Wikipedia:Requests for arbitration/Hkelkar

Case Opened on 12:26, 7 November 2006 (UTC)

Please do not edit this page directly unless you wish to become a participant in this request. (All participants are subject to Arbitration Committee decisions, and the ArbCom will consider each participant's role in the dispute.) Comments are very welcome on the Talk page, and will be read, in full. Evidence, no matter who can provide it, is very welcome at /Evidence. Evidence is more useful than comments.

Arbitrators will be working on evidence and suggesting proposed decisions at /Workshop and voting on proposed decisions at /Proposed decision.

Involved parties

• Shiva's Trident (talk · contribs) (currently indefinitely blocked for being a sockpuppet/sockpuppeteer according to Dmcdevit)
• Hkelkar (talk · contribs)
• BhaiSaab (talk · contribs)
• Blnguyen (talk · contribs · blocks · protections · deletions · page moves · rights · RfA)
• Dmcdevit (talk · contribs · blocks · protections · deletions · page moves · rights · RfA)
• Srikeit (talk · contribs · blocks · protections · deletions · page moves · rights · RfA)
• Bakasuprman (talk · contribs)
• Ikonoblast (talk · contribs) (nee Holywarrior (talk · contribs))
• TwoHorned (talk · contribs)
• TerryJ-Ho (talk · contribs) (second account after abandoning Lkadvani due to WP:USERNAME - L K Advani, current leader of Bharatiya Janata Party)
• Dbachmann (talk · contribs · blocks · protections · deletions · page moves · rights · RfA)
• Ben W Bell (talk · contribs)
• syiem (talk · contribs)
• dangerous-Boy (talk · contribs)
• Haphar (talk · contribs)
• Danianjan (talk · contribs)
• Basawala (talk · contribs)
• Hornplease (talk · contribs)
• Anwar saadat (talk · contribs)
• Nobleeagle (talk · contribs)
• Aksi_great (talk · contribs)
• RSudarshan (talk · contribs)
• DaGizza (talk · contribs)
• Bondego (talk · contribs)
• Sir Nicholas de Mimsy-Porpington (talk · contribs)
• nidhishsinghal (talk · contribs)
• Street_Scholar (talk · contribs)
• Gamesmasterg9 (talk · contribs)
• AMbroodEY (talk · contribs)

Attempts at prior dispute resolution

A MedCabal request was filed here. It may provide some useful background information.

Statement by BhaiSaab

Suspected sockpuppeteer

Shiva's Trident (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · page moves · block user · block log) formerly known as Subhash bose block log or Netaji.

Suspected sockpuppets

Hkelkar (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · page moves · block user · block log)

Evidence

Background

Shiva's Trident or Subhash bose is a confirmed sockpuppeteer who is no longer active. The confirmed sockpuppet was User:Pusyamitra_Sunga who claimed to be his brother and was indefinitely blocked after it was found that he and Shiva's Trident used the same email address. Furthermore, Shiva's Trident has used at least two IP addresses to evade his blocks. They are User:128.83.131.121 and User:128.83.131.215. Both trace to University of Texas at Austin [1] [2], and a reverse dns for each renders linux1.ph.utexas.edu and statpc1.ph.utexas.edu, respectively. On the userpage of Shiva's Trident, we can see that he attends the University of Texas at Austin.

User:128.83.131.139

During a nearly week-long block of Shiva's Trident that was instated on August 21st, another IP (User:128.83.131.139) began editing on August 22nd. This IP later claimed to be a person by the name of Hrishi or Hrishikesh Kelkar. The IP traces to the University of Texas at Austin and a reverse dns of the IP renders twist.ph.utexas.edu. In addition, I found it odd that this IP was familiar with Wikipedia terminology from his very first edit, was comfortable enough to issue warnings after only two days on Wikipedia (to a user who Shiva's Trident has quarreled with many times in the past), and edited the very same articles that Shiva's Trident was editing before his block had begun. Hkelkar and Shiva's Trident maintain that they had previous conversations about Wikipedia before he began editing here.

I filed a sockpuppetry case for this IP and the admin recommended that I add it to an already pending request for checkuser involving user Shiva's Trident. During this time, Hkelkar and Shiva's Trident also had a conversation on IRC with some Wikipedia admins to demonstrate that they were two different users. The log of the conversation shows that Shiva's Trident was typing from 66.68.106.162 (tracing to a Road Runner IP in Austin) and Hkelkar, or hrishi, was typing from twist.ph.utexas.edu. The result of the checkuser was inconclusive.

User:Hkelkar

Hkelkar was later involved in another sockpuppetry case filed by User:TerryJ-Ho, who also suspected him of being a sockpuppet for several reasons. I presented much of the evidence I discussed under User:128.83.131.139 at that case as well. During this sockpuppetry case, Hkelkar maintained that although Shiva's Trident had edited from 128.83.131.215 and 128.83.131.121, he would not edit from 128.83.131.139 because "would never come below the 8th floor of the RLM building at UT so he wouldn't access twist." Twist, as I've found out is a remote computational Linux machine, and like many of the other computers in the Physics department of the University of Texas, the students "can connect to any of the general-purpose Physics machines remotely via SSH." I maintain that this is how Shiva's Trident and Hkelkar used two different IP's concurrently both on Wikipedia and the IRC discussion. Shiva's Trident would access twist remotely from another computer on campus or the Road Runner IP. Hkelkar has been the subject of his own request for checkuser, the outcome of which was that it was likely that Shiva's Trident and Hkelkar are the same user.

I have quite a lot more evidence to add that shows that they are indeed the same person, but my statement is somewhat long already.

