28 July 2017 (UTC)
  • Comment--@ TonyBallioni:--Any particular reason as to your's not tagging certain articles with G5?I've tagged 6 more! Winged Blades Godric 11:25, 28 July 2017 (UTC)
Sleep and I'm conservative and try to go through each one. I removed your G5 on the former chancellor of Syracuse University for instance, because it's unambiguous that we should have that article and it wasn't agregiois on anything. Others I am/was looking at some of the IPs and other accounts to see if they were connected SPAs that had gone stale or were good faith contributors. TonyBallioni ( talk) 11:36, 28 July 2017 (UTC)
And Kudpung is merciless! Winged Blades Godric 14:58, 28 July 2017 (UTC)

User:Yinonk

Have confirmed that

Articles

Not a sock themselves but appears to be collaborating with but worked on articles for pay after the above socks. Doc James ( talk · contribs · email) 15:10, 29 July 2017 (UTC)

  • Thanks, Doc James, Berean Hunter has connected a technically indistinguishable account to group 4 based on behavioral evidence. I'll add it to the list as well and see what the articles are. TonyBallioni ( talk) 15:13, 29 July 2017 (UTC)
    • User:TonyBallioni not sure what you mean? Doc James ( talk · contribs · email) 15:16, 29 July 2017 (UTC)
      • Doc James, User:1-555-confide was identified by CU as needing behavioral assessment to confirm the technical data. Berean Hunter has connected it as being a part of the Mollybloomin group above, and I've listed it as a part of that sock farm above. I'll start going through that account's creations and list them with the others in that sock family. TonyBallioni ( talk) 15:20, 29 July 2017 (UTC)
        • Tony is referencing this. Behavioral evidence is quite compelling.
           —  Berean Hunter (talk) 15:28, 29 July 2017 (UTC)

Go Vilnius & Darius Udrys

One or several individuals are persistently adding unreferenced or poorly-sourced positive information to Wikipedia pages on Go Vilnius and Darius Udrys. Censoring or removal of non-positive information is also present.

Amount of publicly unavailable details and tone of voice in previous edits by these IP addresses clearly reveal affiliation and conflict of interest:

TL;DR summary: It appears that Go Vilnius and Darius Udrys are consistently edited by employees of Go Vilnius or Darius Udrys himself. 31.192.111.189 ( talk) 13:40, 29 July 2017 (UTC)

Seeing. Winged Blades Godric 15:55, 29 July 2017 (UTC)

Concerns about these


I imagine the last three are carrying out the warranty provided by the first.

Articles:

User actually make a bit of a disclosure here Doc James ( talk · contribs · email) 18:30, 29 July 2017 (UTC)

Concerns among these editors

SPI started here

Doc James ( talk · contribs · email) 17:39, 29 July 2017 (UTC)

Hello all -- I read, "You must notify any editor," and, "This page should only be used when ordinary talk page discussion has been attempted and failed to resolve the issue." There's no communication on my talk page. There is ordinary discussion on the talk pages of articles I've touched, but no discussion of COI. I'm happy to discuss your concerns, which I am confident will be allayed. Ring and run and WP:DUCK are not the the most efficient ways to discuss circumstantial evidence.
I hope that we are all on the same side here. Have a look at an example of COI and another example of COI. I don't post to knock the articles, but to demonstrate that I understand the issue. Let's put this matter behind us. Regards Rhadow ( talk) 16:25, 30 July 2017 (UTC)

Another group of socks

See Wikipedia:Sockpuppet investigations/Stoubora

Articles affected:

SmartSE ( talk) 12:42, 31 July 2017 (UTC)

I've done some copyvio cleanup. I would indef JohnStannie ( talk · contribs · deleted contribs · nuke contribs · logs · filter log · block user · block log) and Fashionista Princess ( talk · contribs · deleted contribs · nuke contribs · logs · filter log · block user · block log) on copyvio grounds alone. —  JJMC89 ( T· C) 17:20, 31 July 2017 (UTC)
The SPI bought up some more:
Deleted all the ones newly created. Tagged the rest Doc James ( talk · contribs · email) 23:35, 2 August 2017 (UTC)

Another large family of socks

This mostly of the spamming varity. Wikipedia:Sockpuppet investigations/Xingzuin

Doc James ( talk · contribs · email) 15:46, 2 August 2017 (UTC)

There are a few articles that they created as well as the spam links: SmartSE ( talk) 20:00, 2 August 2017 (UTC)

It is interesting that they are creating articles about companies that do SEO. Doc James ( talk · contribs · email) 23:42, 2 August 2017 (UTC)

Likely paid editor

User's only activity is creating four rather promotional articles, and on three very different subjects (Alicia Yoon is the founder of Peach & Lily, so that counts as one). Difficult to believe that someone would do this without having a COI, and is very likely a paid editor. And they received a COI talkpage notice in March. Edwardx ( talk) 19:36, 2 August 2017 (UTC)

Proposed deletion on most of those. John Nagle ( talk) 06:07, 3 August 2017 (UTC)

Wikibaji

Undisclosed paid editing sock farm with a variety of article subjects.
 —  Berean Hunter (talk) 23:37, 19 July 2017 (UTC)

Curious, here they added an advert tag to an article that they created with a sock. ☆ Bri ( talk) 03:04, 20 July 2017 (UTC)
I noticed a similar behaviour while patrolling new pages. I read it as an attempt to evade the new page patrol, since a reviewer is more likely to mark as reviewed an article that is already tagged. It won't get added to the reviewer's watchlist, and the creator can later remove the tag. Rentier ( talk) 10:26, 20 July 2017 (UTC)
Some other editors with unlikely co-edited articles listed above. ☆ Bri ( talk) 03:39, 20 July 2017 (UTC)
Deleted the most egregious. Doc James ( talk · contribs · email) 09:53, 20 July 2017 (UTC)

I think Music4382 ( talk · contribs · deleted contribs · logs · filter log · block user · block log) is related as well. In addition to the username similarity to two confirmed socks (Musicinmymind, Musiclovetoall), this account created Jaimie Hilfiger which has also been edited by the Wikibaji account and confirmed sock Musicinmymind . Deli nk ( talk) 12:20, 20 July 2017 (UTC)

Good catch and I agree. Saw the Jaimie Hilfiger edits when scanning but didn't notice the other related account and took it as innocuous. This sandbox behavior & identical summaries when blanking clinches it: [21] [22] ☆ Bri ( talk) 13:35, 20 July 2017 (UTC)
That evidence was added to the SPI and Music4382 was promptly indeffed. ☆ Bri ( talk) 15:33, 20 July 2017 (UTC)
More deleted pages:
The userpages are a dead giveaway. GAB gab 15:16, 23 July 2017 (UTC)
Just blocked Infinite stars ( talk · contribs · deleted contribs · logs · filter log · block user · block log). GAB gab 13:05, 3 August 2017 (UTC)

Great new tool available for identifying potential COI in new articles

Check out https://tools.wmflabs.org/nppbrowser/ that was made by User:Rentier. It allows the NPP stream to be searched for suspicious phrases and to focus on throwaway accounts. It's already been used by Rentier to identify the sockfarms posted above and has led me to another. SmartSE ( talk) 22:11, 30 July 2017 (UTC)

Just noting that while testing the tool, I found Propane Education and Research Council and associated editor (now blocked for ToU vio). ☆ Bri ( talk) 23:34, 31 July 2017 (UTC)
Thanks to you and User:Rentier. Using NPP Browser to search for certain grandiose descriptors has allowed me to propose several speedy deletions and AfDs. One day I hope to have the skills and experience to spot socks... Edwardx ( talk) 10:51, 2 August 2017 (UTC)
Awesome that it was useful for that. The tool wasn't created with COI-detection in mind - in fact, I wasn't at all aware of the extent of the problem when I started building it. But it will be my primary focus going forward. Rentier ( talk) 12:57, 3 August 2017 (UTC)
This looks very impressive. Thanks for developing such a useful tool! GAB gab 13:00, 3 August 2017 (UTC)
Retrieved from " https://en.wikipedia.org/?title=Wikipedia:Conflict_of_interest/Noticeboard/Archive_117&oldid=1074635818"
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Upwork jobs

Upwork job timings match the article creation times by single-purpose accounts. I am posting the links, because it is allowed by an exception set out in the policy.

While I don't see any obvious problems with some of those articles, and inclusionists would probably argue for keeping them all, that's not the point. There is no way to know how biased the articles are, which parts are exaggerated or if any key information is omitted, without researching the sources. I don't see why editors should work on verifying those possibly borderline cases instead of focusing on more worthwhile subjects. But I know that having the articles deleted would be a pain, so I'm leaving it here.

Rentier ( talk) 17:45, 5 July 2017 (UTC)

  • I opened an SPI case Wikipedia:Sockpuppet investigations/UKranama2 Rentier ( talk) 18:27, 5 July 2017 (UTC)
    • Thanks User:Rentier. These links are indeed useful and allowed and you may continue posting them. If you run into issues please ping me. Those who disagree with this position are free to try to change community consensus. But they are not allowed to ignore or overrule a community consensus they disagree with. Doc James ( talk · contribs · email) 15:52, 6 July 2017 (UTC)
      • Thanks Doc James. I think it's an important development as there are many more cases where those came from. Rentier ( talk) 16:15, 6 July 2017 (UTC)
        • Doc James thanks for your input and guidance here. I'm glad to hear that your opinion regarding consensus status quo on the issue of permissible linking is in alignment with my own. This should be made abundantly clear both for those who come here to make reports, and those who apply oversight on the reports. As I said above, shaming or burning good faith reporting is simply not acceptable to me. Doubly so when it is in fact within the parameters of what's allowed. - Bri ( talk) 22:03, 6 July 2017 (UTC)

Glasyguyuk looks like it belongs to the group of accounts identified by the SPI investigation. Compare the edits and edit summaries of Glasyguyuk and UKranama2, or the nicknames Londukguy and Glasyguyuk. Rentier ( talk) 22:25, 13 July 2017 (UTC)

Glasyguyuk and Davisweb999 have been CU-blocked as sockpuppets. Rentier ( talk) 11:25, 22 July 2017 (UTC)

WikiOfficer

Another Wikipedia article writing/monitoring service was posted at Jimbo's talkpage. That's actually a blog post by an author who says they work for WikiOfficer, a company that pretty much advertises the use of socks: "Since we hold a good number of authoritative accounts with the Wikipedia, our edits hardly get reversed". Articles and accounts unknown at this time. ☆ Bri ( talk) 01:08, 22 July 2017 (UTC)

a post was made at WT:COI earlier this month, here. I commented on the blog posting by WIkiOfficer's founder at both places I found it on the web ( here and here) but oddly neither has comment posted yet. Hm. Jytdog ( talk) 02:42, 22 July 2017 (UTC)
  • Not likely, the wikiofficer domain was registered in March this year (Internet Archive evidence is consistent), but that account has been inactive since 2011. It can probably be confidently stated that we're looking for articles with poor English, if their website is any indication: "your page will more sections... Once the draft is ready, it will be sent you, for the approval." but that doesn't really narrow things down. One of the domains you noted appears to be out of Nigeria (a room at the University no less), maybe we are looking for related topics. ☆ Bri ( talk) 06:08, 22 July 2017 (UTC)
  • They are apparently looking for someone to write an article entitled "How A Wikipedia Page For Your Brand Can Improve Your Conversion Rates" [1] for a whopping $30. Amateur hour. -- Rentier ( talk) 11:17, 22 July 2017 (UTC)
  • According to other postings from the parent company, they are offering in the range of $3 an hour for writers, $250 a month for staff. Richard Barbrook: "Only the rich can afford to pay Northern prices in the South [but]...In the developing world, participating within the hi-tech gift economy is a necessity not a hobby." quoted in my essay. ☆ Bri ( talk) 17:09, 22 July 2017 (UTC)
  • This makes me feel like writing an essay entitled "How A Getting Caught Exploiting Third World Labour To Make A Spam Wikipedia Article For Your Brand Can Improve Your Chances Of Being Recognised As The Low Rent Cheapskate Sleezeball That You Are" but if nobody will give me $30 for it then probably I won't bother. ;-) -- DanielRigal ( talk) 17:47, 22 July 2017 (UTC)

