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This is an archived version of this page, as edited by Psychonaut (talk | contribs) at 22:46, 9 February 2014 (→‎Beleiutz: adding two more sockpuppets). It may differ significantly from the current version .
Vandalism reports
Before reporting, please take note of the following premises:
Most Wikimedia wikis are able to deal with vandalism on their own. This page is intended only for certain reports
Reporting requirements
  • The username(s) or IP address(es) of the offenders.
  • A description of their vandalism (spamming, adding junk, removing legitimate text, etc), preferably with diffs to examples.
  • The Wikimedia wikis affected.
  • Suggestions for monitoring strategies, blocks etc.

When reporting please use informative headings like: 

=== username(s), IP address ===
*{{luxotool|IP address}} <!-- for IP addresses -->
*{{sultool|Username}} <!-- for usernames -->
Description, evidence, diffs, etc. --~~~~
Note on spam
  • If the spamming is cross-wiki, malware sites, repeated or severe, please report it to the spam blacklist.
Related pages
Notice

If the username is clearly offensive, libellous or contains private information do NOT post it here. Email the private OTRS queue for stewards: stewards@wikimedia.org - Thank you.

Archives & subpages
Cross-wiki requests
Meta-Wiki requests

Current cross-wiki vandalism

Please place new reports at the top of this section. Thank you.

Beleiutz

For the past few years a user has been using multiple accounts to add promotional language and copyright-violating images to Wikipedia articles on Romanian celebrities. He is active on a large number of Wikimedia projects: most prominently on English Wikipedia, Romanian Wikipedia, and Wikimedia Commons, but also on several other Wikipedias (German, French, Spanish, etc.). He has become particularly persistent over the past six months. Cross-wiki coordination of efforts to curb the disturbance would be useful.

The oldest account we're aware of is en:User:Beleiutz. On English Wikipedia he has repeatedly stated that his name is Vlad Mateescu [1] [2] and that he represents the Walt Disney company, Pinewood Shepperton, and other media companies. Despite this he has refused to provide any evidence that he holds the copyright to the images he uploads (many of which appear to be found on the web or are television stills, which Disney or Pinewood Shepperton wouldn't own the rights to anyway). Web searches for this name turn up profiles, interviews, and blog posts where he claims to be a company director, supervisor, or other official representative of many other organizations, including Warner Bros., Pixar, Paramount Pictures, Universal Studios, and even the Wikimedia Foundation! The attempts to impersonate WMF officials offsite were reported to the WMF, and it looks like the sites have now been taken down, though I wouldn't be surprised if they reappear in the future.

Here's a listing of the known accounts:

He also edits from a wide range of IPv4 and IPv6 addresses, though lately it's always been IPv6.

A possibly incomplete list of past noticeboard reports and administrators'/bureaucrats' discussions:

The following characteristics can be used to spot the sockpuppets:

  • They are concerned exclusively with articles on Romanian celebrities and the films and TV shows the appear in.
  • New articles, and textual additions to existing articles, tend to be strongly promotional in tone.
  • They make repeated attempts to upload and link copyright-infringing images, often giving falsified source and licensing information. Sometimes they create Flickr-washing accounts to evade detection of the copyright infrinement.
  • Their edit summaries are usually strings of nonsense characters, or (if in English) brief, vague, and grammatically incorrect (e.g., "improve Delia article").
  • They make extensive use of RefLinks, particularly with the IPv6 accounts.
  • They have the annoying habit of wikilinking common words which shouldn't be wikilinked.
  • Lately the accounts do not communicate. As soon as one sock is discovered, it is abandoned and a new one is created.

A few months ago the possibility of an IPv6 rangeblock was discussed but was found not to be feasible. In light of the scale of the disruption, perhaps this matter could be revisited here. —Psychonaut (talk) 15:49, 31 January 2014 (UTC) [reply ]

172.4.225.64

Cross-wiki vandalism: bogus article creation to make wikis pass milestones reported at Wikimedia News. - dcljr (talk) 04:23, 28 January 2014 (UTC) [reply ]

Note: Edits at 2 wikis have already been deleted. - dcljr (talk) 04:54, 28 January 2014 (UTC) [reply ]
I could delete the pages on the other wiki if you want, but I think I'll leave them as you notified a local admin. Want me to block too? I think you should warn them on all wikis they are active (including here). PiRSquared17 (talk) 04:55, 28 January 2014 (UTC) [reply ]
See Steward requests/Miscellaneous#Cross-wiki bogus article creation. No warning necessary, IMO. I guess in the future, I'll just report over there (Steward requests) and let them block if they want. - dcljr (talk) 05:06, 28 January 2014 (UTC) [reply ]

Jongar987

Global linkspamming; non-malware, just advertising. |FDMS (WP: en, de) 23:08, 14 January 2014 (UTC) [reply ]

Grayceewilson

Mainly advertising/spamming only account, will continue to monitor. Warnings on enwiki, latest incidents. TeleComNasSprVen (talk) 16:36, 10 January 2014 (UTC) [reply ]

User:Batmansexy

This user make cross-wiki vandalism (repetitive destructive changes in articles about en:Shagrath‎). He was warned to stop this, but he ignore warnings.