What I'm requesting here is that the Arbitration Committee look into this case of sockpuppetry and disruption by Hkelkar/Shiva's Trident/Subhash bose and make a conclusive decision on whether or not they are indeed the same person. There are some admins who believe they are, while others do not. User:Dmcdevit has recently blocked Shiva's Trident because he has found further evidence that there is sockpuppetry involved here, and he has advised me to take this case to the arbitration committee because it has already been the subject of mediations, several sockpuppetry cases, and two requests for checkuser. BhaiSaab ^talk 23:23, 29 October 2006 (UTC)

Note: Some of the parties above were not added by me. BhaiSaab ^talk 02:47, 30 October 2006 (UTC)

Statement by Hkelkar

• Please also look at the following discussions where I have posted the things that I have to say regarding this absurd matter:

1. Wikipedia:Requests_for_checkuser/Case/Hkelkar
2. Wikipedia_talk:Requests_for_checkuser/Case/Hkelkar

In particular, the posts by two admins addressed to me expressing their conclusion that I am not socking [3][4] Hkelkar 23:39, 29 October 2006 (UTC) Also, see this where we were involved prior to his filing this request.Hkelkar 23:45, 29 October 2006 (UTC)

• Regarding this ridiculous claim of me "SSH'ing" to a UT computer from home, I'm sure that anyone who is familiar with co-axial broadband technology knows that uptime bandwidths are significantly lower than downtime bandwidths. Thus, if I am to SSH to a remote machine from a roadrunner connection (which used coaxial broadband) and run graphics applications, the lag time will be so significant that any practical use is virtually impossible. The only way to do it is to use a dedicated client/server system where a direct remote connection to the machine's slave server software (such as direct X access over ethernet) etc can be done. If you will run a port scan on the machine, you will see that no such service is listening in on eth0 or any external network interface. plus, it is only a sensible admin policy to not allow such dangerous services to out-of-lan users.Hkelkar 23:50, 29 October 2006 (UTC)

• In addition, there is no such thing as a "remote only" machine.Any networked machine can be accessed both locally and remotely.I have no need to do the latter as my home PC is powerful enough for my purposes and to suggest that I would use such elaborate and convoluted methods of subterfuge is, quite frankly, paranoid.Hkelkar 00:00, 30 October 2006 (UTC)

Let me also add that BhaiSaab has had a long history of stalking my edits, baiting me with politicized and anti-semitic statements and constantly edit-warring on several articles which I have been editing. He was blocked for making antisemitic comments [5], plus he has been warned several times by admins to cease and desist harassing me like in this case [6][7]Hkelkar 00:46, 30 October 2006 (UTC)

• In addition, if you peruse the history page of the following articles:

1. http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Indian_caste_system&action=history specifically these:[8],[9],[10]

[11]

1. http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Bajrang_Dal&limit=500&action=history specifically these:[12],[13]

you will notice a propensity for BhaiSaab to violate WP:STALK and engage in disruptive edit-warring.

• Concerning TerryJ-Ho below, he has routinely attacked my Jewishness [14][15][16] and has constantly harassed me about it [17]. He has been repeatedly incivil to me [18] and been warned by an admin to desist this line of harassment [19].If more information is desired, I will assemble a case during the RfA process.Hkelkar 02:37, 30 October 2006 (UTC)
• Plus, I have not even heard of some of these "involved users" above.Hkelkar 02:43, 30 October 2006 (UTC)
• Regarding Dmcdevits claim of a "long block log" below, the claim is highly misleading as several of the blocks were quickly reversed as they were given erroneously (see the log yourselves). Plus, Bhaisaab has a far longer block log that has been filling up well before I got here [20].
• Regarding DBachmann below,I thank him for his dispassionate analysis. I have freely admitted (per BhaiSaab's link to the irc session above) that I am personally acquainted with user Shiva's Trident. However, I feel that I have done a better job of being dispassionate in my edits than he has been so I believe I have met DBachmann's criteria for scholastic objectivity.Please see this for a summary of my views and Dbachmann's most recent post in this matter attesting to his original conclusion tht I am not a sockpuppet [21] despite the off-wiki attempts of User:aksi great to skew his views against me .Hkelkar 09:37, 30 October 2006 (UTC)
• Regarding User:TwoHorned and his accusations below, I invite you to this page, where I have detailed my reasons to suspect him.Hkelkar 19:42, 30 October 2006 (UTC)
• Regarding User:aksi_great's most recent post claiming "conclusive evidence" of my alleged sockpuppetry,I would like for him to send me this "evidence" that he has been circulating around so that I may be able to compose a case concerning ti. Obviously, it cannot be as solid as he portrays it below as DBachmann still agrees that I am not a sock. Since I am not one, it follows that there clearly is a reasonable explanation for all of aksi great's data. If he is so confident that the information is damning then why does he not send it to me to my email address as listed in the wikipedia interface?I posit that he has not done so because he may be aware that his case is weaker than he lets on.In fact, he communicated to me that his conclusion is based on one page on yahoo which had Triden't email and my present USERID (not email as aksi great misleadingly posts below), which is hardly surprising considering I was running out of userids to choose from and simply copied Trident's, since I have known him for some time and he won't mind.Hkelkar 09:35, 31 October 2006 (UTC)

Statement by TerryJ-Ho

While this editor may well hide behind technology,I would rather take into consideration - a pattern on working with similar articles with same tone and same language.The very first misuse of the WP when Subhash posed as Pussyamitra Sunga was identified by me[22] on the basis of his language initially and am not wrong on this account here again.

I have noted a certain continuity of for example use of phrase "bear in mind" - Subhash Bose against "bear in mind" - Hkelkar- while I have given several examples before in the RFCU's.Working with people I know that everyone's language is different and people are prone to use similar words inadverdently.

As Subhash Bose he denied the suspected sock Pussyamitra Sunga was a sock - saying that both were brothers.That case was nailed on account of an email sent through the same account rather than a simple Check User or admission from him.

IMHO this person's edits so far satisfy completely as can be seen in the edit history.all the characterstics of SockpupetsTerryJ-Ho 01:06, 30 October 2006 (UTC)

Note: As in the case of Netaji - User: Bakaman is always seen in to support User:Kelkar.Secondly, they both are prone to raking up past histories rather than remaining on the plane of discussion, for which I have repeatedly warned.[23]

It is an established practice on the part of Shiva's trident,HKelkar and Bakasuprman to call other users "Anti-Hindu" - this being also used against the independent sources whose writings they do not agree.On the other hand they try to present writers with Hindutva leanings as neutral.After a recent block on Hkelkar - Bakaman reacted thus

The HKelkar avatar has been trying to present himself as Jewish or Jew.A different version of the sequence of talks is available on my talk page.He has actively participated in the discussion on his own free will, even though some of his claims are difficult to absorb...say for example asking me not to call him Jew but Jewish at the same time using the same term himself.