@ Bri: Is an open admission of sockpuppetry enough to open a case at SPI, even in the absence of evidence? Surely a Checkuser would flush out any socks to see if this claim is legitimate. -- Drm310 🍁 ( talk) 16:11, 22 July 2017 (UTC)

The SPI clerks will turn away a case that appears to them to be a fishing expedition, sometimes not very nicely. At this point we don't even have a single account to bring up to them, much less a couple of fresh accounts that can be CU-compared, plus compelling evidence that they should be compared. For now the best strategy is probably to wait until we see some activity that can be traced. Things seem to work best when we develop cases pretty thoroughly before opening SPI. ☆ Bri ( talk) 16:24, 22 July 2017 (UTC)

Shimon Bejarano ‎

The user has been making some edits to the Shimon Bejarano page, asserting that his name is such, and not the previous title of Bejarno. I moved this, since a Google search seems to agree. I made it clear on the user's talk page that directly editing the COI page in question is not recommended, but continued to edit afterwards. It is difficult to do any more when the user has not replied to my comments, and continues to edit. Thanks, My name isnotdave ( talk/ contribs) 15:47, 22 July 2017 (UTC)

The COI notice should have been rather more prominent, perhaps with one of the COI templates, and should have at least included a link to WP:COI or similar. Compared to most of what we see here, this is relatively minor COI editing. Edwardx ( talk) 15:56, 22 July 2017 (UTC)
Hmm. Worth fiddling around with Template:Welcome-coi then, if we do not believe it actually works. My name isnotdave ( talk/ contribs) 16:06, 22 July 2017 (UTC)
My humble apologies, User:My name is not dave. I somehow missed that the notice you posted was a COI warning, and only studied the extra bit you added at the end. "Welcome!" as a heading threw me, but really it was entirely my fault. Sorry about that. Alas, too many COI editors ignore the warnings and carry on editing, but it's right that we try to warn them nicely first. Edwardx ( talk) 21:39, 22 July 2017 (UTC)

Janet Echelman

Editors

Graciekwillie and Artisteditorial are only here to promote Echelman and her works. —  JJMC89 ( T· C) 00:27, 23 July 2017 (UTC)

Done a little editing on Echelman. Relatively subtle POV-pushing such as "Recipient of the Guggenheim Fellowship", when they hand out c. 220 each year. Edwardx ( talk) 01:07, 23 July 2017 (UTC)
A Guggenheim Fellowship is definitely significant, even if there are several hundred a year -- it's still a very selective bunch (they're not given out randomly). Consider the hundreds of millions of people who didn't get one each year. Beyond My Ken ( talk) 07:13, 23 July 2017 (UTC)
Oops, Beyond My Ken. The point I was trying to make was that it should read "a GF", not "the GF". Not doubting the notability of a GF. Edwardx ( talk) 10:25, 23 July 2017 (UTC)
Ah, got it. Thanks. Beyond My Ken ( talk) 17:12, 23 July 2017 (UTC)
Editor Graciekwillie has stated that they work for a studio connected to (prob. owned by) the artist. ☆ Bri ( talk) 04:22, 23 July 2017 (UTC)
I'd been planning to bring this here, but am away at the moment. The artist is notable and the article isn't too bad, the individual sculptures are of questionable notability in their own right. I'd redirected one, but that was undone by the new COI editor. Justlettersandnumbers ( talk) 07:02, 23 July 2017 (UTC)
Please try again. Both accounts are indeffed for socking. ☆ Bri ( talk) 14:58, 23 July 2017 (UTC)

Draft:Pyrates Smart Fabrics

I reviewed the draft article at AfC and was concerned at its promotional nature which led me to search for the editor's full name in Google. Their LinkedIn profile is among the top search results and indicates that they work as an assistant at the company, with responsibility for "design, social media, PR and communications". Accordingly I left a COI notice on their talk page. I therefore was surprised when the editor wrote on my talk page today that they are " not conflicted with the company, but rather found out about them through a research project for my thesis. Since I couldn't find a Wikipedia article about them for basic information I wanted to create one." It seems they at least have a perceived conflict of interest. Curb Safe Charmer ( talk) 13:32, 19 July 2017 (UTC)

  • Doesn't AfC have a rule for deleting drafts like this ASAP? If not, they should.
  • You can always politely ask whether an editor is paid, but what do you do when they are obviously prevaricating? I've seen this many times and am not really sure what to do. I usually assume that this is further proof that they are paid editors (they can say what they want, but you don't have to believe them). But you do have to maintain a level of civility. Can an admin block them immediately for being a paid editor? I'm not sure, perhaps this would be a good trial case.
  • You could list the draft at WP:MfD
  • Perhaps, *perhaps* you could note on their talk page that there is solid evidence that they are paid editors and ask them to email you an explanation. Probably it would be better for an admin to do this.
  • I'd like to hear from others on what should be done. Smallbones( smalltalk) 16:31, 19 July 2017 (UTC)
  • I would go for MfD. Editor shows no signs of becoming a valued contributor, so why should we help them to get better at being a paid editor? Edwardx ( talk) 16:41, 19 July 2017 (UTC)
I'll say this much: never have I seen a legit editor put a trademark symbol in an edit summary like this ☆ Bri ( talk) 17:49, 19 July 2017 (UTC)
  • AFC reviewer comment - there is nothing prohibiting a COI / paid editor from creating a page. If it's blatantly promotional and would need a significant rewrite, then it's eligible for G11. However, if it's simply "someone clearly connected is writing about them" and it's not terrible, then no, there is no speedy-delete criteria. It could be listed at MFD, but that should be saved for a "this will never ever ever be acceptable" case - simply saying "this was written by a COI editor" is not valid for MFD.
At the end of the day, if you think there is undisclosed paid editing, then COIN is the proper location to ask the question. If it's confirmed, the user is blocked. If not, they're not. Primefac ( talk) 16:19, 20 July 2017 (UTC)
I'm always amazed at the number of qualifications people try to put on the ToU. Of course there is a prohibition on an undisclosed paid editor from creating an article - or making any other edit for that matter - it's called the Terms of Use. If you are paid and don't declare, you can't edit. So AfC is not responsible for deleting these drafts, MfD can't be used, speedy deletion can't be used. OK then, it's a clear case of undeclared paid editing, an admin should block the editor. We should of course get the proper tools to delete the draft at AfC, and MfD, and speedy deletion. And I hope nobody would consider opposing that given that our only tool now is blocking the editor. Smallbones( smalltalk) 17:15, 20 July 2017 (UTC)
I'd have to slash and burn if it were an article. little could remain, particularly the nonsense claims for the fabric properties. I'd like to know about getting rid of potential articles that remain in draft form. This should go before it gets to article space. - Roxy the dog. bark 18:38, 20 July 2017 (UTC)
This isn't a hypothetical; see this for example. Clearly paid editing via a sock, nobody even debates that. Except for minor recategorization-type edits nobody else has touched it. Yet we wikilawyer ourselves into accepting this crap. ☆ Bri ( talk) 20:58, 20 July 2017 (UTC)
Yes, but in that case the socialite just wasted her money using Wikipedia as a social register. It isn't promotional. The only issue is that she isn't notable in her own right, and notability is something of a will-o-the-wisp, as opposed to promotion, where I know it when I see it. Robert McClenon ( talk) 00:15, 23 July 2017 (UTC)
The article has now been speedily deleted as promotional. There was also an MfC discussion to which the connected editor did not contribute. Curb Safe Charmer ( talk) 19:30, 23 July 2017 (UTC)

Joanna Pickering

Joanna Pickering was created by User:MMGNYC, who was blocked for being "an account for the publicity company MMG in NYC". Since then, editing of that article has been taken over by User:Jordon RB and the IPs listed. Aside from stuffing the Joanna Pickering article absurdly full of puffery, they have also been involved with the article Gustaf Heden. In 2015, a person claiming to be Gustaf Heden proposed the article for deletion, saying "I am Gustaf Heden and this was a page created by my ex (whose name is made pretty obvious by a quick read of the article) and I would like it deleted, as its erronoeous and no more than a supposed tool for her self-promotion". I strongly suspect all accounts are related to the publicity company. World's Lamest Critic ( talk) 20:09, 14 July 2017 (UTC)

I neglected to mention that Joanna Pickering was a recreation of a previously deleted article. World's Lamest Critic ( talk) 20:12, 14 July 2017 (UTC)
I've done some work trying to tone down the puffery, removing content that was sourced only to WP:UGC such as IMDb and wikis. Still very much sourced to resume like sources and PRs and could do with more trimming and checking for verification. Melcous ( talk) 00:54, 15 July 2017 (UTC)
You removed the bit boasting about her having GCSEs. Not fair! That was the funniest bit. ;-)
Seriously though, that's a big improvement. I've removed a bit more but the evil part of me was tempted to leave it as it was the sort of inept PR that actually makes its subject sound like a fool. I mean, who boasts of being a "muse" in 2017 CE? I'll probably do a bit more, if I don't lose the will to live, but I'm wondering if it would be kinder to her to just get rid of the whole thing. -- DanielRigal ( talk) 14:50, 15 July 2017 (UTC)
Also did some cleanup myself but feel like I've been sucked deep into WP:BOGO territory so will stop now. ☆ Bri ( talk) 23:19, 15 July 2017 (UTC)
Wikipedia:Sockpuppet investigations/NYMMG has been filed. ☆ Bri ( talk) 04:37, 17 July 2017 (UTC)
SPI closed "nothing to do here". Speedy delete declined. Not feeling the admin love today :/ Filed 2nd AfD. ☆ Bri ( talk) 18:07, 17 July 2017 (UTC)
I just commented "delete" at the AfD. As for SPI, I've been noticing a lot of lack of love over there, as regards cases of socks involved in paid editing or COI. Maybe it's the strictness of the checkuser rules, or maybe it's just a wiki-cultural thing at SPI. -- Tryptofish ( talk) 18:16, 17 July 2017 (UTC)
This one was clearly a WP:DUCK case, even two of the editors were named NYMMG and MMGNYC for wiki's sake and one of them is already blocked. Checkuser restrictions aren't an excuse to refuse to consider behavioral evidence IMO. ☆ Bri ( talk) 18:36, 17 July 2017 (UTC)
I agree 100%. -- Tryptofish ( talk) 19:34, 17 July 2017 (UTC)
I think you're being slightly unfair here. The SPI was closed as "There's nothing to do here. All of the accounts are too old. (emphasis added)." My understanding is that CU data are only retained for something like three months. The most recent edit by any of the listed accounts was by User:104.162.105.96 in early May, which is just within the cutoff, but the next most recent was User:Jordon_RB back in March. The other accounts are considerably older, going back as far as 2013 for their most recent edits. So there's just no CU data available to make a connection. Shock Brigade Harvester Boris ( talk) 00:01, 18 July 2017 (UTC)
Just above your comment it was explained how this isn't about checkuser and account age at all. ☆ Bri ( talk) 00:19, 18 July 2017 (UTC)
In this case, it was about behavioral evidence, and while there's little point in blocking accounts that have been inactive for years, it's perfectly reasonable to look behaviorally at accounts that have edited in the last few months. -- Tryptofish ( talk) 19:13, 18 July 2017 (UTC)
HannahRM is probably another associate or sock working on Steven G. Farrell. see Special:Contributions/104.162.105.96.
I've added Dp0071125. -- Tryptofish ( talk) 00:54, 20 July 2017 (UTC)
In an unusual situation apparently involving receipt of an OTRS ticket from the subject of the article, before the usual seven-day AfD period elapsed, it was moved to Draft:Joanna Pickering and the AfD closed. ☆ Bri ( talk) 00:15, 23 July 2017 (UTC)
One of the strangest AfD decisions I've ever seen, and that's saying a lot. -- Tryptofish ( talk) 00:22, 23 July 2017 (UTC)
I thought it was weird too. I'm not saying wrong as I don't know any of the OTRS details (and I assume that we are not allowed to know). I'm just saying that it is unusual. Personally I think the draft is hopeless and it almost seems cruel to let people waste their time working on it. I have added a note to the talk page warning of this and also trying to offer some advice in the right direction for anybody who does want to edit it. It will be interesting to see if the draft is ever submitted. -- DanielRigal ( talk) 19:39, 23 July 2017 (UTC)
I've read "the urgent nature of the agreement from the subject that it would be best to delete the article until the notability issue is settled," re-read it, and re-re-read it. To the extent that I understand it at all, I still can't figure out how "would be best to delete" means "convert the article to a draft." Shock Brigade Harvester Boris ( talk) 20:48, 23 July 2017 (UTC)

Florida Municipal Power Agency

I am a COI editor and declared such. I requested a change to my company page which was declined. The message reads, "The reviewer would like to request the editor with a COI attempt to discuss with editors engaged in the subject-area first." I'm hoping that this posting will facilitate that or that someone can give me advice with how to proceed.

