Wikipedia:LTA
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Long term abuse is a page intended to hold information describing editors or IPs who should be known by as many users as possible to aid in detecting and defeating their policy violations. Think of it as a "post office wall" with wanted posters. This page has been confused with several other pages, so please check the "Explanation" section if this is your first time here.

See Wikipedia:Long term abuse/Page 2 for entries which are older, but might still be relevant.

Explanation

Vandalism
Dealing with vandalism
Obvious vandalism
Long term abuse
Open proxies
Resources & assistance
Counter-vandalism tools
Cleaning up vandalism
Counter-vandalism unit
IP WHOIS tools
Further information
Blocking IP addresses
Vandalism studies
ISP contact information
Do not provoke vandals
 v • d • e 

This page should contain only properly categorized, unique entries on specific vandals with enough relevant and correct information to allow other people to identify them and their tracks. To keep this page functioning smoothly, please:

Don't add an entry here requesting action, such as a block or page protect. This page is not scanned regularly, as Administrator intervention against vandalism (WP:AIV) and, to a lesser degree, Requests for page protection (WP:RFPP) are. If you need someone blocked or a page protected, please refer to those two links.
Only add vandals here; if you've been blocked as well as the "vandal" for edit warring or similar, don't add them yourself or use sockpuppets to do so. This page is not for dealing with two sided edit-wars, only one-sided vandalism.
Only add vandals who need to be pointed out, such as sneaky sockpuppeteers, trolls, etc. Really obvious vandals should be reported to WP:AIV or, if they use sockpuppets, Wikipedia:Suspected sock puppets. Likewise, vandals should only be added here if their vandalisms are serious (A good rule of thumb is whether or not their primary account has been indefinitely blocked). If you're not sure, ask on the talk page; we'll help.
Don't report IP addresses! Severe IP vandals should be reported to Wikipedia:Abuse reports, not here.
Don't use this page for discussions. If there needs to be a discussion, start it on the talk page and link to its section from this page. If there is a discussion going on elsewhere, link to it.
Don't "sign" your entries, but do say who originally reported them, or who are the most knowledgeable about them so they can be contacted if need be.
Don't use relative phrases like "recently" or "lately" without qualification. Try using "as of" to remedy this: "As of August 3, ..."
Don't add entries without the vital information enumerated below; they will almost certainly be useless and end up being removed.
Keep this page free of useless content: Avoid off-topic discussion or other unneeded text, don't add images (Link to them if they are relevant to the entry), and refrain from injecting emotions into reports here.
Remember to update entries with new or important information.

Contents


Criteria for addition

Users listed should have a marked past of policy violations well before and after their final, indefinite, block. User accounts that are listed as vandals but only have minor blocks, or "major vandals"/"sockpuppets" that aren't blocked indefinitely, will likely be removed. The relevant logs should back up your assertions, not contradict them.

Note that shared IP addresses (e.g. Schools, libraries, prisons, legislatures, etc.) engaging in egregious vandalisms should be reported on this page as they specialize in dealing with such IPs.

Criteria for removal

Any entry may be removed by anyone if it is clearly:

  • An old entry of an inactive vandal; subpages may be nominated for deletion on Wikipedia:Miscellany for deletion
  • Completely improper, incorrect or malicious (False report), incomplete or totally incoherent. Vandals "reporting themselves" should almost always be reverted.

Adding to this page

  1. Check the subpages to ensure that they aren't already known about there.
  2. If the vandal's totally new, create an entry at the bottom of the appropriate section (see below for an explanation), with a descriptive heading, and under it a "Modus operandi" subsection.
    • This is vital: Without information on what a certain "vandal" does or how they do it, it will be impossible for other readers to understand how to spot them. Entries without this information will almost certainly be removed. See below for more information.
  3. If they're already listed on this page, add new information if you have it (Such as new sockpuppets or MOs). Discussion should be kept to a minimum, such as an open ended question about a puzzling attribute. In this instance, if you post the answer, incorporate it into the entry and remove the question. This page is extremely long as it is, if there needs to be prolonged discussion, use a talk page and link to it from the entry. Off topic discussion should be removed by anyone and any large discussion that has idled may be summarized.