Given their propensity to mix up serious issues of gaming the system with historical acounts of interactions with other users that they see in the context of Anti-X,Y,Z.These issues should not be mixed here but handled separately TerryJ-Ho 07:51, 30 October 2006 (UTC)

I have added a few users above as they had extensive experience on working with eithr HKelkar or his suspected socks.TerryJ-Ho 08:00, 30 October 2006 (UTC)

• I have a question - Is a machine IP the only way to prove one to be sockpuppet?Dbachmann's views rather put in question the informed decision taken by Dmcevit to block Shiva's Trident's account.At this point the question should not be whether Shiva's trident is a sockpuppet but to find if that is a disruptive sockpuppetTerryJ-Ho

• HKelkar resorts to flagrant lying to discredit the other users and this is serious in itself.

• He - like Subhash Bose uses the same craft of communication with other users.If he is facing a prospect of ban will write messages on other user's talk pages discrediting the other party and gain their comments like "bad faith comment" from the usual symapthetic users.Bakaman fully supports him almost always like he used to do for Kelkar's - Shiva's Trident account.This is in part to influence admins and other unsuspecting editors TerryJ-Ho 18:08, 31 October 2006 (UTC)

• This does not concern this case though,I take objection to their usual reference to Anti-Hindu - I have not found this attitude in other users of respectful stature who are also of Hindu religion and who do at one time or other edit Hinduism or India related articles.TerryJ-Ho 18:08, 31 October 2006 (UTC)

• Regarding Sir Nicholas comments below: HKelkar's self confessed religion comes into play because he harks of it and not on our own initiatives TerryJ-Ho 18:08, 31 October 2006 (UTC)

• I would advise editors not to take heed of religion type edits from Hkelkar while I fail to understand why such type of edit summaries should be used.TerryJ-Ho 18:36, 31 October 2006 (UTC)

Statement by Bakasuprman

Note - Statement totally reworded from previous ones.Bakaman _Bakatalk 02:46, 2 November 2006 (UTC)

This is merely one in a series of attacks initiated by users with little to contribute to Wikipedia. Please also look at Wikipedia:Requests_for_checkuser/Case/Subhash_bose for other evidence. In fact go look at Wikipedia:Suspected_sock_puppets/Bakasuprman initiated by TerryJ-Ho's fellow user User:Geek1975. BhaiSaab is up with User:Subhash_bose (the old name of User:Shiva's Trident) in the number of blocks garnered. He has 9 blocks himself and a very diverse block log.

A user below has talked of a "beehive" of editors. If that was true, Wikipedia would be full of beehives and certain users themselves would be part of some nest. My use of "Reincarnation" was for a checkuser that some user harrassed me over where my suspicions were proven of 3RR gaming by a user. Dbachmann (talk · contribs) has got into hot water for racism [24] and has been apt to call names and make personal attacks [25]. In response to "helping the encyclopedia" - I created over 60+ articles, 20+ cats and have 5 DYK's. When Hornplease (talk · contribs) talks about "fringe ideologies" does he mean Hindutva (professed by a majority of Hindus in India, and an ultramajority outside)?. If nothing the ideology he professes (Pseudo-secularism) is a fringe ideology , albeit more assertive and at the moment, powerful.Bakaman _Bakatalk 02:46, 2 November 2006 (UTC)

Terry should read up on leopards. Also, I apologized to both Aksi_great and Sir Nick. I have never had problems with aksi before his block, and I never interacted with nick.`Bakaman _Bakatalk 03:30, 6 November 2006 (UTC)

Statement by Dmcdevit

I'll have to recuse for being the blocking party, so here's my rationale. I'm not anti-Hindu and, despite the conspiracies by Bakasuprman above, this block was based solely upon technical evidence. I performed the checkuser at Wikipedia:Requests for checkuser/Case/Hkelkar, and determined that since Hkelkar and Subhash bose were both editing from the University of Texas, and the same articles with similar behavior, it was a likely case of sockpuppetry. He, of course, claimed they were two different people at UT that know each other well. Subhash bose (now named Shiva's Trident) stopeed editing soon after and no one blocked. However, after being given further evidence by email by another administrator, which, based on a google search of their two email IDs, which both connected to one real University of Texas person, connected the two, I decided to just block. I told BhaiSaab to take the case against Hkelkar (main acount) here. He has a long block log [26] for edit warring and other disruption, and was unresponsive to my own warning not very long ago. ArbCom should accept the case. Dmcdevit·t 02:59, 30 October 2006 (UTC)

Statement by Dbachmann

It is not my impression that Hkelkar is a sockpuppet of anyone. In general, it is difficult to distinguish sock from meatpuppets in this area, since we are looking at a group of editors with similar backgrounds and aims who communicate off-wiki. I referred to this as the "Bose-Singh continuum" after two of the most notorious trolls / sock artists, and, again, it is not my impression that Hkelkar is part of it. At some point, Wikipedia should simply not care to establish if one particular account is a sock of another, but treat accounts which show "hivemind" characteristics as 'effective' socks. If the arbcom is going to look into this, they should take the opportunity to review Bakasuprman (talk · contribs) who may not be an actual sock (although this edit suggests otherwise), but who is certainly part of the 'continuum' and who with his raving paranoia of "anti-Hindu cabals" certainly isn't helping the project [27] dab (ᛏ) 08:14, 30 October 2006 (UTC)

Aksi great (talk · contribs) has emailed me some intriguing factoids, suggesting that Hkelkar may be personally acquainted with the sock artists of the 'continuum' at least. What saddens me in particular is that they seem to be based at the physics department of an American university. Being from a physics background myself, I tend to hope that physicists are detached, rational intellects, not immature zealots wallowing in puerile deception, but I know of course that this is a naive generalisation :\ I would recommend to these editors that they just once and for all state their real life identity, as I do myself, and edit honestly and honourably. Wikipedia is an encyclopedia, not a community game. dab (ᛏ) 08:45, 30 October 2006 (UTC)

Statement by TwoHorned

My conclusion to recent events involving Hkelkar is that the degree of confidence that Hkelkar and Shiva'sTrident (alias Netaji) being sockpuppets is high.

• In his user page, Shiva's Trident (alias Netaji) describes himself as a PhD student at the University of Texas working in a specific subdomain of Statistical Physics.

• There is effectively a PhD student, whose name is H. Kelkar, at the University of Texas, working in the same specialized domain of Statistical Physics as the previous one. I'll provide the link on admin's request.