It looks like your request was fulfilled in December [2] If I'm misunderstanding the request please just let me know here. Smallbones( smalltalk) 20:10, 18 July 2017 (UTC)
Thanks for the response. Changes to the leadership section were declined in July, as described on the talk page. User:Jeff at FMPA
Not sure what happened there. I've made the changes and left a note on the talk page of the editor who declined your request. BlackcurrantTea ( talk) 21:32, 24 July 2017 (UTC)
Thank you! User:Jeff at FMPA

I just searched "wikipedia" on Upwork and found 280 jobs, most of which request articles or edits. I then searched "upwork" on the archive pages of this talk page and there're no mentions, so I'm not sure how many of you are aware of this issue. Some of the job proposals include the title of the article to be created/edited, so I think it's worth keeping an eye on that list, and even writing Upwork to request they at least warn users creating jobs related to Wikipedia. What do you think? -- Felipe ( talk) 16:00, 12 July 2017 (UTC)

@ Sophivorus: Thanks for this information. Editors are in fact aware of Upwork, but I feel that this is still important information, so I hope that you don't mind that I moved your post to here. Thanks again. -- Tryptofish ( talk) 16:08, 12 July 2017 (UTC)
Thank you for bringing up this issue. Here are some recent examples of edits resulting from Upwork jobs: #1, #2, #3, #4, #5. Note that the editors hired via Upwork are just a part (I believe it's a small part) of a wider market, see for example this list of companies that provide or facilitate paid editing services. -- Rentier ( talk) 18:54, 12 July 2017 (UTC)
Articles mentioned on Upwork:
  • if it is LSI Industries, a LCD manufacturer, it might merit a page, but there is also Language Studies International, created in 2005, which has some obvious problems. DGG ( talk ) 02:20, 17 July 2017 (UTC)
  • Karpis Maksudian wants a page for his band. Probably "Lightning Strikes". No such article yet.
  • Swati Verma (makeup artist) wants a page. Not to be confused with Swati Verma, actress.
  • London Minibus Coach Hire wants a page. No such page yet.
  • Banana Tree Restaurants wants a page. No such page yet.
  • Reelsonar.com (fishing equipment and app) wants a page. No such page yet.
  • HealthFare.ca wants a page. No such page yet.
  • Someone wants a link in Vehicle Identification Number. No spammy links seen.
  • Qode Media wants a page. No such page yet.
  • Chicago Lighting Institute wants a page. No such page yet.
  • Company wants a page on "Hybrid Kilts", with a link to their site. No such page yet.
  • Defence Unlimited wants a page. No such page yet, but the page for their CEO, Edward Banayoti looks suspicious. Created by an SPA.
  • Someone wants Stuart O'Keeffe (chef) updated.
  • Babes (band) Band "Babes" wants a page. No such page yet.
  • Cosmo Jarvis wants his page reworked.
  • Stange Law Firm (divorce, St. Louis) wants a page. No such page yet.
  • (More to come)
John Nagle ( talk) 07:50, 15 July 2017 (UTC)
Which reminds me, the Page Protection policy should be amended to specifically allow pages like Qode Media and Chicago Lighting Institute to be preemptively protected when adds like those appear. It wouldn't be a huge victory, but would help chip away at the market with minimal effort on editors' part. Easier than a bunch of SPIs after the fact. Plus, we can expect the people hiring editors to continue to be n00bs who are likely to openly disclose the topics they want written about, which works in our favor. As a group they won't learn simple evasion as quickly as the paid editors do, so a policy page protecting should yield some benefits indefinitely. Geogene ( talk) 12:29, 15 July 2017 (UTC)
We permit paid editing so long as it is disclosed. On those grounds, we cannot pre-emptively protect articles, as there is only a problem if the editor who creates it fails to disclose their relationship. Even then, we don;t have a policy permitting a paid article to be removed unless it fails one of the CSD criteria or fails AfD. - Bilby ( talk) 22:13, 16 July 2017 (UTC)
I monitored the search results on upwork for about a month in April and May, listing all the articles and ads at User:Smartse/upwork. For some of them, I had to guess the article titles from information in the ads or from other ads posted by the same users. I was pleasantly surprised by how few ended up being created, although I have to admit that from the majority of ads, it wasn't possible to work out who the subject was. I also reported some users to upwork who were obviously using socks and not disclosing paid edits. According to their ToUs their users can't break other site's ToUs so they should in theory be banned from Upwork. Unfortunately though despite spending several hours sending them evidence on users who were in breach of our ToUs they were incapable of understanding the evidence I was presenting to them. I've tried naming and shaming them on twitter as well, but with little effect. SmartSE ( talk) 16:26, 15 July 2017 (UTC)
One of the interesting things about these ads is that in many cases the payment offered is extremely low, often below the minimum wage for the U.S. You wonder what kind of quality the offerer is going to get for that price. Shock Brigade Harvester Boris ( talk) 16:41, 15 July 2017 (UTC)
The success rate is low, too. For the jobs I listed, mostly nothing has happened. For the few where something has happened, someone had already dealt with the spam. I found a total of two spammy links, and that was under Ground Support Equipment. Of course, the ads from people who say what article they want edited may reflect the more clueless Upwork customers. Some of the other ads indicate more subtlety. John Nagle ( talk) 17:02, 15 July 2017 (UTC)
The fact that the cheap and easily identifiable adverts represent a low-end of the paid editing jobs facilitated by Upwork, and that Upwork represents a low-end of the paid editing market cannot be emphasised enough. Rentier ( talk) 19:16, 15 July 2017 (UTC)
@ Smartse: Interesting. I am writing to Upwork concerning the edits mentioned in my report Wikipedia:COIN#User:L7starlight. Let's see if all the $10,000s I've earned them over the years carry any weight. If not, perhaps the WMF's legal team can write a letter? Rentier ( talk) 12:18, 18 July 2017 (UTC)
@ Rentier: Good luck. I found it very exasperating as a different, but equally clueless person replied to each message that I sent. I don't think WMF have any appetite for it. SmartSE ( talk) 13:27, 18 July 2017 (UTC)
@ Smartse: After spending many hours explaining the evidence (and yes, it was a pain and a different person replied each time), I've got the following reply: "Based on your report, I have examined the account and taken action as defined in our Terms of Service." I don't know what that means, if anything, and they understandably won't reveal any details. Rentier ( talk) 15:36, 24 July 2017 (UTC)
A few more cases. I have about forty recent ads saved, I don't have the stamina to list them all. I intend to examine the list in a few weeks.
  • Elixinol LLC had an article created
  • Whois_XML_API had an article created (I sent it to AfD)
  • A company named "ccusa" wants a page
  • Chugh LLP (law firm) wants a page ($2,500 offered)
Rentier ( talk) 19:40, 15 July 2017 (UTC)

From something Bri posted elsewhere, it looks like Fiverr's ToS are contradictory to our ToU. "Seller" = the freelance paid editor

"Privacy & Identity - You may not publish or post other people's private and confidential information. Any exchange of personal information required for the completion of a service must be provided in the order page. Sellers further confirm that whatever information they receive from the buyer, which is not public domain, shall not be used for any purpose whatsoever other than for the delivery of the work to the buyer."

In short - the paid editor may not put their client's name in their paid editor declaration. But we require the paid editor to declare their client. The ToU FAQs are clear in such a case. ("If you wish to avoid the disclosure requirement of this provision, you should abstain from receiving compensation for your edits.") The paid editor is not allowed to edit here. Could we ask Fiverr to require the disclosure of this info for Wiki jobs, or alternatively to ban postings there for Wiki-jobs? @ Doc James and DGG:

I've looked for a similar provision in Upwork's ToS but don't see it. However, it does have a section on copyright that contradicts our rules:

Upwork copyright https://www.upwork.com/legal/ "OWNERSHIP OF WORK PRODUCT AND INTELLECTUAL PROPERTY

Upon Freelancer’s receipt of full payment from Client, the Work Product, including without limitation all Intellectual Property Rights in the Work Product, will be the sole and exclusive property of Client, and Client will be deemed to be the author thereof. If Freelancer has any Intellectual Property Rights to the Work Product that are not owned by Client upon Freelancer’s receipt of payment from Client, Freelancer hereby automatically irrevocably assigns to Client all right, title and interest worldwide in and to such Intellectual Property Rights. Except as set forth above, Freelancer retains no rights to use, and will not challenge the validity of Client’s ownership in, such Intellectual Property Rights. Freelancer hereby waives any moral rights, rights of paternity, integrity, disclosure and withdrawal or inalienable rights under applicable law in and to the Work Product. If payment is made only for partial delivery of Work Product, the assignment described herein applies only to the portion of Work Product delivered.”

In short the copyright is the "the sole and exclusive property of Client"

We, of course require the poster (the paid editor) to own the copyright and give us a CC-BY license. As above, the only way not to violate either the ToU or the ToS is to do nothing - no paid editing allowed. Smallbones( smalltalk) 21:10, 16 July 2017 (UTC)

