Wikipedia:Long-term abuse/India Against Corruption sock-meatfarm
 | Please report all ongoing incidents of abuse to AIV or ANI |
| Status | Active |
|---|---|
This is a large group of sock- and meatpuppets disrupting India Against Corruption and related articles since late 2012, sometimes self-referring as "the HRA1924 network". They make extensive use of legal threats directed at individual editors, the WMF, and the Wikimedia India chapter; they also engage in serious harassment, both on- and off-wiki.
Background
The article India Against Corruption is about a populist movement in India active during 2011–2012 which the media and later books have termed "India Against Corruption". There also exists a pressure group (which will be referred to here as "India Against Corruption 2") bearing the same name. The latter group claims to have existed for 50+ years and to own the "brand name" and logo which were used "temporarily" and "illegally" by the leaders of the populist movement. See Requests for mediation/India Against Corruption and Talk:India Against Corruption/Archive 2 for their claims. Since late 2012, they have repeatedly attempted to over-write the article to conform to their claims, referenced largely to their mailing list posts and website. See this January 2013 version for an extreme example. Its adherents have edited under multiple (now blocked) accounts, claiming to represent "India Against Corruption 2". The most vocal and aggressive of these are highly likely to be the same person (identical discourse style and features, including punctuation and formatting quirks). They are supplemented by occasional meat-puppets (distinguishable by an imperfect command of English), e.g. here. The group has also made extensive use of anonymous IPs and proxy servers. Confirmed socks claim their "network" has hundreds of still active accounts, e.g. here and here.
Indefinitely blocked accounts associated with this group
- Duffycharles (talk · contribs) (checkuser block, previously blocked for legal threats)
- HRA1924 (talk · contribs) (checkuser block, previously blocked for legal threats)
- Lindashiers (talk · contribs) (checkuser block, previously blocked for legal threats)
- Dkgpatel (talk · contribs) (legal threats)
- Name Defend IPA (talk · contribs) (checkuser block)
- Claus at Name Defend DE (talk · contribs) (legal threats)
- Toby at Name Defend DE (talk · contribs) (block evasion)
- Crapscourge (talk · contribs) (disruption, suspected sockpuppet of Duffycharles)
- Robofmd (talk · contribs) (suspected sockpuppet of HRA1924)
- DocVanTrang (talk · contribs) (checkuser block per Wikipedia:Sockpuppet investigations/HRA1924)
- TrangDocVan (talk · contribs) (checkuser block per Wikipedia:Sockpuppet investigations/HRA1924)
- Landirenzo (talk · contribs) (checkuser block per Wikipedia:Sockpuppet investigations/HRA1924)
- AcorruptionfreeIndia (talk · contribs) (checkuser block)
- Mansjelly (talk · contribs) (block evasion, legal threats)
- TheWikiIndian (talk · contribs) (checkuser block)
- ColSodhi (talk · contribs) (legal threats)
- Rti india (talk · contribs) (checkuser block)
- Turnitinpro (talk · contribs) (checkuser block)
- Unfitlouie (talk · contribs) (checkuser block)
- X the hamster (talk · contribs) (meatpuppet, legal threats)
- Sotyam Eba Joyate (talk · contribs) (sock or meatpuppet)
- Bongchillum (talk · contribs) (disruptive IAC meatfarm account)
- SimplonSimon (talk · contribs) (meat or sock puppetry)
- Sanjay at iac (talk · contribs) (block evasion)
- Juhimukherjee (talk · contribs) (ban evasion (IAC))
- MonaPisser (talk · contribs) (checkuser block, multiple accounts, extensive proxy abuse, legal threats)
- Romana Busse (talk · contribs) (block evasion)
- Sethuramiah (talk · contribs) (using a second account to avoid scrutiny. likely IAC sock)
- PhilipRothman (talk · contribs) (block evasion)
- Prof Ravi IIT Kanpur (talk · contribs) (IAC sock)
- Not tata (talk · contribs) (meat or sock puppetry)
- Indohispano (talk · contribs) (sock or meat of IAC)
- Gollymemolly (talk · contribs) (checkuser block)
- AAP Dec 2014 (talk · contribs) (block evasion)
- LEGIA2014 (talk · contribs) (making legal threats)
- Indiaresists (talk · contribs) (block evasion: India Against Corruption)
- Livewotans (talk · contribs) (Abusing multiple accounts)
- FCBayern786 (talk · contribs) (block evasion: IAC)
- AAP ka Lawyer (talk · contribs) (Sock puppetry; Wikipedia:Sockpuppet investigations/HRA1924)
Targeted areas, behavior, themes
- Primary target is India Against Corruption but also people and political parties mentioned in the article, Indian journalists, and Indian Institute of Management Ahmedabad (and its related articles). Since October 2014 this has extended to articles mentioning both the words "India" and "Corruption", e.g. this one and this one, and then to articles on Indian topics which are the subject of controversies/edit wars.
- Repeated assertions that all independently published sources which do not support their claims are hoaxes or written by corrupt journalists.
- Repeated references to cartels/cabals of compromised Wikipedia administrators
- Extensive use of legal threats directed at both the WMF and individual editors
- Extreme harassment both on and off-wiki, attempts at outing, demands to know the real-life identity of editors.
- Tactic as of 2014 has been to launch various claims of copyright violation, impersonation, defamation, sexual harassment, paid editing, racism, pornography, forgery, and "violations of terms of use" on:
- the talk pages of India Against Corruption and other India-related articles
- various Wikipedia and Wikimedia noticeboards, including Commons (see here)
- official Wikimedia mail lists, including Wikimedia-l and Gendergap.
- In September 2014, much of this was done via accounts claiming to represent the company "Name Defend", which in turn claims to legally represent "India Against Corruption 2", but whose website was created the day before the first Name Defend account was created and is registered to the National Convenor of "India Against Corruption 2" (background here).
- Engage in off-wiki canvassing and mail list spamming via "Wikimedia India Editors Forum"/"Wikimedia XYZ editor forums", which have no connection whatsoever to the WMF or to the official Wikimedia India chapter (see here and here) and via blogs and Google Groups impersonating other Wikimedia initiatives.
- They returned again in 2024 for making legal threats on the talkpage of 2024 Kolkata rape and murder through their IPs acting as the representatives of "Hindu Raksha Dal" & IPs from the same range also made legal threats against WMF in an RSN thread that was discussing whether their website "Hindu News" should be considered reliable or not.
Extended legal threats
- Help desk, December 2013
- User:HRA1924, February 2014 version
- ANI, 30 March 2014
- User:Claus at Name Defend DE, September 2014 version
- AN, 15 October 2014
- WMF Philippe Beaudette's user talk page, 15 October 2014 version