• In connection to the previous point, user Hkelkar says himself that Kelkar is his real name: [28], and, during a conversation with me on a talk page, he admitted to be a physicist: [29].

• Hkelkar develops a curious pattern of accusing people he disagrees with of antisemitism, without ever giving any substantiation. In the following evidence, he levelled that accusation against me: [30]. Note that the accusation was levelled just because I used the term "neocon" in a discussion page. I mentionned sometimes the word "neocon" in some wikipedia articles I edited (for instance [31], [32], [33], [34] three of them are in french) but they never contain any antisemitic allegation, and I explained that to Hkelkar in my talk page [35]. I also took the time to make Hkelkar see that this word "neocon" was used in the Wikipedia article on Neoconservatism many times without triggering any accusation of antisemitism. I repeatedly asked him to substantiate his point (for instance [36]). He never did, and never provided any quotation, for obvious reasons. In his user page [37], Shiva'sTrident introduces himself as a neocon, and the self-proclamed political affiliations of that user in the same page make the connection with the sockpuppetry case clear.

• Above in this request for arbitration Hkelkar is repeating once again the same accusation; you can see how it backs my point: if you read the translations, you'll notice that I never use terms like "Jewish conspiracy" which are put forward by Hkelkar to depict these edits, instead I describe some right-wing parties or organizations, some of them being Israeli or from other countries, without suggesting any antisemitic connotation: there are extremist right-wingers everywhere, in France, Israel, North or South America, India etc. Incidentally, Hkelkar never got me blocked on that ground. Regarding my quotation on Michelle Malkin provided by Hkelkar above, I was writing that Michelle Malkin is a right-wing journalist, and I guess I'm not the only one saying that, and this is not antisemitism anyway; that quotation occurred in an edit (see [38] where you can see the link) in which I was just pointing a particular humoristic website [39] not suspect of antisemitism in any form. And regarding the link provided about my edit in the Ibn Warraq article [40], I was just providing evidence, using the Internet Archive Engine, that the ISIS web site once featured a link to a right-wing political party that has been banned in Israel since. As you can read by yourself here [41] there is nowhere any mention of a so-called "Jewish conspiracy", neither there nor in any edit I've ever done. In his user page, user Hkelkar presents a future on-going project of his own called User TwoHorned and Anti-Semitism that links currently to the previous page mentionned above.

• Also please take note of the gracious parlance used by Hkelkar in some of his edit summaries (an example: [42]) or to describe some parties involved in this case [43], and the help he asks in that latter link from another user to back these accusations of antisemitism suddenly lost by him.

• Admin Blnguyen (talk · contribs · blocks · protections · deletions · page moves · rights · RfA) has suggested that the case is ready for arbitration level [44].

TwoHorned 21:37, 1 November 2006 (UTC)

Statement by Aksi_great

I have been involved in this case since October 25, the day on which I blocked Hkelkar for personal attacks on TerryJ-Ho. Following the incident, Hkelkar sent me a mail from an email address which is also used by User:Shiva's Trident. I believe that the evidence which I have linking the two mail ids, along with the checkuser, proves beyond doubt that User:Hkelkar and User:Shiva's Trident are the same users. On getting the evidence, I shared it with a few other admins (Dmcdevit, Blnguyen and Srikeit) - all of whom supported my conclusion that it was a case of sockpuppetry. This was followed by a block by Dmcdevit on Shiva's Trident as a sock of Hkelkar. The evidence which I have contains a lot of personal information about Hkelkar/Shiva's Trident and that is the only reason I have been sending it to involved admins off-wiki. Hkelkar then asked me to share the information with admins Dbachmann and Ben W Bell, which I immediately did. Hence I find allegations by hkelkar - "off-wiki attempts of User:aksi great to skew his views against me" - to be unjustified. I have not attempted to "skew" anyone's mind. I will mail the evidence to the ArbCom if and when they take up this case (or even before that if they want to see it). I urge ArbCom to take up this case not only to come to a decision about this sockpuppetry, but also to bring an end to the disruption caused by many users on both sides. The number of articles and users being affected by this issue is increasing daily. Also please note that I have exams coming from 1 November and will be unavailable till 15 November. If anyone wants to contact me regarding this case, then please leave a message with User:Srikeit. - Aksi_great (talk) 08:00, 31 October 2006 (UTC)

Statement by Sir Nicholas

I have been partially involved in this fiasco since sometime, and after some abuses, full-protections and some harried admin – here we are now. Here's what I think of the matter (and I would only be commenting on those whom I have had interactions with) —

• Hkelkar and BhaiSaab — I have seen these users' contribs and what I derieve out of it is that both of them harbour horrible POV-biases and would revert-war endlessly with each other without providing reliable sources and without any discussions on the talk page. And in case, someone tries to initiate discussions, they end up getting blocked for personal attacks and 3RR breaches.

• Many articles ended up being fully protected (incl. Indian caste system, 2002 Gujarat violence). Other editors were deterred from editing the articles because of these wars.
• Both Hkelkar and BhaiSaab have been "fighting" in the name of "religion" and have been overly-provocative.
• It is quite evident from their editing that they are not interested in discussions, but only in disruption, revert-warring and name-calling. I propose that they be put on civility and revert-parole for a long duration; because their mutual-aggression is in no way going to be productive for Wikipedia.

• Hkelkar and Shiva's Trident — I have kept a watch over both the accounts and I feel that they are the same person, however most of the evidence presented here is not convincing enough. However, Hkelkar's defence here is not potent either, there are many ways to use sockpuppets, where evidence cannot be conclusively derived from checkuser but by the means of similarities in contributions.

• TerryJ-Ho and BhaiSaab have engaged into discussions regarding the religion of Hkelkar, which I frankly believe is disruptive (and harassment to Hkelkar). Wikipedia has got nothing to do with religion and beliefs, but everything with reliable sources and verifiability.

• Dbachmann — Regarding your comments, I do not doubt your intentions for once – but they are impotent and do not follow logically. — Nearly Headless Nick ^{L} 17:01, 31 October 2006 (UTC)

Statement by Syiem

On Hkelkar I do not believe he is a sock puppet or a puppet master of anyone. Hkelkar is a very learned user and an accomplished editor. Wikipedia is a powerful medium and many people want to abuse it to propogate hate speach. Users like Hkelkar are an important balancing force. I admire his (Hkelkar's) courage to confront such arrogant POV pushers. I think he deserves to be honoured for the amazing work he has been doing on Wikipedia.