This copyright argument doesn't really work. CC means that copyright remains with the original owner. The owner then grants a perpetual license for the reuse of the work. If this is standard work for hire, and the copyright belongs to the client, the client can still allow the work to be released under a free license.
We do not require the poster to own the copyright. We only require that the poster be allowed to add the content here under a free license. We might want to make this clearer in the guidelines, but there is nothing in principal wrong with a contractor posting free material on behalf of their clients.
Similarly, there is unlikely problem with the standard Fiverr accounts with the contractor disclosing the identity of the client on WP if the client agrees. If the client does not agree, or if the client is unaware, then presumably the contractor should not have accepted the job, and they are open to being blocked for non-disclosure. - Bilby ( talk) 22:13, 16 July 2017 (UTC)
The copyright statement is your better argument. We don't require that the uploader is the actual owner, only that if he is not we require evidence that it is freely licensed. When we have evidence that it is not owned by the uploader, such as the Upworks ToS, we can be pretty strict. So a clear statement, viewable by all during the Upworks process should do it. My guess is that they won't do it without being required by Upworks, and that Upworks won't require it. In that case we have no evidence of a free license so the ToU and ToS contradict each other.
Similarly we can't assume that Fiverr clients know that their names must appear here. If it doesn't appear there as a requirement for Wiki articles that clients agree to disclose their names, we can't assume that this is allowed when their ToS say they can't disclose. If Fiverr were to post such an additional requirement for Wiki articles then we're ok. We should probably point this out to them. But until they do, the ToU and ToS contradict each other. Smallbones( smalltalk) 01:04, 17 July 2017 (UTC)
Another interesting point about Fiverr's ToS I the sentence "Sellers further confirm that whatever information they receive from the buyer, which is not public domain, shall not be used for any purpose whatsoever other than for the delivery of the work to the buyer." That says that freelancers can only send their output to the buyer, i.e. they can't post it here. The buyer can post it in Wikipedia if they want (according to the ToS) but not the freelancer.
You might object - "You're just trying to make this as difficult as possible on the freelancer." To the contrary, I think the freelancers and these sites are trying to make it as difficult as possible on us. They are making money off of an educational non-profit. They should at least try to act professionally. Volunteers have to jump through copyright and other hoops to contribute here. Paid editors should do likewise. There are no special privileges for paid editors. Smallbones( smalltalk) 01:35, 17 July 2017 (UTC)
This is just wikilawyering. Fundamentally, if a client employs a contractor to write a Wikipedia article, and presumably that client is made aware that the article will be released under a free license, there is should be no problem with this. Similarly, if the client employs a contractor on Fiverr, and the contractor informs the client that they will need to disclose that they have been employed by that client, there should be no problem if the client goes ahead with the contract and the contractor discloses the relationship on WP. If the contractor is not given permission, then the contractor should not edit WP, as they would be breaking the ToU by engaging in non-disclosed paid editing. As to "can only be delivered to the buyer" and not posted here - that's just going to an extreme when reading it. We don't need the go that far.
Simply, we don't need to invent new problems. We have a perfectly good set of tools as things stand, which are in keeping with the community's expectations. We block for non-disclosure, and delete overly promotional or non-notable articles. Our problem isn't a lack of tools, but a lack of an ability to identify paid editors. - Bilby ( talk) 02:18, 17 July 2017 (UTC)
I do not think copyright is going to be a problem or a solution-the agency's terms are general all-purpose terms, and for an article here presumably the client assigns the copyright as needed. We don't normally investigate but accept their statement.
The problem about identifying the parties is however real. I was talking to someone who told me he was a undeclared paid editor, and wanted to do it as declared; when I told him he would have to declare all the paid work, he said his agreements with the clients made it impossible. DGG ( talk ) 02:24, 17 July 2017 (UTC)
I agree. If you have to sign an NDA, or otherwise are not permitted to disclose your client, you can't meet the ToU and can't contribute to Wikipedia. That said, I don't believe that there is anything in the freelancing sites which makes this necessarily the case. - Bilby ( talk) 06:33, 17 July 2017 (UTC)
What this means is that OTRS is required for all articles created via Upworks as verification that the owner/payer releases the text under an open license. Bri and Smallbones interesting find. Doc James ( talk · contribs · email) 05:10, 17 July 2017 (UTC)
It is far too early to jump to this as a conclusion, which is stretching it at best. How about we just focus on fixing the genuine copyright problems, of which there is a huge backlog, and spend our time trying to address paid editing with the far less questionable tools that we already have? - Bilby ( talk) 06:28, 17 July 2017 (UTC)
Our problem isn't a lack of tools, but a lack of an ability to identify paid editors. It's not too difficult to identify paid or other kind of COI editors when patrolling the new pages. New user + perfect formatting + borderline notable BLP / ORG is a good indicator. Add puffery or bogus references and it's a clear-cut case. Example: Lisa Barnett. Unfortunately, at the moment, BOGOF is the community's method of choice for dealing with these articles. I noticed that DGG has been pushing to establish promotionalism combined with borderline notability as a valid reason for deletion. It seems to me to be a powerful and robust way to tackle the problem. Rentier ( talk) 07:59, 17 July 2017 (UTC)
While we've always read those situations as indicative of a sock (or, potentially, a paid editor), it can't really be seen as proof. And there's the problem. We could just delete well formed articles by new users as likely socks, but the community is unlikely to accept that as an approach without at least some additional evidence. - Bilby ( talk) 09:30, 17 July 2017 (UTC)
I've said this many times already and sadly nothing has come of it so far, but we should really have a way of automating the detection of new BLP/CORP articles created by throwaways. While by no mean proof of UPE, this would let us deal with the content, which is of course what we are mainly concerned about. The edit filter would be our best bet to start with. I did email the list months ago, but nobody showed any interest. SmartSE ( talk) 13:31, 18 July 2017 (UTC)

Here's a thought: Suppose we were to directly contact the people posting those requests for work on Upwork with a boilerplate notice basically saying, "We're from Wikipedia, we see what you're doing there, and you can't do it that way. If you want an article on your company/product/band, create a Wikipedia account, and make a request (disclosing your COI) on the appropriate noticeboard". bd2412 T 17:46, 19 July 2017 (UTC)

Except they can. We don't prohibit paid editing. - Bilby ( talk) 17:47, 19 July 2017 (UTC)
True, but I'm betting that our typical paid editor picking jobs off of Upwork isn't going about it the way they are supposed to. bd2412 T 20:10, 20 July 2017 (UTC)

I've created a watchlist at User:Bri/COIbox55 (the "related changes" feature is nice for this). It picked up Babes (band) created by an editor who has also done bands and entertainers like Kate Berlant, Hibou (band), Mathieu Santos, Day Wave ... maybe we need a new case for this. ☆ Bri ( talk) 05:07, 25 July 2017 (UTC)

That one is complex. At the moment, we cannot show that the editor who created it was being paid. It seems unlikely to be independent, but it is hard to show this. It would be better to let this sit for now. - Bilby ( talk) 05:14, 25 July 2017 (UTC)

MADRASS2014

See this ANI thread, oddly started by the editor. As has been pointed out there, their edits look very much like a paid editors, and they have said that they edit under multiple accounts since 2005 ( diff). I have looked through the three articles for sock networks but have not identified anything clear. Wanted to post here in case anybody else is interested to look or this rings a bell for anybody. Jytdog ( talk) 04:12, 22 July 2017 (UTC)

I keep thinking that Chitranjan Singh Ranawat, which the editor in question was very quick to point out wasn't created by them, but whch is similar to Kenneth K. Hansraj, might hold a clue, but so far I've come up empty. Also Randall B. Griepp may be related in some way. Beyond My Ken ( talk) 04:32, 22 July 2017 (UTC)
I found what may be a connection between MADRASS2014 -- who says that "project management" is one of their recent interests -- and User:Neritasenter whose contributions on Commons [3] include a number images of people receiving project management certfication. They also uploaded a picture of the Indian Sri Lankan filmmaker Chandran Rutnam, for whom Paul Mason (producer) was the executive producer. Their images there all appear to be professional PR images, although they're marked as being the original work of the uploader. (I plan on tagging them for deletion). Beyond My Ken ( talk) 22:49, 22 July 2017 (UTC)
Neritasenter's editing here on en.wiki is to articles about the same people he uploaded images of on Commons: Ravi Karunanayake, Dietmar Doering, Chandran Rutnam and Noolaham Foundation. They all have the earmarks of paid editing, and at least one ( Dietmar Doering) is of dubious notability. Beyond My Ken ( talk) 23:11, 22 July 2017 (UTC)
Per the ANI discussion, MADRASS2014 has been indef'd for block evasion. -- Drm310 🍁 ( talk) 05:27, 25 July 2017 (UTC)

More Cleveland Clinic stuff

Should Top 10 medical innovations (Cleveland Clinic) exist? Evidence of notability is very thin. The main independent source is from CNN, but it's one of those "special to CNN" things and it was written by someone who describes herself as a "SEO Specialist and Digital Content Analyst", not a mainstream reporter. Shock Brigade Harvester Boris ( talk) 15:42, 23 July 2017 (UTC)

@ Bluerasberry: You were involved in the 2015 COIN case, do you have an opinion on this? ☆ Bri ( talk) 16:59, 23 July 2017 (UTC)
Boris, There don't seem to be any COI editors associated with the article and, in its present state, it is not promotional. It's not even linked from any other articles (apart from a "See also" in Cleveland Clinic). A COI/paid editor would have made sure there were multiple incoming links. Having said that, the small amount of information in it, the lack of incoming links, and it's relative lack of coverage per se (the articles are mostly rewrites of press releases) suggest that it should simply be merged into Cleveland Clinic, possibly into the "Research and education" section. The list is announced at the Cleveland Clinic's annual "Medical Innovation Summit" and gets coverage by the regular reporters in the Cleveland Plain Dealer [4]. Voceditenore ( talk) 17:08, 23 July 2017 (UTC)
That's a good assessment of the situation. I'll put a merge tag on the "top 10" article. Shock Brigade Harvester Boris ( talk) 19:14, 23 July 2017 (UTC)
  • I redirected it, and it was reverted with edit note it should not be redirected because is different topic and very important article about Medical Sciences.. Oy. Jytdog ( talk) 06:35, 25 July 2017 (UTC)
@ Bri: The article has since been speedy deleted. I saw it and it had citations. It should have gone to AfD. Jytdog's redirect also was appropriate to advance conversation.
I checked Wikipedia:WikiProject Awards and prizes. I was looking for policy guidance. I think someone drafted a policy about when to mention awards in articles and I was looking for more information about that.
I would call this particular case a wiki article about an award. It is common for wiki articles to mention awards, and it is common for Wikipedians to have to judge the extent to which an award is a reliable indication of merit. Before this article was deleted there were no sources discussing the award itself, and the sources only presented the award lists as pulp pop science content. While I do not think the article would have passed AfD, I think it is fair for any new user to want to know more about Wikipedia's policies. If we had more clear guidance on when awards can have their own articles and when awards can be mentioned in other articles, then I think lots of confusion would be cleared. Blue Rasberry (talk) 14:47, 25 July 2017 (UTC)
It is kind of weird to call it an award. In my view the publication is a pretty interesting PR device for CC - they claim great inventive and clinical prowess, and they forecast what inventions will change medicine in the next year. I don't know anyone who pays any attention to it. I am half curious how accurate they have been, but I don't have time to devote to digging in to find out. The citations were mostly churnalism or self-citations; there were two decent refs about one year's predictions but even they were kind of "woo!". It is a perfect thing for the 24 hour news cycle and its interest in Hot Medicine. Jytdog ( talk) 16:06, 25 July 2017 (UTC)

Woolrich

The user has removed references, added unreferenced content, and done lots of interesting stuff to the article. @ Toddst1: suspects COI, and I think it's quite apparent for myself, adding 'quality' to this sentence. My name isnotdave ( talk/ contribs) 13:54, 25 July 2017 (UTC)

Google the second editor - it's a real name, self-outing. The COI is unambiguous. Toddst1 ( talk) 16:52, 25 July 2017 (UTC)

User:Bilingual2000

Long term likely paid for

New users. Possibly the same?

All working on the topic area

Doc James ( talk · contribs · email) 02:11, 25 July 2017 (UTC)

SPI here [5] Doc James ( talk · contribs · email) 03:31, 25 July 2017 (UTC)
I've had suspicions about one or more of these. I proposed deletion on Roy C.J. and apparently visited some others. It's obvious now. He denied COI on my talkpage so I dropped it, without much else to do in these cases until it's blindingly clear. ☆ Bri ( talk) 03:49, 25 July 2017 (UTC)
SPI have found concerns. I have blocked Bilingual2000 for TOU violations. Have also moved the Nina article to draft. Any further thoughts? Doc James ( talk · contribs · email) 15:42, 25 July 2017 (UTC)

Further accounts

One of the above accounts has been linked to these socks [6]

Which raises concerns about this not yet blocked account

Doc James ( talk · contribs · email) 16:11, 25 July 2017 (UTC)

Yes. Would be useful to have a bot pick it up. Doc James ( talk · contribs · email) 19:22, 25 July 2017 (UTC)
Let's see...Their first two edits use templates, their third one creates an article in a single edit, complete with infobox, and their fourth one uses reFill. Amazing progress for a brand-new editor! See also
BlackcurrantTea ( talk) 21:03, 25 July 2017 (UTC)

New articles

Looks like this may be created soon by this family of socks

By the way I have described a way that appears to be used to side step copyright review of images here [7] Doc James ( talk · contribs · email) 16:24, 25 July 2017 (UTC)

Yes, that method has been known for quite some time, it's quite useful in finding UPEs. I believe it was also what helped expose User:FoCuSandLeArN (among others) as a UPE. jcc ( tea and biscuits) 16:34, 25 July 2017 (UTC)
We need to improve collaboration between WP and Commons on this. Doc James ( talk · contribs · email) 16:46, 25 July 2017 (UTC)
It's Flickrwashing right? ☆ Bri ( talk) 17:05, 25 July 2017 (UTC)
Yes exactly. Asked here about improving the bot that does the review [8] Doc James ( talk · contribs · email) 19:31, 25 July 2017 (UTC)

Undisclosed paid editing by Highbrows Engineering and Technologies

Articles

Accounts

Highbrows Engineering and Technologies is a Pakistani company that offers wikipedia biographies for $349 and company pages for $449. The full offer is available at http://archive.is/oPy8v. The company's founder appears to be a veteran Wikipedia editor (20,000+ edits), although as far as I can tell, he has never used his main account for work, and didn't make any edits this year (that account is not listed here).

