Wikipedia:Sockpuppet investigations/Araxes TheThief

Araxes TheThief

Araxes TheThief (talk⁺ · tag · contribs · deleted contribs · logs · filter log · block user · spi block · block log · CA · CheckUser(log) · investigate · cuwiki)

Populated account categories: confirmed · suspected

For archived investigations, see Wikipedia:Sockpuppet investigations/Araxes TheThief/Archive.

03 January 2025

– This SPI case is closed and will be archived shortly by an SPI clerk or checkuser.

Suspected sockpuppets

Khassanu (talk⁺ · tag · contribs · deleted contribs · logs · filter log · block user · spi block · block log · CA · CheckUser(log) · investigate · cuwiki)
Tools: Editor interaction utility · Interaction Timeline · SPI Tools

This account seems to have evaded detection for almost a year, but it resembles this LTA very closely (please refer to previous reports for past socks' diffs):

Created 6 days after Byöeg, the latest sock, was blocked.
In their 4th edit to the mainspace, they demonstrate that they know how to use certain templates such as {{sfn}}, {{transl}}, and beyond, and correctly tackle minor details like using – instead of - for page ranges. That itself is enough to know that this account is not new, but such behavioral examples are plenty: [1][2][3]...
Their interests, especially the articles they edited in early 2024, cohere (form a continuity) with Trannoyye's edit history, who was the last blocked sock to edit extensively. Their general interest in Middle Eastern/Abrahamic religions ([4][5]) as well as others but also articles related to Oceania (Australia, New Zealand) is a unique combination that is difficult to miss: [6][7]
The articles they have edited are not limited to the aforementioned subjects but also cover Kurdish, Iranian, and Armenian-related topics: [8][9][10][11][12]... This is quite a narrow intersection of topics that all reoccur in the SPI history.
Notice how they remove or add hundreds or thousands of bytes with no edit summaries and also edit from a mobile device as all the other previous socks.

This is obviously the same person. Aintabli (talk) 05:21, 3 January 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Also feel free to ask me for further evidence, which is easy to rack up, as it has been several months since the last report. But I am fairly confident that this is too specific of a combination to be a mere coincidence. Aintabli (talk) 05:24, 3 January 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Comments by other users

Accused parties may also comment/discuss in this section below. See Defending yourself against claims.

Clerk, CheckUser, and/or patrolling admin comments

"please refer to previous reports for past socks' diffs" is a good way to ensure admins do not process cases quickly. Having clear and obvious connecting diffs in context is one of the keys to processing a case. Izno (talk) 21:29, 3 January 2025 (UTC)[reply]
Check declined by a checkuser - Data will be stale and no evidence of sleepers in the case history. Izno (talk) 21:29, 3 January 2025 (UTC)[reply]
And... I went and checked for historicals which we have, so I looked. Likely and blocked. Izno (talk) 21:51, 3 January 2025 (UTC)[reply]