On Wikipedia:Sock_puppetry in general, I think it is by far the most widely abused policy on wikipedia. I have myself been accused] of being a sock puppet of Subash Bose on very similar grounds. And, there is no dearth of trigger happy admins on wikipedia just raring to press the block button. I was instantly blocked. The RFCU later proved the accusation to be bogus. Just because two people share the same views on a subject and and willing to support each other does not mean that they are sock puppets.

Statement by Hornplease

I have been asked for my comments on this user. The accusations above are twofold: (a) sockpuppetry and (b) disruption. About the sockpuppetry, I interacted often with Netaji, who now calls himself Siva's Trident, and after his disappearance with HKelkar. I have stated earlier that Netaji's patterns of speech and editing were not obvious in HKelkar's editing. The latter's edit summaries, while as incivil and insulting as the former's, tended to avoid the comic-book German that Netaji employed; Nazi references, were, however, thrown around with equal gay abandon, though that is of course inconclusive. Not detecting as many "mein freund"s, I had thus assumed they were two different people. The fact that there are two Indians at the same physics department in Austin with identical fringe political beliefs and a degree of sympathy and (popular-press) information about what are, in India, relatively unknown currents of thought - such as Zionism - I put down to a very strange coincidence. If they are in fact sharing the same email address, that may be pushing coincidence too far.

I do continue to wonder why, though. Netaji was blocked, sure, but it wasnt an indefblock. To completely shift accounts seems strange. Why wouldnt a sockmaster just return to his primary account once the block on it was lifted? Needs explanation.

About (b) disruption, what I could say and will say diverge. I support DBachmann above in noting that these two (?) users, along with two or three others, have, with fantastic energy, succeeded in reducing a large number of articles to sprawling POV-wars, have introduced biases and distortions to WP templates, have knowingly, repeatedly, violated the spirit and frequently the letter of WP policy. They quote selectively, they mis-cite. On one 'side' are HKelkar, Netaji, and Bakasuprman; on the other are Holywarrior and one or two others. I have focussed more on the former than the latter because of their greater energy and their willingness to tag-team other editors with mis-citations. The frequent use of the utter neologism 'anti-Hindu' as an adjective, and the complex of articles with marginal, POV-y references that have been built up around that are but a single example. I realised that too much of my time was going in keeping these editors from spreading vitriol over article pages; every comment in my direction was dismissive and incivil; my position of attempted neutrality was repeatedly stated to be biased, as was any editor who attempted to mediate.

When (1) I realised that too much of my time on WP was wasted on such unproductive POV-warriors (2) I tired of continual incivility and reversion-on-sight of any of my careful mediatory suggestions and (3) I came to the conclusion that WP was incapable of standing up for itself and telling these people where they get off, I lost faith in the project altogether. I have a thousand or so edits in the couple of weeks leading up to the 14th of October, and none thereafter. That is entirely thanks to these editors. I dont know who else they've done this to. If that's disruption, then they, starting with HKelkar, are disruptive. Hornplease 10:12, 1 November 2006 (UTC)

Statement by Nobleeagle

This is no case of sockpuppetry and that is what disturbs me most about this debate. If Hkelkar is indeed the same as Shiva's Trident, what does it have to do with the way Wikipedia is working? Shiva's Trident left long ago, with a bad impression amongst some users who did not share his political views. Shiva's Trident and Hkelkar aren't stacking votes, aren't evading 3RR, aren't doing anything that makes sockpuppetry bad. They don't even appear on the same pages and POV-Push. I believe Hkelkar and Shiva's Trident aren't the same people and I believe regardless of whether they are or are not the same people, Hkelkar can do more work in a week than what I can do in a month, and he is thus an asset to Wikipedia. Even if they were the same people, with such a troublesome first impression, even I would've started anew, again, they have not ganged up in POV-disputes, Shiva's Trident and Hkelkar have done nothing wrong.

Ever since Hkelkar entered Wikipedia, he pitched himself into disputes with a number of different editors. These include Bhaisaab, Ikonoblast, Hornplease, Terry-J-Ho, Basawala and a number of others. These users have attempted to get him blocked numerous times, as with his blocking there would be less conflict and more POV-pushing. Some of the users above do not care about exposing sockpuppeteers, they care about their POV interests and want Hkelkar out of the picture for these reasons. I suggest the commitee take a look into all these issues between these groups of users. There are several subtle undertones in this case and they are related to his POV. Why are so many people going on about (in talk pages) whether Hkelkar is Jewish or Hindu? What does it matter to this case? This is just an example of the true disputes these users have and they have nothing to do with sockpuppetry.

I may cop a bit of flak for this and a large portion of my above comments have nothing to do with sockpuppetry, which is (meant to be) the topic of this case. But taking any action on Hkelkar will disturb the balance of NPOV on Wikipedia. What Hornplease says is a fringe political view (this view would have to be Hindutva as that is what Bakasuprman and Hkelkar have aligned themselves with) is not fringe (with possibly over 300 million like-minded people) and is treated with immense bias on Wikipedia by those who are against the view. This case has been created by those who wish to continue this bias. Nobleeagle ^[TALK] [C] 05:44, 2 November 2006 (UTC)

Statement by non-editing administrator Blnguyen

I think that this case extends beyond simple sockpuppetry, because the heart of the matter is general foul play and suspected POV-pushing that appears to prevalent in the area of Indian religious politics. Although I have no personal connection nor understanding of this conflict, content problems can be at times the furthest thing from one's mind when and outsider is looking in, because, as can be seen, I have four personal archives dedicated to the matter (User_talk:Blnguyen/Archive13, User_talk:Blnguyen/Archive16, User_talk:Blnguyen/Archive17, User_talk:Blnguyen/Archive19), primarily littered with accusations and counter-accusations by the parties. Many hundreds of templated warnings have been exchanged, often with dubious claims of "vandalism", "defamation", casual allegations of sockpuppetry, claims of religiously motivated hatchet jobs and bigotry and a few parties have been blocked for engaging in warning-warring. Aside from that many of the parties have been blocked multiple times for personal attacks, incivility, 3RR, and have been frequently present at WP:PAIN - a few WP:MEDCAB complaints have been lodged - if it were not for the general aggressive conduct in this realm of editing, then many of the parties may have served penalties 3-4 times longer. Aside from that there have been many page protections arising from edit wars such as