They state on their website "Our Wikipedia veterans create or correct it in a way that it conforms to all Wikipedia policies and sticks on the wiki, even gets updated for free by the Wikipedia volunteers later on.", which should be dedicated to those who oppose deletion of articles created by undisclosed paid editors.

Now, the evidence:

  • https://www.upwork.com/jobs/_~01f6978e09244a5694 - done between February and March 2017 by the Highbrows agency, the ad states "Im looking for someone to write up 2 wikipedia articles. One organisational, other Bio". The client is based in Parramatta, his previous ads mention the name Edway. The public history shows that he has later requested "editing", which was done in May 2017.

The four articles are part of a group of 20 articles listed above, which share the following similarities:

  • all were created by SPAs,
  • all were bombarded with similarly formatted references,
  • all use the same style of editing and markup,
  • most of the SPAs redirected their user pages to their talk pages,

and several other characteristics that I won't describe, so as to not make it too easy to avoid detection in the future. Not all SPAs are necessarily from the Highbrows agency, though it's likely that most are, and all look suspicious.

Rentier ( talk) 21:24, 25 July 2017 (UTC)

User:Rentier you done an SPI? Doc James ( talk · contribs · email) 21:50, 25 July 2017 (UTC)
Started a case for a subset of the accounts, Wikipedia:Sockpuppet_investigations/Vaedsa (most of the 20 I listed would be stale). Rentier ( talk) 21:56, 25 July 2017 (UTC)
Case is now [9] Doc James ( talk · contribs · email) 22:41, 25 July 2017 (UTC)
Yes, I was waiting for CU confirmation but the behavior is highly indicative of Highstakes00, I think we've found the company/person behind this sockfarm. Is it worth contacting WMF Legal as this sockfarm is particularly persistent? jcc ( tea and biscuits) 22:44, 25 July 2017 (UTC)
@ Jcc: That's a good question. At the very least, the WMF should be able to convince Upwork to take down the violator's profiles. I contacted Upwork regarding another freelancer's violation and they "took action" based on my report. The WMF would have infinitely more clout. Rentier ( talk) 00:04, 26 July 2017 (UTC)
It seems that all non-stale accounts were confirmed. Rentier ( talk) 22:46, 25 July 2017 (UTC)
Any idea whom (if anyone) I should email the details of Haider's main account? (the one with 20k edits) Rentier ( talk) 22:49, 25 July 2017 (UTC)
Have deleted a bunch of the articles that are obviously paid for and from this group. Doc James ( talk · contribs · email) 22:58, 25 July 2017 (UTC)

The name "Haider" was used by a UPE in the past. I'll have to look it up. ☆ Bri ( talk) 23:12, 25 July 2017 (UTC)

(reply to a comment that has disappeared, regarding an editor not related to Highbrows) I think that the Wikipedia identity of this freelancer may be unravelled by a careful examination of this client's history, but I'm more inclined to pity the freelancer's rates than to dig deeper. The Highbrows guys, on the other hand, charge their clients upwards of $100/hr. Rentier ( talk) 00:21, 26 July 2017 (UTC)
On other sites he uses various combinations of the names Syed Hassan Haider Naqvi. Highbrows blog mentions a co-founder, but I've not found a name; much of the site's unavailable due to 502 errors. BlackcurrantTea ( talk) 00:35, 26 July 2017 (UTC)
The main account identified here is just Highstakes. Highstakes has been going for a long time and has been discussed on various noticeboards, and is mostly identified through behavior, although that is harder as of late. The second account is BiH, who had a long break but seems to have returned to paid editing. However, that's unrelated to the main issue. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Bilby ( talk • contribs) 02:31, 26 July 2017 (UTC)

(completely lacking of a NPOV - See editions and editwars she is currently engaged with it) (completely lacking of a NPOV - See editions and editwars she is currently engaged with it)

Another sockfarm

sockfarm

Wikipedia:Sockpuppet investigations/Susana Hodge uncovered a sockfarm, now the usual cleanup... a sampling of articles listed above. Bri ( talk) 22:30, 10 July 2017 (UTC)

@ DGG, Doc James, and Smartse: or other administrator. How big do these lists of undeclared paid edits have to get before we can consider mass deletion? This is going to take a lot of going-over by GF editors to clean up. - Bri ( talk) 02:20, 11 July 2017 (UTC)
Some of the articles existed before these editors worked on them. One can easily revert edits by paid editors based on their individual merits.
Using WP:G5 is controversial for this purpose. If all the accounts are obviously not new and there is very likely a prior blocked account in this sock farms history I am supportive of applying it to articles that only this user has worked on. Doc James ( talk · contribs · email) 02:28, 11 July 2017 (UTC)
There's no evidence that the Hodge account was used for anything other than paid editing. Accordingly, I suspect that the Hodge account was used to clean up collaborators' edits, for example Alexander Torrenegra and Christine Heppermann possibly (both created by one-and-done SPA editors). The collaborators weren't all swept up in the initial SPI for whatever reason. Which means there's a lot of undiscovered junk and possible links to follow for the entire group. And finally, this is clearly not an individual's first edit, which means Hodge was preceded by some other account(s). But will heed your advice and apply G5 only if an article hasn't been touched by other editors. Bri ( talk) 02:36, 11 July 2017 (UTC)
Here's something to look at: "I will fix this for you" at Draft:Beini Da followed by creation of the article a couple of days later. Which raises questions about Wikipedia:Sockpuppet investigations/Shinywxn. However an employer-client relationship is also likely. - Bri ( talk) 02:45, 11 July 2017 (UTC)
Yes you often see poor quality paid editing by an actually new editor. The professional paid editors than step in and using socks and for money "help out". This is what we likely have here. Doc James ( talk · contribs · email) 02:49, 11 July 2017 (UTC)

As is often the case with paid editors, the refs frequently do not support all the content they are attached to. One basically needs to go through and verify everything :-( Doc James ( talk · contribs · email) 04:31, 11 July 2017 (UTC)

at a low enough level, mass deletion can in principle be considered, but they need checking first.And if we're going o check, we might as well tag them one by one, or at least delete them one by one. I've done a few. So far I haven't seen anything worth saving except Julian J. Bussgang, which I am working on. As usual, I think DocJames and I take the same approach. DGG ( talk ) 05:33, 11 July 2017 (UTC)
Thanks everyone for the work on this, which grows out of the #Foundr section, above. Please note also that there is another such list at WT:COI#Related pages, which you may perhaps want to see. I prod-ed several pages yesterday, and in searching I saw several pages that were mostly BLPs of artistic-type persons, where I felt that it might be possible that they are notable, so I did not tag them, and I think some of them may be listed here, so I agree very much with the need for individual checking. -- Tryptofish ( talk) 17:39, 11 July 2017 (UTC)
This piece verifies that this is a paid group of editors with undoubtedly older blocked accounts. [10]
As such I think WP:G5 and WP:G11 is very reasonable for most of these that are edited by no one else.
User:Susana Hodge is not the master it is just the oldest account we have found per this edit [11] Doc James ( talk · contribs · email) 05:29, 12 July 2017 (UTC)
When I looked over Susana Hodge's edit history, I noted quite a few edits like that one, where they came in on an already existing page. I've thought about it, and I don't think that it proves much, one way or another. Could mean an earlier sockmaster account (but one does not stand out, that I could see, although I could easily have missed it), or it could be hires to expand those pages, or it could be "good hand" edits. However, your point that we may well have missed the real sockmaster (because checkuser can only look back a short distance into the past) is a very important and very real one. -- Tryptofish ( talk) 16:21, 12 July 2017 (UTC)
My main point User:Tryptofish is that with their first edit being so amazingly formatted, so large, and promotional to boot, the chance of this being their first edit ever is around zero. It becomes less once we discover that they have a whole bunch of socks that were created before their "main account" was even blocked. Their editing history proves they are an expert Wikipedian purposefully breaking our rules and in no way are any of these accounts new based on their editing. Doc James ( talk · contribs · email) 20:52, 12 July 2017 (UTC)
Yes, that's a very good point, I agree. -- Tryptofish ( talk) 21:50, 12 July 2017 (UTC)
Possible that they are different, overlapping groups of socks, but they are SPAs on a page later worked on by Hodge. -- Tryptofish ( talk) 16:35, 12 July 2017 (UTC)
Often we see the inhouse COI editors fail to get an article through. Ie possibly these first accounts. When they fail they than turn to paid professionals which is the group above. Doc James ( talk · contribs · email) 20:54, 12 July 2017 (UTC)
Another good point. -- Tryptofish ( talk) 21:50, 12 July 2017 (UTC)

Declining at AFC

It is interesting that they declined this AFC.I would imagine they than asked the creator to hire them... Doc James ( talk · contribs · email) 06:43, 12 July 2017 (UTC)

Notifying AFC about this - all this account's reviewswill have to be checked. Roger (Dodger67) ( talk) 09:23, 12 July 2017 (UTC)
Very good catch. This fits in the Orange Moody extortion pattern, which has shown up at least twice in the last month or so. There is a new warning with linked warning page on WP:AFC. It might help to put a similar warning on this page (at least we'll know where to find it when needed). Where would be the best place for it? — Preceding unsigned comment added by Smallbones ( talk • contribs) 16:02, 12 July 2017 (UTC)
Warning:There is an on-going scam targeting AfC participants. See this scam warning for detailed information. Smallbones( smalltalk) 16:01, 12 July 2017 (UTC)
  • Comment:--The AFC stats of the entire sock-farm has been Checkedchecked.That particular review was the lone contribution in the field. Winged Blades Godric 12:33, 13 July 2017 (UTC)
  • Comment--I am actively evaulating the notability of all the articles. Winged Blades Godric 13:09, 13 July 2017 (UTC)

Other potential socks

Scorpion293 was editing for "over a decade", [12] the account was created on 16 April 2013, sleeper until 4 September 2014. In hindsight, that's a lot of red flags. Both accounts have a similar choppy style, [13] but that's common in non-native English speakers. Both accounts work a lot of page curation/AFD. The Susana Hodges account seems to actively avoid using English as much as possible. Geogene ( talk) 03:20, 13 July 2017 (UTC)
One of their socks created this [14]
Another one created this [15]
Similar in style to [16]
Doc James ( talk · contribs · email) 00:16, 14 July 2017 (UTC)
Have raised this here Doc James ( talk · contribs · email) 00:26, 14 July 2017 (UTC)

In a not completely unexpected development, the SPI team has stated ""Susana Hodge" is revealed to be a person outside the United States who actually advertises Wikipedia paid editing services on LinkedIn." ☆ Bri ( talk) 17:09, 23 July 2017 (UTC)

Financial regulators

I just noticed that a probable (very probable) undeclared paid editor created Malta Financial Services Authority. It's not the first time I've suspected that they are here creating articles on legitimate governmental financial regulators. See Archive 107 for earlier finds involving sockmaster Euclidthalis and his socks active at Cyprus Securities and Exchange Commission and UAE's Securities and Commodities Authority.

I'm not sure what that's about but suspect that there's a growing nexus of UPE around forex and binary trading who want to legitimize themselves somehow. ☆ Bri ( talk) 19:02, 25 July 2017 (UTC)

See also Afiniti, Ltd (  | talk | history | protect | delete | links | watch | logs | views) by Ronnyprone. GAB gab 00:33, 26 July 2017 (UTC)
Certainly Euclidthalis was involved in Banc De Binary and also lots of other Cyprus topics. One thing I noticed was that the block notice on his contributions page says "for copyright violations" rather than for sockpuppeting. Is there a better way to find out sockpuppeting blocks without going through the confusing SPI pages? Smallbones( smalltalk) 16:35, 26 July 2017 (UTC)
@ Smallbones: Well, if the master wasn't initially blocked for socking, then it's an indication that they only started socking afterwards. Piecing together the histories of these cases can be pretty tricky at times. GAB gab 02:32, 27 July 2017 (UTC)

Jeh: Long term vandalism, undisclosed affiliation with Microsoft.

Nothing to do here ☆ Bri ( talk) 15:54, 9 August 2017 (UTC)

The following discussion is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.

Contrary to what his user page states this guy does work with Microsoft, is not as developer, prolifically spams links to MSDN blogs published by O' Rielly Media, Microsoft's marketing arm, and generally promotes misinformation. He also receives directly or indirectly personal gain from providing these links. Though he will categorically deny it if asked. However I can supply plenty of supporting evidence. The relationship is not transient. His business partner is a moderator on Technet also. The 3GB Barrier link above are just one example.