Necessary information in an entry

Entries MUST have the following information to have utility:

  • A list of the vandals account(s). IP addresses should not be listed unless they are used SOLELY by them or have other useful attributes. Usernames should be listed to with the {{vandal}} template and {{IPvandal}} used for any IPs. If they have a category for their sockpuppets, link to it.
  • A description of their modus operandi. Good detail is important; unneeded information will be trimmed out by others, but a under-explained entry will require other people to sift through links, or just remove it. Linking some "diffs" (revisions) of their vandalisms is a good way to provide information on their vandalism it will show exactly what the vandal has been doing. Note that linking to a "rolling list", such as a page's history, is NOT passable: pages keep getting edits and after a while, the vandalic entries are several pages back.

In either report, you don't need to list more than five socks/examples, barring something extremely unusual. If there are more then that many sockpuppets, consider creating a category and tagging their userpages with sockpuppet tags.

If you aren't sure that your entry is correct, it is OK to request formatting help in then entry. If people have questions when they fix the format, they may ask you for more details.

Sections

The page is divided up into sections as follows:

  • The Archives which are periodically created for old entries who have become inactive for a significant length of time.
  • Entries, comprizing (in addition to regular entries):
    • Subpages for vandals who are a serious enough threat to warrant a subpage for easy reference (Please read the guideline there before creating a subpage).
    • Serial SPAMmers who literally do nothing but SPAM, frequently by inserting the same link into every article that's possibly related to what they're pushing.
  • To be correctly filed — Holding pen where entries are added by default. If you're in a hurry you can add yours here, but you should try and find the correct section yourself.

Archives

Entries

Subpages

These pages contain information on more serious or unusual cases which merit a fixed location of reference. Before creating a new subpage, please read the guidelines. Frequently people jump directly to creating a subpage instead of listing a vandal on this page which often results in unnecessary pages which serve little purpose and end up getting deleted.


Guidelines for creating subpages:
  • Ararat arev - nationalist POV-pushing on articles relating to Armenian history. Troll with hundreds of socks in his drawer.
  • Bonaparte — "Malicious sockpuppetry", vote stacking, consenseusfraud, ethnic disruption related to Romania and Moldova.
  • Daddy Kindsoul - Serious privacy violations, extensive sockpuppetry, primarily targets Italian soccer articles.
  • DavidYork71 - POV pushing, trolling, and over 200 confirmed socks.
  • Ericsaindon2 - POV pushing regarding a nonexistent city in California, sockpuppetry.
  • General Tojo — POV pushing on Parkinson's disease.
  • HeadleyDown — Deliberate long term article degradation to extreme POV positions. Plays the voice of "reasonable editor" and skeptic (admits in email it's for "fun"). Unscrupulous. Into attack/harassment. Multiple arbcom cases/bans. Habitual reincarnator.
  • Israelbeach — Personal attacks and harassment; legal threats.
  • JarlaxleArtemis - Personal attacks, harassment, and e-mail bombing. Was briefly banned Wikimedia-wide in 2005.
  • Komodo lover - POV pushing, personal attacks and harassment. Adds unnecessary information to various articles.
  • Lightbringer — POV pushing on Freemasonry, personal attacks, and ban evasion.
  • Madman C - attack vandalism, attack articles, attack redirects, nonsense articles, all based on user's obsession over friend who died in car accident.
  • MascotGuy — Inserting hoax information into specific articles; possibly autistic.
  • Mmbabies - Adding false information and bizarre statements to articles, ugly death threats.
  • Primetime and on Meta — Deliberate copyright infringement, personal attacks and harrassment on and off wiki, cross-wiki sockpuppetry.
  • Roitr — Adding false information on various militaries, especially Russia.
  • Universe Daily (No connection with website Universe Today) — Massive deceptive linkspam; personal attacks.
  • VaughanWatch — POV pushing on subjects related to Vaughan, Ontario.
  • SummerThunder — POV pushing on subjects related to China, malicious cross-wiki sock puppetry, extensive on- and off-wiki personal attacks.
  • Verdict - Targets professional wrestling articles, (in particular Brock Lesnar) deceptive uploads, personal attacks, disruptive, and over 100 socks.