Please block User:Batmansexy for 2 months (at least) at editing wikimedia projects. Also check his IP address, and block this IP for 1 week (to prevent anonymous vandalism or creating of new accounts). This Ip may be the same with user - 189.63.36.132.
NB: User was already blocked on rowiki for 24h. ro:User talk:Batmansexy#Blocat, but he started again vandalism.
Thanks. --XXN (talk) 10:00, 17 December 2013 (UTC) [reply ]

Please stop him. He just vandalized againg on multiple wikipedias.
Just look: Contributions on ENwiki
Contributions on ROwiki
No other contributions to other articles, only to Shagrath.
I think, he is fool. (no offence, just diagnosis - Idée fixe) --XXN (talk) 20:15, 19 December 2013 (UTC) [reply ]

At rowiki was blocked again for 1 week.
Is anybody here active? --XXN (talk) 21:47, 19 December 2013 (UTC) [reply ]

@XXN:, yes, people here are active. But you'd have better luck on SRG on in #wikimedia-stewards connect . PiRSquared17 (talk) 21:59, 19 December 2013 (UTC) [reply ]

Chilean vandal

Please see the "Chilean vandal" section of en:WP:ANI. A rangeblock is appropriate if it's (1) technically possible and (2) unlikely to have substantial collateral damage. I don't know much about rangeblocks, so I don't know if it's reasonably possible or unlikely to cause substantial collateral damage. Nyttend (talk) 02:50, 2 November 2013 (UTC) [reply ]

Global blocks on ranges are possible but I don't agree with a global block in this case. I have looked into the global contribs of some IPs and from what I can see it is mostly enwp and eswp that is being vandalized by this guy. Applying a global block (which affects ~800 wikis) on a /18 range (FWIS, it is an /18, meaning 16,384 IPs) is not appropriate while two wikis are being vandalized. BTW, should this be reverted? --Glaisher [talk] 06:29, 2 November 2013 (UTC) [reply ]
I reverted it considering that [3] and [4] were previous vandal edits from that user. Is it possible to just block the range just in en and es wiki for a few days, and possibly months? I generally agree with the temporary blocks, but this person has been warned and blocked individually many times in both projects and s/he has no intentions to stop. Tbhotch (talk) 18:47, 2 November 2013 (UTC) [reply ]

The user has returned with multiple edits these days: 190.96.33.245 (talk · contribs), 190.96.34.80 (talk · contribs), 190.96.41.5 (talk · contribs), 190.96.13.190 (talk · contribs), 190.96.34.65 (talk · contribs) and 190.96.40.156 (talk · contribs). Is there any chance to rangeblock the IPs? Tbhotch (talk) 05:08, 28 November 2013 (UTC) [reply ]

Crosswiki spamming --S2cchst (talk) 09:12, 10 October 2013 (UTC) [reply ]

Locked. --MF-W 13:11, 10 October 2013 (UTC) [reply ]

Hi, I don't think a global block would be warranted at this point, but could one of you at least please inform this user that his cross wiki spamming of images with text and captions in English is unlikely to be appreciated on non-English projects? After several warnings he has been blocked for doing that on nl:wiki. See Luxo's. Thanks in advance and regards, Wutsje (talk) 01:51, 26 September 2013 (UTC) [reply ]