The one other constant is articles involving memory limitations for Windows and Intel IA-32 processors are deliberately made so ambiguous no consumer would understand them, which seems to be the goal. On Stack Exchange, Jeh uses the misleading Wikipedia articles he edits as source material. Which in turn lead to MSDN and O 'Rielly and Microsoft. It's an infinite circular reference. Probably not him alone.

Further, Jeh has just been caught trolling under a different username. All this has been going on so long possibly it's one account with several people. How does someone like myself take this further without giving his name and more evidence publicly?

Also, I checked his user page yesterday and the vandalism alert thing was at 4, an hour later it was down to 3. What's up with that?

On a side note, Wikipedia is impossible to navigate for users not familiar with the templates and layout. It took me half an hour just to find this page. 01:39, 7 August 2017 (UTC)01:39, 7 August 2017 (UTC)~~ — Preceding unsigned comment added by 122.59.228.76 ( talk • contribs)

O'Reilly Media is not part of Microsoft. Are you thinking of Microsoft Press, some of their books are or were available with O'Reilly's Safari Books Online service and their books were distributed by O'Reilly as part of a wider agreement. Although even Microsoft Press isn't really Microsoft marketing arm but rather Microsoft's publishing arm. Nil Einne ( talk) 05:03, 7 August 2017 (UTC)
BTW one reason you may be having problems navigating is due to a failure to read, as you did not follow the big red text at the header of this page and notify Jeh. I have done so for you. Nil Einne ( talk)
Anyway I don't really see anything actionable here since there's no real evidence presented. As the header also says, as does the header when editing, you are not permitted to engage in WP:OUTING so you cannot link Jeh to anyone on other sites unless Jeh has done so themselves via their account on wikipedia. Likewise if you believe Jeh has engaged in sockpuppetry here on wikipedia, you should only mention the other account here if you are able to provide public evidence without linking to other sites of this sockpuppetry. Note that any sockpuppetry on other sites does not generally concern us here on wikipedia. If you are unable to provide any public evidence without engaging in OUTING, you need to follow what it says at Wikipedia:Conflict of interest#Avoid outing and email the evidence privately to Wikipedia:Arbitration Committee. Nil Einne ( talk) 05:14, 7 August 2017 (UTC)

I should clarify that it's not just alleged sockpuppetry on other sites that doesn't generally concern us. Any other alleged misbehaviour on other sites is also likewise not generally something that concerns us. That means, for example, if someone uses wikipedia to support their statement in some other site but fails to disclose they edited the article in question on the other site and you feel the other sites rules require them to do so, it's not something we will deal with here. You need to take it up with the other site. (An exception would be if the editor is editing articles solely to win arguments without regards for whether they are actually improving the article, because on that case there's misbehaviour here.)

Also, without commenting on the merits of using O'Reilly Media books and MSDN, it's not circular referencing to use them unless they are taking the information from wikipedia, or some other place that took it from wikipedia. I would imagine O'Reilly Media books and MSDN and predominantly primary sources and use person experience and analysis including of the software code in some instances rather then just taking the information from wikipedia anyway. Note even if Jeh wrote the MSDN article or O'Reilly Media book, this still would most likely not be circular referencing, regardless of whether it was appropriate.

P.S. I said the sockpuppetry thing because your statement on trolling is unclear. Are you claiming that Jeh is using multiple accounts here on wikipedia? If so you claim they were caught but I'm not seeing any signs of this. If you're able to provide the evidence available on wikipedia of this you should do so, as the normal signs like Jeh's block log and WP:SPI are empty, unusual for someone who was 'caught'. If you meant they were caught doing this elsewhere, well that's why I brought up the irrelevance bit. If you're claiming they were doing this here, but they were caught elsewhere, well unless you're able to make the case for it using only diffs from en.wikipedia you need to present it to arbcom.

Nil Einne ( talk) 06:55, 7 August 2017 (UTC)

As Nil Einne has stated, the accuser here has provided no evidence, only accusations.
Far from "undisclosed", I disclosed my association with Microsoft - and Intel and AMD and just about every other OEM in the PC/Windows business - on my user page. And this disclosure was discussed right here at the COI NB. Hardly "undisclosed".
There is no COI involved in linking to MSDN articles, which are after all free on the web for anyone to read (it's not as if I wrote them, or get money when people read them). MSDN articles by the likes of Mark Russinovich are "horse's mouth" references; why shouldn't I link to them? I suspect the IP is just annoyed at my using them because they so often have made mincemeat of the IP's claims.
So now the IP wants to get me blocked from editing in this field! I wish I could say this was unexpected.
I'm not a Microsoft employee; I receive no compensation from anybody for anything I post to Wikipedia; and neither I nor the company in which I'm a partner benefits from any of my posts.
Heck, if anything I'm giving information away that people might otherwise pay me to provide! Yeah, there's a business plan for you.
The fact that the IP thinks my edits are "misinformation" or "ambiguous" further belies the IP's claim of COI. If my writing is that bad, then why would it lead anybody to pay me money? The IP's evaluation is likely due to the IP's laboring under a number of key misunderstandings about the principles of the field. Misunderstandings which I have tried to correct, over and over, and (apparently) not just here.
On evidence though, only the IP seems to be confused; my edits have been approved and expanded upon by many other editors here. (Oh wait... I suppose they're all in on it. Right, IP?)
In sum the IP's attack here is motivated simply by my refusal to agree that the IP is right on several technical points, when in fact the IP is not merely wrong, but in many cases "not even wrong".
Yes, due to OUTING issues, plus a technicality re SPIs, this will probably have to be conducted in private, unless admins can see what is going on without further ado... which I think is at least 50% likely. Jeh ( talk) 07:18, 7 August 2017 (UTC)
The IP points to my edits to 3 GB barrier as evidence of my supposed COI, claiming I "prolifically spams links to MSDN blogs published by O' Rielly Media"
Well, let's check that out. This will be pretty easy, because almost all of the references that are in the article were added by me in a series of edits of 2010-06-08 (prior to that it only had one inline ref and three add-ons, more about those in a moment).
In those edits I added links to the following sources (if I've counted correctly):
  • An article at pcmag.com
  • An article at wired.com
  • A book by Tom Shanley, published by "Mindshare Inc."
  • A document at Intel.com, "Pentium Pro Family Developer’s Manual" (ref'd twice)
  • An MSDN product description page documenting Windows' physical memory limits - referenced twice
  • An MSDN article by Mark Russinovich - referenced two times
  • An Intel specification, "Intel Chipset 4 GB System Memory Support" (referenced four times)
  • A page at ubuntu.com
  • A page at fedora.com
There was already a ref to a page at macrumors.com.
So... if we count the pages that I added refs to, that's two Microsoft pages (only one of them a "blog") out of nine. If we count the actual references, it's four references out of 15. Either way the vast majority of the refs I added were not to pages at microsoft.com, let alone to "MSDN blogs".
I checked the entire page history - I don't believe I added any more refs after that batch.
Per prior talk page discussion I also deleted the links to dansdata.com (personal blog, not recognized as a SME in the field), codinghorror.com (ditto), and to an MSDN page by Raymond Chen which provided no refs for anything in the article. (Uh oh! I'm not doing my msdn-pushing job very well if I'm removing links to MSDN!)
Seriously... what there justifies the claim of "prolifically spams links to MSDN blogs"? Jeh ( talk) 12:23, 7 August 2017 (UTC)
n.b.: I'm not going to do analyses like this on every page the IP brings up. I wouldn't have time for anything else this week. I trust the admins who look at this case will follow my example here. Jeh ( talk) 12:23, 7 August 2017 (UTC)

I don't have time right now to read through all the text above, however I never said O' Rielly was part of Microsoft. Don't mince words. O'Rielly publish Windows Internals and the Techmet blogs. "Jeh"'s company runs Windows Internals Developer Seminars. O "Rielly pay affiliates a commission for sales of that book. This involves Salesforce and Amazon also. This is only the tip of the iceberg. Thew whole thing is one big marketing campaign. I also will not discuss any information which I may have in public. Least of with the persons involved. I will disclose this in private though like I said. And yes my IP probably does look familiar. An associate of mine once attempted to address the situation with Jeh. He went about it the wrong way.. That person is no longer in the country, he moved to the USA. 122.59.228.76 ( talk) 21:39, 7 August 2017 (UTC)

Due to commitments in real life I won't be able to respond to all queries at once. All I really want to know is how to contact administrators, only other option is to "out" Jeh" which isn't going to benefit anyone. I'm not that guy. Will be checking back here periodically to read replies. 122.59.228.76 ( talk) 21:51, 7 August 2017 (UTC)

Oh, so now the accusations have shifted from "prolifically spams links to MSDN blogs published by O' Rielly Media" to some COI re the Windows Internals book from Microsoft Press? Which the IP thinks is really published by O'Reilly?
(That's a side issue... but I've checked the covers, spine, and frontmatter of the various editions of that book that I own, and I've yet to see any evidence that O'Reilly has anything to do with them.)
Whatever. Whether O'Reilly is involved or not, I will state here that neither I nor any organization I'm associated with is an O'Reilly affiliate, an Amazon affiliate, a Microsoft Press affiliate (do they have affiliates?), a Salesforce ... whatever, do they have affiliates? Customers? Whatever, neither I nor any etc. has ever dealt with them. I have no financial interest whatsoever in sales of that book nor in sales of any other product from Microsoft or O'Reilly. (Unless someone bought some stock in my name and didn't tell me! ... no, I don't think so.)
btw, in the article mentioned by the IP as "evidence" for this COI charge there is not a single reference to the Windows Internals book - let alone any that were added by me.
The fact that a company offers seminars titled "Windows Internals", with variations, does not imply any business relationship with any entity associated with a book titled Windows Internals. Nor does it imply that the seminar company buys copies of the book, gives out copies of the book, recommends the book, or anything of the kind. (David Solomon's seminar company used to give out copies of the book to their seminar attendees, but that company is no longer offering seminars.) "Windows internals" is simply a name that is descriptive of the subject matter. At least two other companies I know of offer similarly named seminars. Heck, DEC called the seminar they offered with analagous info "VMS Internals".
And I might add that the "Windows Internals" seminars that I assume the IP is talking about existed before the book the IP is talking about was called that.
The IP writes: This is only the tip of the iceberg. Thew whole thing is one big marketing campaign. Oooh, scary! I'm getting this mental image of a wall in the IP's home covered with hardcopies of dozens of web pages, connected in various odd ways by strings of red yarn stretched between pushpins. I hope the IP will post a picture of it! It will be fascinating to know what connections the IP has invented.
Seriously, the real underlying issue here is that the IP is convinced that I am deliberately posting misinformation. Why does the IP think that? Because I disagree with the IP so often. Reality is that everything I've written on Wikipedia on the topics in question (mostly Windows memory management) is consistent with what you'll find in Windows Internals, MSDN articles by e.g. Mark Russinovich and Raymond Chen, Intel and AMD architecture manuals, etc.
But the IP just can't see it. The sad truth is that the IP is laboring under a mental model of Windows memory management, and of x86 and x64 memory management, that simply does not fit reality. (Stuff like "16-bit page table entries", for example. There has not been a 16-bit PTE in the entire history of x86/x64.) The IP tries without success to explain much of Windows' behavior in terms of this flawed (actually "not even wrong") mental model, and as a result the IP has several times expressed confusion, distrust of authors like Mark Russinovich, a belief that nearly everybody writing in the field is deliberately obfuscating things, beliefs that various standard Windows utilities are showing wrong data... etc., etc., etc. The evidence doesn't fit the IP's model, therefore the evidence must be wrong. The IP is confused by what he or she reads, so the material being read just must be inherently confusing.
Like the old saying, "fish aren't aware of water", the IP is unaware of the deep underlying flaws in its model, so it never occurs to them that their underlying assumptions need to be thrown out.
Nope, anybody who tries to point out how things are actually fairly consistent and understandable just must be wrong. And so there must be some ulterior motive for posting such "misinformation".
And since the IP can't produce evidence or argument that I'm wrong, the IP is now trying to get me blocked from editing with this ridiculous COI charge.
The fact that the IP has found very little, if any, support here for its strange ideas seems to have no weight on the matter; the IP may well think that the others who have spoken up against him or her are all part of the conspiracy.
Since the IP clearly doesn't think I can say anything of any value, I'm not going to try to explain reality any more. But I strongly advise the IP to check out the tech questions with another authority before continuing. s/he could email one of the authors of Windows Internals; could ask questions at one of their blogs' forums; could ask questions at the forums at osr.com (lots of very good tech people there, and I don't participate there). See what they say about the tech disputes. Jeh ( talk) 04:41, 8 August 2017 (UTC)
Another point regarding this one big marketing campaign accusation, a point of which the accusing IP may be unaware:
I have never mentioned my full name, nor my company name, nor linked to any web pages of the company at any time here. But, more: when longtime serial sockpuppet Janagewen did mention my name, or the company name, I immediately asked for WP:OVERSIGHT on those edits. And got it.
So those mentions are not only removed from active pages, but also from the page histories. (And I will do the same again if those names appear on Wikipedia in the future.)
Not even admins can see the edits that were redacted at my request, but I believe that oversighters can. And should this accusation go much farther I encourage the investigators to pursue that evidence of my keeping a barrier between my involvement in the industry and my continuing to improve WP articles in my fields of expertise. Hell of an "advertising campaign" when I not only forbid myself to mention the company, but I keep others from doing so as well! Jeh ( talk) 11:35, 9 August 2017 (UTC)
  • Comment--Close thread.I am not seeing anything that is actionable here.Echo Nil Einne. Winged Blades Godric 07:03, 8 August 2017 (UTC)
  • Comment--@IP editor:--Our capabilities as volunteers are severely restricted.If you feel that the real-life-identities of the UACs you mentioned matters, tread off this board and contact ArbCom.Outing is hardly tolerated at any excuse. Winged Blades Godric 07:03, 8 August 2017 (UTC)
  • There doesn't appear to be anything here to act on. Will archive the thread unless there is an objection from someone other than the initiator. ☆ Bri ( talk) 02:09, 9 August 2017 (UTC)
The discussion above is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.