Serial SPAMmers

Consider also reporting these spammers to the meta:Spam blacklist. If the addition is successful, you may wish to immediately archive or remove the section here.


Universe Today and sockpuppet-SPAMmers

Formerly operated most notably from the shared 203.10.59.63 (talk • contribs • deleted contribs • WHOIS • RDNS • trace • RBLs • http • block user • block log) this user is a sneaky sockpuppeting SPAMMer. All this info is at /Universe Daily.

AlloExpat

This entry was blanked by a user from 203.109.50.20 (talk • contribs • deleted contribs • WHOIS • RDNS • trace • RBLs • http • block user • block log). Like the previous case, this IP resolves to a host in Malaysia, suggesting that the spammer may have been trying (clumsily) to cover his/her tracks. -Loren 04:08, 13 February 2007 (UTC)

SexInRussia spammer

Defer to WPSPAM--Hu12 (talk) 11:54, 1 April 2008 (UTC)

Car and Ringtone Spammer

User keeps adding external links to his car website or ringtone/phone website, which only contains Wikipedia information (directly copied with no credit given to Wikimedia) and sponsored adverts. The links appear on many 'car' pages such as those of Aston Martin, Mercedes Benz, Land Rover etc (in the external links section). Spamming has continued to this day, despite a 24 hour ban by user RadioKirk. 50+ articles have had links added, some have now been removed be me and others, but he is persistent...

Defer to WPSPAM--Hu12 (talk) 11:55, 1 April 2008 (UTC)

Bulldog Spammer

Using wikipedia to try to sell dogs, got final warning twice, still came back and spammed.
Cleaned up the links for now (linksearch). Suggest blacklisting if the spammer persists.
MasterOfAllBulls and all his socks have been indef blocked from editing. (except the IP) Calvin 1998 Talk Contribs 01:57, 16 January 2008 (UTC)
Defer to WPSPAM--Hu12 (talk) 11:55, 1 April 2008 (UTC)

Datasheet serial spammer

Not surprizingly this spammer hits the Datasheet page (history) and others related to electronics. The original URL (datasheet4u.com) was banned on Meta, but recently mirrors have sprung up, requiring the page to be kept under nearly constant protection.

COIBot user report: Wikipedia:WikiProject_Spam/UserReports/124.60.232.59

"We are all looking fsorward to a great sseason"

These SPAMmers, who may be running a botnet from zombie computers, add trash like this. Many of the IPs are in LACNIC's range). A site-specific search on Google reveals that it's been somewhat successful at getting some indexing. An example IP is 83.238.44.12 (talk • contribs • deleted contribs • WHOIS • RDNS • trace • RBLs • http • block user • block log) on June 1 2006. These malefactors have hit up other websites as well: [1]

SPUSA spammer

Anonymous IPs with similar IP numbers have persistently added links to the Socialist Party USA website and the wikipedia page on the organisation. These links number in the hundreds to any article on a social issue, such as black power, and re-adds the links repeatedly after they've been reverted by other editors. They are usually in the "see also" and "external links section, but sometimes, the same editor removes content critical of the SPUSA, or adds links in the body of the article (e.g. this diff, this diff and this diff). Occasionally these links may be considered legitimate, but the vast majority are things like "the SPUSA cares about this issue too" (e.g. this diff). It's hard to tell if they are honestly trying to promote the group or turn people against it! The editor/s have used the the following IP addresses, among others:

User:Ukbjjf

Cross-wiki spamming. Starting off with this edit, he created his now-deleted talk page with the same. After being blocked here in the English Wikipedia, he created his userpage in the Portugese Wikipedia with this. So far, all of his edits were in Portugese.

ColourWolf

Please read this entry for more detailed description of the vandal.

Bogdanov sockpuppets

Sockpuppets have been attacking the article Bogdanov Affair since 2005. The sockpuppets are easily recognisable; all use long edit summaries, never post to the talk page, and are completely unsubtle as to their reverts (that is, the diffs of each individual sockpuppet, when checked, will be identical or near-identical).

