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Vandalism reports/Archives/Users/Beleiutz

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This is an archived version of this page, as edited by Psychonaut (talk | contribs) at 08:35, 16 September 2014 (+cat). It may differ significantly from the current version .

Activity and behavioral data on Beleiutz is maintained here.

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.). Cross-wiki coordination of efforts to curb the disturbance would be useful.

The oldest account is en:User:Beleiutz. On the English and Romanian Wikipedias he has repeatedly stated that his name is Vlad Mateescu and that he represents the Walt Disney company, Pinewood Shepperton, the Romanian Copyright Office, and other private and public organizations [1] [2] [3] [4] [5] [6]. 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.

Known accounts

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

General

Incident reports and discussions

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

2011

2013

2014

Characteristics

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 license-washing accounts on Flickr or Picasa 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.

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