Wikipedia:Suspected sock puppets/Rushmi

The following discussion is an archived debate of the case of suspected sockpuppetry. Please do not modify it. No further edits should be made to this page. All edits should go to the talk page of this case. If you are seeing this page as a result of an attempt to open a new case of sockpuppetry of the same user, read this for detailed instructions.

[edit] User:Rushmi

Suspected sockpuppeteer

Shashwat_pandey (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · page moves · block user · block log · rfcu)

Suspected sockpuppets

Shashwat_pandey (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · page moves · block user · block log · rfcu)
Rushmi (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · page moves · block user · block log)

Report submission by

Renee 21:11, 19 September 2007 (UTC)

Evidence

"New" user:Rushmi appears to be a sockpuppet of Shashwat pandey. Shashwat pandey was involved in many edit wars over the Sahaj Marg and Shri Ram Chandra Mission pages. User:Shashwat pandey vanished after thisRFC/user was filed on him.

Several weeks later user:Rushmi appeared and presented himself as not knowing anything about Wiki. He asked to be adopted after he performed several functions that indicated a strong familiarity with Wiki. Since that time, he has used a variety of templates (e.g., two RFCs, sockpuppet), archived his page, left notices on various boards (how would new users know about these boards), and engaged in advanced forms of editing including links, font changes, and reference templates.

Here is some specific evidence.

1. His very first edit was to request that the Sahaj Marg protected page template be removed[1]. How does a new user know even to do this? Wouldn't they go to a talk page first and ask what's up?
2. Then, he edited an article and provided a link to a source [2] (making links usually takes new users a while to figure out).
3. Then, he undid an archive[3] (how does a new user know enough to do an "undo"?).
4. For these first several edits he used edit summaries, which normally new users do not use until someone points them out to them.
5. After all of this (check the dates and times), he then presented himself as not knowing how to use Wiki and asked others what to do [4].
6. He even went so far as to request "adoption" and then only half-heartedly engaged in "practice," yet went on to simultaneously make very advanced edits. This is a serious abuse of good faith for the editor who agreed to adopt Rushmi.
7. When myself and user: Bksimonb gave advice, he at first acted very nice (in line with his super sweet emails to other editors), and then deleted our posts[5] and gave a parting salvo to me[6] more consistent with his angry Shashwat pandey personality than his innocent and sweet Rushmi identity.
8. As a supposedly "new" user, Rushmi has an inexplicable anger towards me beginning with his earliest posts. The simplest explanation for this anger is that he is user Shashwat pandey and his true personality is emerging. Specifically, back in his early days he posted this on another user's page[7] saying he "noticed" that I had done two RFCs (mind you, he would have to know how to search "contribs" and go back hundreds and hundreds of posts to find these).
9. Turning his attacks personal, he filed a vandalism warning against me,turned down flat
10. Then he filed an ANI report here,
11. Then he sanitized his archive so none of this was reflected on it, [8]
12. Then, today, he filed a sockpuppet accusation [9].
13. User:Rushmi's language, spelling, and "stream of consciousness" writing style are all identical to User:Shashwat pandey's writings. For example, see the identical spelling of appritiated/appritiate -- by Rushmi here and by Shashwat here. I can think of no one else in the world who spells "appreciate" in this manner.
14. Finally, user:Rushmi is engaging in the same type of extreme negative POV talk as user:Shashwat pandey did (again, see Shashwat's RFC/user for diffs).
15. Here he changes a category tag on the Sahaj Marg page (again, how would a new user know to do that), which his adopter points out could be seen as vandalism.
16. Just yesterday, he posted an RFC and question on the "reliable sources noticeboard, asking intentionally misleading questions that have already been answered by admin Jossi. Specifically, he posted this and this, which falsely present the issue. The real questions are:

• can a newspaper article found defamatory by a trial court be used as a Wiki source?
• can a court judgment that has nothing to do with the article topic, and pertains to a procedural/jurisdictional issue, a good source.

Admin Jossi already responded to Rushmi's question here.

Besides the intentional misleading of other editors, how would a supposed new user know (a) where to go to post all of these things, (b) know how to use the code to post all of these things, (c) be bold enough to ignore all of the opinions on the talk page (usually new users are a little tentative), and (d) have such facility and knowledge of templates, categories, and other meta-message things?

I have reason to believe other users believe Rushmi is the sock of Shashwat, see the edit tag to this recent reply to Rushmi. (User:Sethie had much experience with Shashwat on the Sahaj Marg page so is in a good place to make a judgement about this user.)

Comments

Both of these users should be permanently banned per Wiki policy. Sanctions should be taken against new User:Rushmi for harassment, abuse of good faith of his adopter ("pretending" to be a new user), and tendentious posting of original research. 01:28, 20 September 2007 (UTC)—Preceding unsigned comment added by Reneeholle (talk • contribs)

It's 99% certain Rushmi is not new to wikipedia, Renee has detailed well how that is just not the case, yet he pretended to be.

His syntax, spelling, odd moments of excitement ("Let's see what other neutral parties think!") and even quirky use of words are identical.

Like Shashwat, Rushumi has somewhat of a wiki vocabulary, yet he consistently uses the words differently from other wiki users- as if they have learned the words from watching others, use them, but don't quite understand what they mean. Sethie 01:10, 20 September 2007 (UTC)

Conclusions

This is solid evidence that the two editors are the same person. Evidently, Shashwat moved to the Rushmi account to avoid scrutiny from the User RFC. Checkuser data may be stale by now, but I don't think it's necessary. I've blocked the Shashwat account indefinitely and Rushmi for 48 hours.--Chaser - T 07:19, 20 September 2007 (UTC)