Until recently single-purpose accounts were used exclusively, since February 2007 the sockpuppeteer(s) have somehow begun resurrecting dormant accounts and using those. For example:

The above accounts showed none of the telling characteristics (long edit summaries etc) until their resurrection, when they began showing the signs listed above. None (as of Feb 2007) have edited Bogdanov Affair before falling dormant, but after resurrection they only edited Bogdanov Affair, even though they may have had diverse edit histories prior to being compromised. Whether these accounts have been hacked or willingly given over is not important unless the accounts request unblocking; as of Feburary 2007 none of them have done so.

Note that the arbitration committee has ruled several times (e.g. RFAR/Iasson) "For the purpose of dispute resolution when there is uncertainty whether a party is one user with sockpuppets or several users with similar editing habits they may be treated as one user with sockpuppets". In this particular case "the criteria for determining external involvement shall be a review of their edit history, it being presumed that if the vast majority of their edits are to the Bogdanov Affair they are not Wikipedia editors but persons involved in the external dispute." (see RFAR/Regarding The Bogdanov Affair)

In summary, all accounts which display the above obvious characteristics should be reverted and blocked on sight. Accounts which suddenly begin showing these characteristics despite a previous edit history which bears no resemblance to the Bogdanov sockpuppetry should be considered compromised and also blocked. If the compromised accounts request unblocking, that can be dealt with when it comes.

See also Category:Banned Wikipedia editors involved in the Bogdanov Affair.


BenH

BenH (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · logs · block user · block log) was repeatedly warned for vandalism and infantile edits to television station articles (I've fixed at least two of them). He's had an RfC pending on him for almost a year and hasn't bothered to respond--he's been indefinitely blocked since July. Moreover, he's been suspected of using numerous sockpuppets. An administrator mentioned that he'd blocked one of them since BenH was permanently banned, but there's no notation in his block log of this. One of his suspected sockpuppets was active as late as March 20.

This guy obviously has no intentions of being a meaningful contributor, and the block hasn't stopped him.

Modus operandi

He makes unsourced and low-quality edits to TV station and other miscellaneous articles. Some of the things he does are add unsourced and false dates to TV station foundings, and stubbing articles that are way past stub status.

Examples

Enough for a subpage by itself, so here are some of the really bad ones:

  1. [2]
  2. [3]
  3. [4]
  4. [5]
  5. [6]
  6. [7]
  7. [8]
  8. [9]
  9. [10]
  10. [11]
  11. [12]
  12. [13]
  13. [14]
  14. [15]
  15. [16]
  16. [17]
  17. [18]
  18. [19]
  19. [20]
  20. [21]
  21. [22]
  22. [23]

Banned user Ararat arev

Modus operandi

The categories give a sample, but by no means an exhaustive list. User also at times edits anonymously, and will use "sleeper" socks to evade semiprotection. Almost always concentrates on making similar disruptive edits to Turkey ([24]) and Armenia ([25]) regarding Armenians being native in Turkey's eastern highlands, and east Turkey being "Armenian land". Edit summaries will often refer to "references" or "ancient records".

Please see Wikipedia:Long term abuse/Ararat arev for more information.

Lyle123

Lyle123 (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · logs · block user · block log) and sockpuppets

This vandal uses sockpuppets to create hoax articles about purported animated films. Many of his articles either copy the wikitext of a legitimate film article or an article about a children's book. For example, Sir Tod (1974 film) (|talk|history|links|watch|logs) is a copy of The Jungle Book (1967 film) (|talk|history|links|watch|logs). Some of his accounts combine legitimate and vandalous edits.

Those dealing with this user may want to watchlist his articles, as he frequently removes deletion tags and reposts deleted pages.

When he creates a hoax article, he will often add it to a list or template, such as the following:

He also adds links to his articles in the "filmography" section of actors he claims are starring in the films (example).

Administrator Tregoweth has been watching Lyle123's activities since January 2007, and is probably the most knowledgeable about his activities.

Freddy Rantol (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · logs · block user · block log) - this might be Lyle123's "original" account, from December 2006. This user created a fake animated feature article and added it to the "list of animated feature films" ([26]). He also created an article about a 12-year-old boy which was deleted. Since then this account has had no edits.

In June 2007, a CU request on StealBoy (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · logs ·