This is neither vandalism nor something one would normally be globally blocked for, unless done after multiple warnings, especially since global blocks only apply to IPs. I do agree that the user should refrain from adding this English content, but I'm sure we can reach an agreement rather than block him. Anyway, I'll notify him of this discussion on enwiki and Meta. PiRSquared17 (talk) 01:56, 26 September 2013 (UTC) [reply ]
FYI: he has been requested on several projects not to do this. I do however agree that this is not a matter of bad faith, that's why I just asked to point out to him that uploading English content on non-English projects is not likely to be widely appreciated. Wutsje (talk) 02:24, 26 September 2013 (UTC) [reply ]
While I very much agree that English captions do not look good, you also have to agree, that it is a very effective method to get things done. Besides making and quoting rules ..., you surely agree, that many articles are miserably written, not nearly comprehensive and: they lack diagrams and illustrations that further visualize the context. When any suitable diagram becomes available under an acceptable license to wikimedia commons, that is maximum BY-SA, BY-SA-ND or BY-NC are not considered "free" enough, this diagram should be added to articles, ASAP, instad of atfer 6 years. To make the articles better, and maybe even to stimulate people to write a couple of lines.
The possible methods to add new content quickly I see, are:
Add the diagram to the "right" category, and hope that people will bother to look through the categories, spot suitable content, add it to articles and write a good caption.
Add the diagram without (English) caption to other articles, and wait until someones bother to merely write a caption (for some reasons I do not fully comprehend, that can take several weeks to months, do you know why?)
Add the diagram with an English caption, and let somebody else translate it.
I see two arguments that have to be weighted against each other. The one being, that it looks bad to have English language captions in a non-English article, the other being, that diagrams are sparse and so are contributors (who contribute knowledge and "content" rather than quotations of rules). ScotXW (talk) 08:08, 26 September 2013 (UTC) [reply ]
"Add the diagram without (English) caption to other articles, and wait until someones bother to merely write a caption (for some reasons I do not fully comprehend, that can take several weeks to months, do you know why?)". It's likely because some projects have very few active editors and even fewer who can translate QuiteUnusual (talk) 08:40, 26 September 2013 (UTC) [reply ]
If you have any specific languages in mind, I can try to get a translation of some specific text for you. (i.e., by asking embassy) PiRSquared17 (talk) 15:11, 26 September 2013 (UTC) [reply ]
@ScotXW: you state I have to agree that this is a very effective way to get things done, but I don't. I don't think it very effective when a Dutch reader visits a Dutch page and finds your image with English labels and an English caption. And even if you don't understand why I think this is very ineffective, you've been asked to stop adding your own image with an English caption to Dutch articles. That should have been enough for you to refrain from continuing but apparently it wasn't. You "excuse" yourself by stating that many articles are "miserably written" but it's obvious you can't judge the quality of articles in foreign languages; you're not even capable of coining a caption in a foreign language. Moreover, a miserably written article doesn't become excellent, just because you add some diagram that's incomprehensible for someone who doesn't read English. And you may be convinced you made a very fine diagram, it's not up to you to decide it should be addad ASAP in contexts you don't understand. Just add your image to the English article, place it in the appropriate category on Commons, maybe add a note to the talk page of corresponding articles in some foreign languages and hope some English reading editor will take notice. It's not as if Wikipedia becomes a bad place just because not every article shows your image. I think you're overestimating yourself. The bottomline however is that if you are urged to stop some behaviour because it is not appreciated on a specific project, and you don't act upon it, you're not fit for contributing in a project that's all about cooperation. Because you refused to listen to reason, your account had been locked on the Dutch Wikipedia. Wikiklaas (talk) 16:07, 26 September 2013 (UTC) [reply ]
@PiRSquared17 thank you for the link, I'll see what this ca do for me.
@Wikiklaas you articulate nicely, but I stopped couting the specious arguments and logic mistakes at 2. Besides the fact, that you can block me, you presented no agrument at all. E.g. in case an illustration does not fit the page, remove it. In case you have a better diagram, please, by all means replace the one I contributed with the better one. Neither did happen. I would not call this contructive at all, because it aint. Good day to you ScotXW (talk) 09:23, 27 September 2013 (UTC) [reply ]

93.135.79.21

Crosswiki Linkspam. Adds a link to ubema-dachau.de or in case its blocked by blacklist ubema-dachau.biz. See also here for more information. --S2cchst (talk) 12:42, 14 November 2013 (UTC) [reply ]

Presently I see no cw spam. See also [5] which shows that it might not be a spambot. --MF-W 21:48, 14 November 2013 (UTC) [reply ]
This report is outdated, so that you can ignore it and can be closed. S2cchst (talk) 09:31, 15 November 2013 (UTC) [reply ]

毛澤東的智障孫子毛新宇

Crosswikivandal on user page of a chinese admin. --Engie (talk) 19:36, 22 November 2013 (UTC) [reply ]

Already locked. Trijnstel talk 19:43, 22 November 2013 (UTC) [reply ]

Сross-wiki spam-articles

See d:Q15138170. NBS (talk) 19:38, 4 December 2013 (UTC) [reply ]

Xhosa Wikipedia Vandal: User:Sdfsdfsdf

Status: Done

Hi. I noticed some obvious vandalism going on here.