Draft:MT Finance

A Google search for this person's full name indicates that they are "Head of SEO" at an agency. I believe they are an undeclared paid editor with a conflict of interest on multiple articles that they've created or contributed to. Curb Safe Charmer ( talk) 15:07, 26 July 2017 (UTC)

We have now heard back from the editor in question. In this diff, they deny being a paid editor. I find this extraordinary. As can be seen here, it is beyond doubt that he works as Head of SEO at a digital marketing agency that lists (on that same page) MT Finance as a client. Thus Danieltannenbaum has a conflict of interest, even if, by some stretch of the imagination, they had created the article in their own time. It must be declared before they edit further. Curb Safe Charmer ( talk) 17:17, 26 July 2017 (UTC)
Hi there, I fully accept what you have said. Despite this conflict and please forgive my lack of experience on Wikipedia, MT Finance are one of the leaders (if not the main leader) in the bridging finance industry. They have won Business MoneyFacts Bridging Lender of the Year for the last 2 years and have recently signed a deal worth £125 million which was mentioned in the press. Are such achievements not worthy of a Wikipedia page? There are companies of a similar size like Montello and LendInvest that have pages. Danieltannenbaum ( talk) 17:34, 26 July 2017 (UTC)
Let's take things one step at a time, Danieltannenbaum. Your first step is to properly declare your association with MT Finance and your agency as described here: User talk:Danieltannenbaum#Undisclosed paid editing. Then, there's the question of whether the company should be the subject of an article in this encyclopedia. The place to discuss that is on the article's talk page. Thirdly, there's the question of what part you may play in editing the article, given your conflict of interest. The only way for you to contribute to the article now is described here. Curb Safe Charmer ( talk) 17:56, 26 July 2017 (UTC)

Have blocked the account in question until disclosure occurs. This article likely also needs looking at Daniel Green (English businessman) Contain a fair degree of outing. Doc James ( talk · contribs · email) 18:17, 26 July 2017 (UTC)

Stone Point Capital

The only edits by this editor have been to create Stone Point Capital, which has since been speedy-deleted. The editor was asked whether they have a conflict of interest and did not answer. Robert McClenon ( talk) 21:54, 26 July 2017 (UTC)

See also Jcaceres.ny ( talk · contribs · deleted contribs · logs · filter log · block user · block log). GAB gab 01:40, 27 July 2017 (UTC)

Allen Hershkowitz

We had some problems with this article before, after which I did a lot of cleanup and didn't return to the article. An editor who expanded it ~2x in December has just disclosed a COI. The expansion needs a look-see and maybe more ToS declarations are in order. ☆ Bri ( talk) 15:09, 27 July 2017 (UTC)

Andrew Huang (musician)

A google search reveals that the subject is the editor's client. Essabowser agreed to make a disclosure two weeks ago, but hasn't done so yet. In any case, the article could use some attention. Rentier ( talk) 15:58, 27 July 2017 (UTC)

Paolo Zampolli

NikoPat1 has been expanding businessman Paolo Zampolli's article since the beginning of the year with mostly unsourced positive content. They also uploaded a number of copyright violating images most of which have been deleted. They claim to have taken File:Paolo_Zampolli_portrait_standing_by_UN_flag.jpg themselves in Zampolli's office. That would suggest that they are either associated with Zampolli or in their employ. World's Lamest Critic ( talk) 16:07, 27 July 2017 (UTC)

User:Styles01

The user denied having a conflict of interest after being asked by another editor. But granting permissions to a book cover of a non-notable book via an OTRS ticket, the outing of Candice Hutchings's date of birth (surely this needs to be removed and oversighted?) combined with the fact that when I nominated Candice Hutchings for deletion, the paid editor Essabowser, who had until that moment been nearly exclusively devoted to tending a single article (see my earlier post), suddenly became interested in the AfD process, makes me think otherwise. Rentier ( talk) 16:25, 27 July 2017 (UTC)

Looks like a fan of Hutchings' veggie cooking and nothing more. I don't think there's a case to answer; let the AfDs play out. Ritchie333 (talk) (cont) 22:18, 27 July 2017 (UTC)

Percival Crabb

Reverted, indeffed ☆ Bri ( talk) 23:31, 9 August 2017 (UTC)

The following discussion is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.

If you take a look at this person's contributions, you will see that they have added books by 'Brian James Crabb' on various warship articles. Has been warned about COI. My name isnotdave ( talk/ contribs) 09:25, 5 August 2017 (UTC)

I have reverted every single edit this user has made, which has been to add the book to articles; the citation was not necessary. My name isnotdave ( talk/ contribs) 09:37, 5 August 2017 (UTC)
He's still at it. Kendall-K1 ( talk) 12:24, 5 August 2017 (UTC)
I've given a one and only warning. Next step is the banhammer. Mjroots ( talk) 13:56, 5 August 2017 (UTC)
@ Mjroots: He's back. Got that hammer handy? Is this something we would go to ANI for, or are there admins at COIN who can handle it? Kendall-K1 ( talk) 22:57, 7 August 2017 (UTC)
(sigh) banhammer applied, indeffed. Mjroots ( talk) 05:31, 8 August 2017 (UTC)
The discussion above is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.

Wikipedia article as a landing page for a product

A few weeks ago I came across an unusual Upwork job (it was several years old) that asked for substantial additions to the article Sang Sinxay. I believe that the end goal was funnelling users to the sales page http://www.sinxay.com/ I just found Frank Fox (author), which does something similar. Both websites use the same hosting provider, but that's the only connection I can see. Rentier ( talk) 16:12, 31 July 2017 (UTC)

I have removed the remaining book details in Sang Sinxay. Even according to Amazon's own fawning "review" the book is not an authoritative work. Also, "Sinxay Press" doesn't seem to be an independent publisher (see here). GermanJoe ( talk) 16:56, 31 July 2017 (UTC)

Austin Petersen

Auggyp has made several edits to the Petersen article, including here, and here. as well as a number of older edits going back quite some time. The last two were removing information concerning Petersen's religion that was decided by consensus on the talk page should be in the article. He's also likely in violation of the WP:1RR that applies to political articles, and Bunco man might be too, but considering he was re-adding material that consensus determined should be there, I'm inclined to call WP:IAR for Bunco and let it slide. Auggyp, not so much. As for the COI issue, Petersen himself uses the nickname on Youtube so it is likely the Auggyp account is Petersen himself, or at least someone closely connected to him. Smartyllama ( talk) 19:15, 31 July 2017 (UTC)

The issue was settled on the talk page for the article a while back. Auggyp is Austin Petersen and he is trying to cover up his interviews and admissions/debates online, in which he insisted he was an atheist. Bunco man ( talk) 19:31, 31 July 2017 (UTC)

Sefaria requested edits

As an edit request patroller, I am seeking additional input on a block of requests related to Jewish texts. User:LevEliezer is affiliated with the website Sefaria, which posts freely licensed complete texts of Jewish manuscripts. They have requested on several articles that editors add an external link to the texts on their website, and their edit requests on Haggadah, Midrash, and Sefer ha-Ikkarim have been open since April 2017.

Because LevEliezer's other edit requests have received conflicting evaluations, I am hoping that discussion here can form a consensus on the remaining ones. A user at WikiProject Judaism expressed support for the requests in general, I granted the edit request on Talk:Mekhilta_of_Rabbi_Ishmael, and their edit request on Talk:Talmud/Archive 1 was similarly accepted. On the other hand, their edit requests on Talk:Sifre and Talk:New Jewish Publication Society of America Tanakh were turned down. I am minded to grant the remaining requests, as links to copyright-compliant full text versions of books are in line with WP:ELYES, but would like to hear what other editors think first. Thanks, Altamel ( talk) 00:52, 24 July 2017 (UTC)

A few ideas off the top of my head. Translations of of the Christian Bible can be fairly controversial, but I don't think anybody would have any problem linking here to King James vs. New Jerusalem vs a Catholic or an Orthodox translation. When you get into what people might call "sects", linking to their translations might be controversial here. Please just make sure Sefaria is fairly mainstream and isn't connected to to what others might call a sect.
In 10 minutes searching, especially [17], it Sefaria looks pretty mainstream. But please do check further.
Sefaria is very much an open project. Everything is licensed public domain. It also seems something of a wiki with contributions from the public. That works both for and against it IMHO.
LevEliezer seems to be going about this in the right way. Overall, based on a very quick review, I'm in favor. Smallbones( smalltalk) 03:14, 24 July 2017 (UTC)
I agree. I'd have added them Saturday had I not noticed MrOllie had removed a number of them. The works are public domain; several articles have no link to the primary source (e.g. Sifre) or none in English ( Sifra), and this would be a benefit to readers. BlackcurrantTea ( talk) 03:55, 24 July 2017 (UTC)

This has been a process of me learning the ropes. I had originally made the edits directly, and MrOllie reverted them, citing the COI policy, and not the quality of the links. I figured out the right way to make requests, given my COI, but the original reverts have stayed there as a stain. Since then, I've had a few conversations with editors e.g. Sir_Joseph and with WikiProject Judaism. I haven't yet heard a strong argument against, but of course, I have a COI.

Regrading the texts themselves, I've been proposing links to texts where Sefaria has full versions, sourced from reputable editions. In Hebrew, those are generally public domain to begin with. In English, we often facilitate the release of texts into the commons and/or clarify the legal status of uncertain texts. I'm not generally proposing links to texts where all we have is an incomplete community edition. LevEliezer ( talk) 08:52, 24 July 2017 (UTC)

There have been no new comments for a week, and all the editors who commented here seemed to be in favor of granting these edit requests. I have done so accordingly. I thank everyone for their feedback. Altamel ( talk) 01:42, 2 August 2017 (UTC)

T-Systems

Possibly also:

Recurring deletion of the "Controversies" section.