1. 17:12, 18 October 2006 Sir Nicholas de Mimsy-Porpington (Talk | contribs | block) protected Indian caste system (edit war [edit=sysop:move=sysop])
2. 13:42, 17 October 2006 Steel359 (Talk | contribs | block) protected Indian caste system (Edit warring [edit=sysop:move=sysop])
3. 03:01, 9 October 2006 Blnguyen (Talk | contribs | block) protected Bajrang Dal (edit warring again [edit=sysop:move=sysop])
4. 05:24, 4 October 2006 Blnguyen (Talk | contribs | block) protected Pakistani nationalism (edit-warring - I don't see any vandalism.. [edit=sysop:move=sysop])
5. 10:02, 11 October 2006 Konstable (Talk | contribs | block) protected Udit Raj (enough edit warring [edit=sysop:move=sysop])
6. 02:12, 11 September 2006 Blnguyen (Talk | contribs | block) protected Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (edit-waring.......again [edit=sysop:move=sysop])
7. 01:23, 11 September 2006 Blnguyen (Talk | contribs | block) protected Bajrang Dal (revert warring [edit=sysop:move=sysop])
8. 18:53, 3 September 2006 Srikeit (Talk | contribs | block) protected Atal Bihari Vajpayee (Revert-warring [edit=sysop:move=sysop])
9. 01:13, 31 August 2006 Blnguyen (Talk | contribs | block) protected Kancha Ilaiah (edit-warring [edit=sysop:move=sysop])
10. 22:59, 28 August 2006 Woohookitty (Talk | contribs | block) protected User talk:Subhash bose (protecting for a third time. they just keep sniping and sniping [edit=autoconfirmed:move=autoconfirmed])
11. 08:26, 26 August 2006 Woohookitty (Talk | contribs | block) protected User talk:Subhash bose (more arguments. let's keep this protected for 2-3 days [edit=sysop:move=sysop])
12. 09:01, 22 August 2006 Blnguyen (Talk | contribs | block) protected User talk:Subhash bose (stopping unnecessary arguments between blocked user and foes [edit=sysop:move=sysop])
13. 09:01, 22 August 2006 Blnguyen (Talk | contribs | block) protected User talk:Subhash bose (stopping unnecessary arguments between blocked user and foes [edit=sysop:move=sysop])
14. 04:46, 21 August 2006 Blnguyen (Talk | contribs | block) protected Khalistan (revert warring [edit=sysop:move=sysop])
15. 02:26, 21 August 2006 Blnguyen (Talk | contribs | block) protected Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (edit-warring [edit=sysop:move=sysop])
16. 08:53, 15 August 2006 Blnguyen (Talk | contribs | block) protected Upanishad (edit warring [edit=sysop:move=sysop])
17. 02:45, 19 July 2006 Blnguyen (Talk | contribs | block) protected Bal Thackeray (ip socks causing a mess [edit=autoconfirmed:move=autoconfirmed]) - see Wikipedia:Requests for checkuser/Case/Anwar saadat
18. 02:44, 19 July 2006 Blnguyen (Talk | contribs | block) protected Ram Janmabhoomi (likley IP socks of blocked editor making a mess [edit=autoconfirmed:move=autoconfirmed]) - see Wikipedia:Requests for checkuser/Case/Anwar saadat
19. 02:43, 19 July 2006 Blnguyen (Talk | contribs | block) protected Manu Smriti (likely sock IPs making a mess [edit=autoconfirmed:move=autoconfirmed]) - see Wikipedia:Requests for checkuser/Case/Anwar saadat
20. 08:52, 9 July 2006 Voice of All (Talk | contribs | block) protected Babri Mosque (Users engaging in edit warring. [edit=sysop:move=sysop])

In particular note that a talk page had to be locked three times to stop trash talk from a blocked user and his sparring partners. There are probably more page protects that some other guys did, which I don't recall or know of. Aside from that, there were a few religious slurs thrown about. I feel that a thorough examination of the ARTICLE CONTENT submitted by the parties is also in order while we are at it, because we have not yet even got past the principles of harmonious editing yet. Blnguyen (bananabucket) 06:51, 2 November 2006 (UTC)

Statement by Srikeit

Most of what I could say has been already mentioned in Aksi_great, Blnguyen, Dmcdevit and Sir Nick in their statements. I would just like to add that apart from the disruptive editing habits of Hkelkar, BhaiSaab and co, their constant verbal battles, insults and heated exchanges [45] [46], [47] [48]. have created an atmosphere of hostility and unnecessary tension among several editors. I urge the Arbitration committee to accept this case to deliver a binding decision to this fiasco. --Srikeit ^{(Talk | Email)} 20:56, 2 November 2006 (UTC)

Statement by Basawala

I have been involved with Hkelkar almost right after his account was created. He seemed to be a profuse editor, but he seemed to be rather hostile to a number of different editors, including me. I acted very civil to him, but he made rather extreme accusations against me. I have expressively stated many times that I have no intention of getting him blocked, only of reporting instances of personal attacks that disrupt the atmosphere of Wikipedia that is intended to be friendly. As for whether he is or is not a sockpuppet of Netaji, I think he could be a sockpuppet. Technological evidence seems to support that as Dmcdevit has provided. I think the similarities between behavior are quite strong but not enough proof at least alone. It does seem strange that both users claim to know each other, just with the other proven case of Netaji's sockpuppetry. And as for the Indian political-religious conflict, I do think both sides should act more civil as this helps Wikipedia's atmosphere greatly. Mar de Sin ^{Speak up!} 22:47, 2 November 2006 (UTC)