Sdfsdfsdf [stalktoy] – [cross-wiki edits]

https://xh.wikipedia.org/wiki/Special:Contributions/Sdfsdfsdf

https://xh.wikipedia.org/wiki/Special:RecentChanges

I tried to clean up a little myself.

And my colleague alerted the Small Wiki Monitoring Team, which has since reverted the edits.

https://xh.wikipedia.org/wiki/Special:Contributions/Stryn

But I was hoping to bring it to community attention here too, in case the user decides to come back and do more of the same.

Thanks so much! Anna Koval (WMF) (talk) 15:03, 26 December 2013 (UTC) [reply ]

(The account was blocked and pages deleted). --MF-W 02:59, 27 December 2013 (UTC) [reply ]

Long-term, recurrent vandalism

See the archives

User:Alvarosevilladesign

Alvarosevilladesign [stalktoy] – [cross-wiki edits]

I have originally started an inquiry at Commons:Administrators' noticeboard/User problems: Widespread spamming by a photographer, but it seems that this place suits better. Please look there to find a longer version, links and evidence.

Short version: Commons user Alvarosevilladesign (the creation of his own personal en.wp article David Adam Kess has been rejected) is a sock puppet of Ilovetosurfthewaves [stalktoy] – [cross-wiki edits], Daytonarolexboston [stalktoy] – [cross-wiki edits] and Bonsairolex [stalktoy] – [cross-wiki edits], all of them blocked in en.wp. Further sock puppets have been confirmed in 2011, see Wikipedia:Sockpuppet investigations/Bonsairolex/Archive. He's a photographer who has uploaded hundreds of photographs to commons (that's fine), and he's also a SEO. This version of his commons user page includes a link to his SEO site. There you'll find a testimonial page (http... internetsearchoptimization.webs.com/apps/testimonials/ - I saved it to my computer, in case he deletes it) from which you can gather that he created, with his older accounts now blocked, articles like en:Surfing in Ecuador, en:Waltham Model 1857, and others in an SEO context. I came across his activities when I noticed lots of his photographs in top categories of Commons rather than in the most appropriate cats further down the tree. Then I noticed that a number of his pictures are also placed in many (30, 50 or more) local wikipedias, although there are better, higher resolution images available or his images were inappropriate or redundant. (Examples: global use of [6], [7], [8]) My conviction is that he spams his pictures in order to increase their search engine rankings. He has shown the same behaviour with his account Daytonarolexboston, see e.g. this file. Blocking his account won't stop him from spamming his pictures all over local Wikipedias that have few editors to control him, since spamming is done by IPs from his host country Ecuador (example). Is there anything that can be done about this? How can we make sure that multiple local projects dont become a playground for SEOs? --Sitacuisses (talk) 03:13, 25 August 2013 (UTC) [reply ]

I believe SEO doesn't work at Wikipedia, due to nonfollow global tagging. So what is wrong, him putting his picture where there is no picture before this, as long as he did not replace a better picture with his? Yosri (talk) 17:06, 27 September 2013 (UTC) [reply ]
You need to spend more time with this matter to get an overview of his proceeding; he spends lots of time with this as well. A good method is to look at some of his pictures he added to many language versions and find out how many images had been already there, and how many more and what subjects he added. He doesn't just put pictures where there are none, he adds his pictures no matter how many images there already are of the same subject. In de.wp, this contradicts the guidelines (de:Wikipedia:Artikel illustrieren) as well as in en.wp (en:Wikipedia:Image use policy#Image galleries). A random example: I removed three of his black and white photographs from the German El Escorial article. Actually, it were two images, one of which he added twice to the same page, although there was already a color photo of the same subject in place. His b&w image is still in use in more than 30 wikis, although there are better ones available.
He added extensive galleries of repetitive subjects in many languages. Here's some turtles in gl.wp [9], in eu.wp [10], in mi.wp [11], and so on. We're talking about hundreds of images in dozens of Wikipedias.
Concerning the nofollow tag, Google is more sophisticated than you seem to be aware of. Getting into Wikipedia is on the top list of SEOs. It's a fact that Wikipedia images and articles get top positions in Google, and it's another fact that Kess mentions his Wikipedia activities in an SEO context on his own website (see internetsearchoptimization.webs.com/apps/testimonials/). Search the web for "wikipedia and SEO", you'll find statements like "Wikipedia is a goldmine of traffic and SEO power just waiting to be taken advantage of". --Sitacuisses (talk) 13:50, 12 October 2013 (UTC) [reply ]

AltStyle によって変換されたページ (->オリジナル) /