The IP ( User:84.1.149.4) whois resolves to the company in question. I suspect that the two users are also operated by the company (they have only made the same edit to the company page), but I don't have any evidence for that. Lonaowna ( talk) 12:01, 28 July 2017 (UTC)

@ Lonaowna:--See Wikipedia:Sockpuppet investigations/Vezernyul.Also filed for temporary semi-protection of the article. Winged Blades Godric 15:08, 28 July 2017 (UTC)

Chris Booth

Looks like the article subject writing his own article. John Nagle ( talk) 05:21, 28 July 2017 (UTC)

@ Nagle:--The fellow is prob. notable.Article heavily trimmed.Soft-block sought on ChrisBooth. Winged Blades Godric 11:01, 28 July 2017 (UTC)
Agree on notability. Removed some uncited early-life stuff. John Nagle ( talk) 18:55, 28 July 2017 (UTC)

Query: possibly paid editing

After I nominated the above article for deletion, I was a recipient of a curious message on my talk page, stating that article was created by X (who self-identifies as an "experienced Wikipedia writer") and that the poster was trying to get in touch with them. I've asked to have the PII / LinkedIn link removed from my Talk page, but the gist of the message is here: [18]. A couple of minutes googling has lead me to a Talk page of an editor who has been banned from Wikipedia for undisclosed paid editing in 2015. I see that they have created about 75 articles prior to their ban, mostly BLPs of entrepreneurs, speakers and authors, all vaguely promotional and most still live. Related questions:

  1. Would it be okay to link these articles here?
  2. Editor Divaslorry is likely a sock, since their first (and only) edit was to create the article in question, almost perfectly formed. If these two accounts are connected, then it's likely that the banned editor is still creating such promotional articles. Should anything be done about it?

I would appreciate some guidance, as I've not been a regular at this board. K.e.coffman ( talk) 03:03, 29 July 2017 (UTC)

  • As for the first question, yes, absolutely and I or others likely may have encountered them at one time or another if they're instantly suspicious (I was here when 2015 bannings happened regarding articles). After all, sockpuppets or campaigning users are easy to spot even if on separate things. The second, nothing technically could be made about it since Sockpuppets Investigations only accepts currently active cases; even if the IP is somehow them, they wouldn't accept the one alone itself. — Preceding unsigned comment added by SwisterTwister ( talk • contribs) 03:38, 29 July 2017 (UTC)
  • @ K.e.coffman: Yes, please link those articles. As to whether anything can be done about the accounts, Divaslorry is stale (likely over 90 days since their last logon given their last edit was in 2015) so they cannot be CU checked to the master (which would be stale itself). Interestingly the article quite a bit was edited by User:Susana Hodge, another known paid editor. There's nothing much we can do but watchlist the article and look out for recreations. A note should probably be left explaining to the IP who posted on your talk page that hiring undisclosed paid editors is against Wikipedia's terms of use; his best bet is probably to wait until someone with no conflict of interest thinks it worthwhile to create an article on him. jcc ( tea and biscuits) 09:32, 29 July 2017 (UTC)

Four new sock farms

See this SPI for more details Note: the named master was determined to be unrelated by CU evidence, but this is large enough I thought it worth posting here to get more eyes on it quickly. Groups 1-3 are possibly related. Group four is unique.

Sock farms

Group 1

Group 2

Group 3

Group 4

Created articles

I am listing the articles created by each group. Group 1 also did editing extensive editing of subjects that already had an article.

Group 1

Group 2

Group 3

Group 4

Four sockfarm Discussion

Group one will need additional work going through articles that they added substantial content to, but I didn't have the time to add those to this list now. TonyBallioni ( talk) 20:33, 27 July 2017 (UTC)

I believe group 4 is associated with Plarium. Bbb23 and I are discussing this group in more detail. GAB gab 20:46, 27 July 2017 (UTC)
See also:
GAB gab 20:56, 27 July 2017 (UTC)
  • Please also note that Group 1 socks appear to also have create or add poorly sourced disparaging information to articles, and that there may be major BLP issues through the contributions. TonyBallioni ( talk) 22:43, 27 July 2017 (UTC)
Further accounts of concern
Yinonk ( talk · contribs · deleted contribs · logs · filter log · block user · block log)
Associated with User:Mollybloomin it appears
Doc James ( talk · contribs · email) 02:20, 28 July 2017 (UTC)
These two might not be technical matches to any of the groups, but if you go through some of these articles and look at the histories, you'll see many other accounts that are stale for CU that match behaviorally with group 1. I suspect this is a paid editing ring going back for a while. TonyBallioni ( talk) 02:29, 28 July 2017 (UTC)
  • Comment--@ TonyBallioni:--Any particular reason as to your's not tagging certain articles with G5?I've tagged 6 more! Winged Blades Godric 11:25, 28 July 2017 (UTC)
Sleep and I'm conservative and try to go through each one. I removed your G5 on the former chancellor of Syracuse University for instance, because it's unambiguous that we should have that article and it wasn't agregiois on anything. Others I am/was looking at some of the IPs and other accounts to see if they were connected SPAs that had gone stale or were good faith contributors. TonyBallioni ( talk) 11:36, 28 July 2017 (UTC)
And Kudpung is merciless! Winged Blades Godric 14:58, 28 July 2017 (UTC)

User:Yinonk

Have confirmed that

Articles

Not a sock themselves but appears to be collaborating with but worked on articles for pay after the above socks. Doc James ( talk · contribs · email) 15:10, 29 July 2017 (UTC)

  • Thanks, Doc James, Berean Hunter has connected a technically indistinguishable account to group 4 based on behavioral evidence. I'll add it to the list as well and see what the articles are. TonyBallioni ( talk) 15:13, 29 July 2017 (UTC)
    • User:TonyBallioni not sure what you mean? Doc James ( talk · contribs · email) 15:16, 29 July 2017 (UTC)
      • Doc James, User:1-555-confide was identified by CU as needing behavioral assessment to confirm the technical data. Berean Hunter has connected it as being a part of the Mollybloomin group above, and I've listed it as a part of that sock farm above. I'll start going through that account's creations and list them with the others in that sock family. TonyBallioni ( talk) 15:20, 29 July 2017 (UTC)
        • Tony is referencing this. Behavioral evidence is quite compelling.
           —  Berean Hunter (talk) 15:28, 29 July 2017 (UTC)

Go Vilnius & Darius Udrys

One or several individuals are persistently adding unreferenced or poorly-sourced positive information to Wikipedia pages on Go Vilnius and Darius Udrys. Censoring or removal of non-positive information is also present.

Amount of publicly unavailable details and tone of voice in previous edits by these IP addresses clearly reveal affiliation and conflict of interest:

TL;DR summary: It appears that Go Vilnius and Darius Udrys are consistently edited by employees of Go Vilnius or Darius Udrys himself. 31.192.111.189 ( talk) 13:40, 29 July 2017 (UTC)

Seeing. Winged Blades Godric 15:55, 29 July 2017 (UTC)

Concerns about these


I imagine the last three are carrying out the warranty provided by the first.

Articles:

User actually make a bit of a disclosure here Doc James ( talk · contribs · email) 18:30, 29 July 2017 (UTC)

Concerns among these editors

SPI started here

Doc James ( talk · contribs · email) 17:39, 29 July 2017 (UTC)

Hello all -- I read, "You must notify any editor," and, "This page should only be used when ordinary talk page discussion has been attempted and failed to resolve the issue." There's no communication on my talk page. There is ordinary discussion on the talk pages of articles I've touched, but no discussion of COI. I'm happy to discuss your concerns, which I am confident will be allayed. Ring and run and WP:DUCK are not the the most efficient ways to discuss circumstantial evidence.
I hope that we are all on the same side here. Have a look at an example of COI and another example of COI. I don't post to knock the articles, but to demonstrate that I understand the issue. Let's put this matter behind us. Regards Rhadow ( talk) 16:25, 30 July 2017 (UTC)

Another group of socks

See Wikipedia:Sockpuppet investigations/Stoubora

Articles affected:

SmartSE ( talk) 12:42, 31 July 2017 (UTC)

I've done some copyvio cleanup. I would indef JohnStannie ( talk · contribs · deleted contribs · nuke contribs · logs · filter log · block user · block log) and Fashionista Princess ( talk · contribs · deleted contribs · nuke contribs · logs · filter log · block user · block log) on copyvio grounds alone. —  JJMC89 ( T· C) 17:20, 31 July 2017 (UTC)
The SPI bought up some more:
Deleted all the ones newly created. Tagged the rest Doc James ( talk · contribs · email) 23:35, 2 August 2017 (UTC)

Another large family of socks

This mostly of the spamming varity. Wikipedia:Sockpuppet investigations/Xingzuin

Doc James ( talk · contribs · email) 15:46, 2 August 2017 (UTC)

There are a few articles that they created as well as the spam links: SmartSE ( talk) 20:00, 2 August 2017 (UTC)

It is interesting that they are creating articles about companies that do SEO. Doc James ( talk · contribs · email) 23:42, 2 August 2017 (UTC)

Likely paid editor

User's only activity is creating four rather promotional articles, and on three very different subjects (Alicia Yoon is the founder of Peach & Lily, so that counts as one). Difficult to believe that someone would do this without having a COI, and is very likely a paid editor. And they received a COI talkpage notice in March. Edwardx ( talk) 19:36, 2 August 2017 (UTC)

Proposed deletion on most of those. John Nagle ( talk) 06:07, 3 August 2017 (UTC)

Wikibaji

Undisclosed paid editing sock farm with a variety of article subjects.
 —  Berean Hunter (talk) 23:37, 19 July 2017 (UTC)

Curious, here they added an advert tag to an article that they created with a sock. ☆ Bri ( talk) 03:04, 20 July 2017 (UTC)
I noticed a similar behaviour while patrolling new pages. I read it as an attempt to evade the new page patrol, since a reviewer is more likely to mark as reviewed an article that is already tagged. It won't get added to the reviewer's watchlist, and the creator can later remove the tag. Rentier ( talk) 10:26, 20 July 2017 (UTC)
Some other editors with unlikely co-edited articles listed above. ☆ Bri ( talk) 03:39, 20 July 2017 (UTC)
Deleted the most egregious. Doc James ( talk · contribs · email) 09:53, 20 July 2017 (UTC)

I think Music4382 ( talk · contribs · deleted contribs · logs · filter log · block user · block log) is related as well. In addition to the username similarity to two confirmed socks (Musicinmymind, Musiclovetoall), this account created Jaimie Hilfiger which has also been edited by the Wikibaji account and confirmed sock Musicinmymind . Deli nk ( talk) 12:20, 20 July 2017 (UTC)

Good catch and I agree. Saw the Jaimie Hilfiger edits when scanning but didn't notice the other related account and took it as innocuous. This sandbox behavior & identical summaries when blanking clinches it: [21] [22] ☆ Bri ( talk) 13:35, 20 July 2017 (UTC)
That evidence was added to the SPI and Music4382 was promptly indeffed. ☆ Bri ( talk) 15:33, 20 July 2017 (UTC)
More deleted pages:
The userpages are a dead giveaway. GAB gab 15:16, 23 July 2017 (UTC)
Just blocked Infinite stars ( talk · contribs · deleted contribs · logs · filter log · block user · block log). GAB gab 13:05, 3 August 2017 (UTC)

Great new tool available for identifying potential COI in new articles

Check out https://tools.wmflabs.org/nppbrowser/ that was made by User:Rentier. It allows the NPP stream to be searched for suspicious phrases and to focus on throwaway accounts. It's already been used by Rentier to identify the sockfarms posted above and has led me to another. SmartSE ( talk) 22:11, 30 July 2017 (UTC)

Just noting that while testing the tool, I found Propane Education and Research Council and associated editor (now blocked for ToU vio). ☆ Bri ( talk) 23:34, 31 July 2017 (UTC)
Thanks to you and User:Rentier. Using NPP Browser to search for certain grandiose descriptors has allowed me to propose several speedy deletions and AfDs. One day I hope to have the skills and experience to spot socks... Edwardx ( talk) 10:51, 2 August 2017 (UTC)
Awesome that it was useful for that. The tool wasn't created with COI-detection in mind - in fact, I wasn't at all aware of the extent of the problem when I started building it. But it will be my primary focus going forward. Rentier ( talk) 12:57, 3 August 2017 (UTC)
This looks very impressive. Thanks for developing such a useful tool! GAB gab 13:00, 3 August 2017 (UTC)
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