Statement by Ben W Bell

I have been asked to provide a statement and input into this case. I have had dealings with the user in question several times over the last couple of months, mainly intervening in disruptions caused on articles he was working on (not necessarily due to Hleklar's influence) that have gotten messy and I put myself in as an independant arbitrator to try and sort the issues out as they were getting very nasty involving some other users. In that time I have looked at his edits and saw no reason to suspect him of sockpuppetry. Now I have been sent other evidence since that puts things in a more damning light, but as has been mentioned before there has never been a secret of the fact that he attends university with some of the other users mentioned above, and I'd found sufficient differences in his edits and speak patterns to make me believe he wasn't a sock puppet. The new evidence does muddy the waters a little I agree but I haven't been able to come to a firm judgement to believe he is definitely a sockpuppet, I am a firm believer in innocent until proven guilty beyond reasonable doubt. I put forward an undecided opinion, but am open minded enough to see any evidence on both sides, as long as I don't get drawn back into old schoolyard antics and screaming to mother as has happened on my talk page before. One thing that makes me sway towards innocence is his edits counts, though over a very short period. Ben W Bell talk 08:34, 1 November 2006 (UTC)

Statement by --D-Boy 03:23, 6 November 2006 (UTC)

Just another form of harassment and religious persecution by BhaiSaab. Helkar is a good editor who may get a little hot headed at time. BhaiSaab repeatedly molests Helkar because idealogical differences. BhaiSaab is making wikipedia a worse place with these repeated RFA. Someone should ban BhaiSaab.--D-Boy 03:23, 6 November 2006 (UTC)

Statement by nids(♂)

I am here just to request the Arb-com members to see that this case [clearly] is not just about sockpuppetry. Infact, nothing associated with bad sockpuppeteering has been done which would have helped the named user (like vote stacking, or 3rr evasions.)

I also urge the arbcom to not get carried away by Quote mining. It is something that proves even Darwin was a creationist :). I accept that Hkelkar was incivil on occasions, but only when he was provocated. If you follow his contributions from the beginning, you can easily infer that he was extremely civil even on occasions where most others (including me) would have easily lost their cool. He is a great contributor to wiki and all his contributions are closely referenced through the published works. (At wiki, we care for the references and not the truth). I also request the senior members to take into account the kind of controvertial articles he has contributed to. Please remember that its easy to expand a simple electronics article but its much harder to do so in a disputed article where there are users hell bent on their POV (without references 'course). Somebody has to do the dirty job, and it was Hkelkar this time. Please dont take any decision which could affect the morale of good editors. Thanks.

I will give further input as the case proceeds.nids(♂) 21:02, 10 November 2006 (UTC)

Statement By Street Scholar

I wasn't going to get involved in this, however Hkelkar has accused me of so many things I believe I have to get involved now. I've already mentioned some thing on the talk-page of this article so I will just copy those here and elaborate a little further if necessary.

Cheema Article

Actually, I was editing the Cheema article and Hkelkar and he started littering the topic with {{dubious}} and {{cn}} tags you can see the talk this section particular also see this section he also never responded here after I proved the books exist. He also accused me of Personal attacks I asked him to provide evidence but he never didsee here he also claims he went to the university of Texas I have proof for this claim I can provide it at the request of the admins, further there was a issue on a book, and the book is called: "History of the Jats by Ram Sarup Joon" he said this book doesn't exist, but I can prove him wrong the book is right here: Harvard University Library) so accusations about that he has made against me are wrong about misrepresenting sources.

Raja Sahasi II article

Recently, I created the Raja Sahasi II article, and this is what he did too it Diff you can clearly see he removed a section of text there. About the the oppression of the poor Jatts had suffered under racist Hindu caste system. This is how the article was when I had finished working on it diff now I have just gone and fixed the article and used the most authentic source and that is the Chah Nama and here is the fixed article diff now doubt soon Hkelkar will find a way to destroy the article.

Anti Semitic comment and calling me a racist

In another article, I was in a debate with a another user called idleguy and on the talk page I was trying to prove a point. diff do try to look at this in context i.e by reading the whole debate I was having with idleguy. Anyway, he (Hkelkar) wasn't even in the debate so came and went with that comment to a Bengali admin and told him about my comment and said I was being racist toward Bengali's diff why couldn't he go to a none Bengali admin about that comment. I've been accused of (well I have been) MISOGYNISTIC and been banned for those comments, yet I've been to two female admins to take a look into an article. He deliberately went to a Bengali admin to have "biased" opinion on his side. And even so my comment was not even racist, how is stating facts make you a racist?

So anyway he also tells the admin I've been anti-Semitic and he links to this comment here how is that anti Semitic?

This is what I said: "...Wait a second, didn't you say you were a Indian Jew to me one time? so the ethnic slurs toward the Arabs would make sense" I don't understand how is that Anti Semitic? he was the one that used the ethnic slur "the old Ay-Rabs" if thats not being racist then what is?

P.S, Hkelkar, nice one below not everyone has the memory of a goldfish, you still haven't proved how I was Anti Semitic? why you went to a Bengali admin why you said the book never existed when it did? dude you just need to give it up and take it like a man I made misogynistic comments, I will admit were I was wrong. I don't deny some claims, if Ive said it I will admit to it. You just need to admit to it. You need to take it like a real man now. You know how the old saying goes? "don't do the crime if you can't do the time" I have neber made personal attacks on you I wouldn't have even got involved in this, but it was dishonorable for you to go to a Bengali admin because I made a factual statement about Bengali's. Of course he isn't going to like it, but thats the truth. So now you're a Baghdadi Jew? don't think I am stupid, because I am a Punjabi you need to learn something from our culture, you need to admit to it and take it like a man. You made an ethic slur against the Arabs, if you didn't do that then I wouldn't have said that and how was that against all Jews? I was talking about you, why would an Arab make a derogatory remark about himself not that I have some great love for the Arabs or anything then I said it make sense anyway my girlfriend is Jewish so I really must be a racist. Furthermore, like I told you not everyone has a memory of a goldfish, why did you say the book never existed? lets see what kind of verbal acrobatics you do to get out of this one.

--StreetScholar 23:51, 10 November 2006 (UTC)

See this.Hkelkar 12:25, 11 November 2006 (UTC)

Response to above by Hkelkar

I would like to specially respond to the allegations of this user:

Point of fact, the article in question was disputed material largely because it contained dubious sources (in fact, falsified sources by Street Scholar)[49][50][51].I found several instances of misrepresented citations on his part[52][53]I pointed this out and immediately received a barrage of attacks from Street Scholar[54][55]. He has a pattern of ethnic baiting of users he disagrees with.Eventually, third party mediation was evoked and the mediator agreed with my assertion[56][57]. Street Scholar merely ignored him and continued with his fake sources.In addition, the user has a disturbing block log of sexist attacks on lady wikipedians. He got blocked for making numerous mysoginistic statements to a lady admin[58][59].He was warned numerous times[60][61] by numerous users [62]. He eventually got blocked [63] but persisted in making sexist statements on his talk page [64], then got his block extended[65], then insisted that his religious beliefs mandated disdain towards women [66]. The admin who blocked him gave him a good reprimand for such unacceptable behavior [67] and was also admonished by several other users [68]. He persists in POV pushing and was even contacted by other users to that effect [69]Hkelkar 20:49, 8 November 2006 (UTC)

In addition, he has made virulently racist statements against Bengali people [70] and has been reprimanded to that effect by an admin [71][72]

Regarding my unfortunate comment about Arabs, if you see the diff I immediately withdrew it once I realized that it can be misinterpreted as anti-Arabism [73] which I most certainly do not subscribe to (I am a Baghdadi Jew myself so have a certain ancestral connection to the Arab world).Hkelkar 00:14, 11 November 2006 (UTC)

And all that bafflegab of his concerning "racist Hindu Caste System" is pretty rich, particularly with regards to this and this

Hkelkar 00:16, 11 November 2006 (UTC)

The anti-semitic nature of characterizing all Jews as "against Arabs" (similar to Hitler and Goebbels saying that all Jews were against Germans etc.) and the racist nature of calling all ethnic Bengalis "traitors" is, of course, quite obvious and I do not think I need to elaborate on Street Scholars virulent and hateful bigotry with which he has soiled many a wikipedia article.Hkelkar 00:43, 11 November 2006 (UTC)

Furthermore,may I add that there seems to be a pattern to his crank racism. He has been adding a lot of pseudoscientific and unscholarly prattle into pages like Cheema Raja Sahasi II, upto and including links to hate sites containing bogus race theories such as http://www.geocities.com/pak_history/ [74] Hkelkar 07:06, 11 November 2006 (UTC)

Statement by Ikonoblast

Because someone has invited me (through email) to participate in this arbcom; I would simply ask to go through my own contribution history. Infact I am least bothered whether Hkelkar survives on wikipedia or not. I am more concerned about conducts of admins, who have nurtured and facilitated Hkelkar Avtar, particularly Blnguyen who has acted more like his advocate and fulfilled his demands even the silly ones'.It is my gut feeling Hkelkar avtar of Subhash is the brainchild of Blnguyen himself, one may easily deduce it from the pattern of supporting action he has performed in his favour facilitating smooth subhash - Hkelkar transition, another one is Ben W Bell , who encountered me on Kancha Ilaiah page, which I left editing to mark my protest against admin action Blnguyen, JoshuaZ and Ben (may be inocent though) himself(strangely he considers it as his victory).Plz go through their role too.After Kancha Ilaiah episode Hkelkar started following me on other articles and did many vandal rv of course with Blnguyen backing it sometimes and started rv anything I wrote on any page (check my talk page links too). Ikon |no-blast 08:43, 12 November 2006 (UTC)

Statement by AMbroodEY

Well I've been inactive at Wikipedia since April 2006. To be frank i've never personally encountered HKelkar at Wikipedia. I'm here only because someone invited me thru email to drop in a line here. I've gone through all the evidence preesented here. While i believe HKelkar has been excessively dogmatic at times, what worries me more is this seeming harrasment of Indian esp. declared Hindu editors at wikipedia. This RfA reads like an indictment by an inquisitorial squad. This apparent cabal against a particular POV for instance was instrumental in deleting FundyWatch (a pet project started by me) ( see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Miscellany_for_deletion/User:AMbroodEY/Fundy_Watch ). BhaiSaab filed an RfD about my project without even showing the courtesy of informing me about it. While my project may have been hijacked by a POV after my departure from Wikipedia, Bhaisaab went on to provide onesided half-truths foR evidence. I was labelled as a fundamentalist and a Hindutvadi behind my back. ( my opinions about Hindutva and RSS are for all to see at a popular British blog which i write for [75] ).

The irony that these users who claim to fight POV-pushers themselves come across as POV-warriors is perhaps lost on them. While editors who sympathise with Indian right are painted as frothing Hindu fundamentalists, Islamist/Pakistani-nationalist/Indian-left-wing editors are given a free pass. The unresolved Siddiqui RfA ( http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Requests_for_comment/Siddiqui ) to me represents the incapibility of Wikipedia admins to deal with Islamist POV pushers. As for Kelkar, given his Maharashtrian origins, i can understand his confrontationist manner, being a half-Marathi myself. Though some of his actions cannot be justified, I believe it will be a gross injustice to reprimand him without taking into account the larger Indian-Pakistani, Hindu-Muslim, Indian-right/Indian-left "POV war" bubbling underneath Wikipedia . See nother of my articles ( http://www.globalvoicesonline.org/2006/04/03/india-pakistan-killing-the-wiki/ ).

Banning HKelkar would leave hard feelings and probably instensify the "war". Wikipedia has unfortunately been turned into a battle ground.

Adios

P.S Regarding Kelkar's Jewishness, I orginate from a historically Jewish town Alibaug in India. Bene-Israeli Jews have perfectly Marathi sounding names and many inetr-marry with Hindus. File:England flag large.png अमेय आर्यन DaBroodey 10:55, 12 November 2006 (UTC)

Preliminary decisions

Arbitrators' opinions on hearing this matter (4/0/1/0)

• Recuse. Dmcdevit·t 02:59, 30 October 2006 (UTC)
• Accept. Given the seriousness of the accusations, I believe the ArbCom can take this without preliminaries. Charles Matthews 09:43, 31 October 2006 (UTC)
• Accept. Matthew Brown (Morven) (T:C) 02:15, 2 November 2006 (UTC)
• What a mess. Accept. Kat Walsh (spill your mind?) 03:47, 6 November 2006 (UTC)
• Accept Fred Bauder 14:00, 6 November 2006 (UTC)

Final decision (none yet)

All numbering based on /Proposed decision (vote counts and comments are there as well)

Remedies

Note: All remedies that refer to a period of time, for example to a ban of X months or a revert parole of Y months, are to run concurrently unless otherwise stated.

Log of blocks and bans

Log any block, ban or extension under any remedy in this decision here. Minimum information includes name of administrator, date and time, what was done and the basis for doing it.