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The Italian PhD: From Modulato back to Gmacar

Posted: Sat May 08, 2021 5:44 pm
by sammywalker
Modulato appeared in November 2020.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Special:C ... t=Modulato

He started making edits to the University of the People page. UoPeople is a young, but legit US university. He was particular set on ensuring that mentions of Israel and the "po box" office were included in the article. On the talk page, he was particularly aggressive declaring various sources other editors pulled up to be "fake news." It reached the point where one long-term contributor stopped watching the article altogether. This activity upset a student who posted to Reddit about the "hostile editors" on Wikipedia, and that's where my adventure began.

I started digging into the history of the page. I noticed that Modulato's edits were building on the edits of Italian-based IPs going back to April 2020. That's curious because Modulato proudly displays that he's a native Italian speaker on his user page. With further digging, I discovered another past account, no longer active, with a similar bent to Modulato. This account was Adrin10.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Special:C ... et=Adrin10

I started digging through their comparative history. Both were active on en-wiki and it-wiki. Both make complaints about the "po box" for UoPeople. Both, on en-wiki, shared an interest in University of the People, Supdi, Yorker International University, Università Popolare degli Studi di Milano, The League (app), Ripoff Report, Turnitin, Rogeting (really?), unaccredited universities, and a handful of other pages. Surely, this can't be coincidence. These two accounts have to be the same person.

This idea is bolstered by the fact Yorker International University consists of 26 edits. Adrin10 had 5 of those edits, and Modulato had 12 edits. If we exclude the category, bot, and minor edit traffic, we see one more curious IP edit. Italian perhaps? Yep. Given that, it seems reasonable to conclude that Mr. IP is the same as Modulato and Adrin10.

The content of that edit? Very interesting, a source.

https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?di ... =855712735

The evidence-based.review source also appeared in the UoPeople article at one time. It was discussed a couple of times on the talk page as well.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Talk:Univ ... ed.review)

One of the comments mentions that the person who runs this website has previously been block. Who was that blocked account? Bianbum.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Special:C ... et=Bianbum
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia ... um/Archive

This opens up a whole new world of evidence.

https://sigma.toolforge.org/editorinter ... ver=enwiki
https://sigma.toolforge.org/editorinter ... ver=itwiki

Well, that's an interesting record of shared interests there, Mr. Modulato.

To be continued...

Re: The Italian PhD: From Modulato back to Gmacar

Posted: Sat May 08, 2021 7:56 pm
by sammywalker
Based off this information, if you start digging you will discover that the person has variously used Wikipedia to both promote himself and scrub the Internet of his records.

A particular tactic that he likes to use is AfDs.

For example, he recently nixed the articles of La Voce di New York on both en-wiki and it-wiki.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia ... i_New_York
https://it.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia ... i_New_York

Why would he do this? Well, they've kind of reported on his activities a few years ago.

https://www.lavocedinewyork.com/news/po ... -e-la-mia/

La Voce was not the online source to cover the debacle.

https://thepointsguy.com/2018/03/the-in ... -to-italy/

Modulato felt some need to contribute to The Points Guy's wiki article.

https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?di ... 1017047937

He even tried to use Wikipedia to promote Free Flights to Italy.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia ... s_to_Italy

My particularly favorite example of an attempted AfD is the Rogeting page.

https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?di ... =985198004

Why would he want to delete that article?

https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?di ... =989272025

Nix the article and remove the history of your past activity--like that running a website that helps students cheat anti-plagiarism software.

But that's not all. He likes to promote his success at competitive programming.

https://it.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?oldid=48011003

Oh, come on Sammy. You're pulling out legs. That could be any Italian IP. *cough cough*

https://it.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?di ... d=54595011

And, of course, these are not his only socks.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Special:C ... et=Lerdall

Lerdall went so far as to write and publish a couple of academic articles on Second Life.

https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Spec ... %2FLerdall

Funny, the name on those papers. They look very similar to another username.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Special:C ... get=Gmacar

That's enough to make one go hmm. And yet, everyone's favorite, Beeblebrox, discounts the case on its face.

https://www.lavocedinewyork.com/wp-cont ... _spi_3.gif

I guess obvious evidence isn't so obvious.

Re: The Italian PhD: From Modulato back to Gmacar

Posted: Sat May 29, 2021 11:26 am
by sammywalker
Modulato is engaging in old tricks.

He has a history of setting up websites to attack universities. Some of his past websites include the fake news website called presto.news and another site called evidence-based.review.

His recently activities have him again going after a supposed diploma mill in Italy. He already has quite the history with the university's article. He created it as Adrin10.

https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?ti ... on=history

Today, he added this.

https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?ti ... 1025742689

It's a mirror of the Università Popolare degli Studi di Milano Wikipedia article in translation.

The domain was registered on May 5, 2021. And the website has all the hallmarks of Modulato's "style" in web design.

So, it looks like his looking for ways to promote his websites via Wikipedia, again. Just like he did with CheatTurnitin.xyz

https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?ti ... =716190691

and CheatTurnitin.com

https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?ti ... =716190691

and Evidence-based.review

https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?ti ... =809213358

There are also cases where he promoted Presto.news, but I can't seem to find them at the moment.

Re: The Italian PhD: From Modulato back to Gmacar

Posted: Sat May 29, 2021 9:24 pm
by ericbarbour
I missed this the first time it ran.

Let's be honest: Modulato is simply repeating the miserable career of Ellen "Orlady" Smith. She did amazingly similar things: chased diploma mills, abused admin power to protect friends (especially Bill Huffman, who was deeply involved in one of the most heavily censored arbitrations in WP history), abusing sockpuppet accounts, fighting pointlessly with Doncram, performing COI edits on content about Oak Ridge National Labs (which is HER EMPLOYER), and failing as a politician.

Smith cut way back on her activity in 2014, after the Doncram arbitration, and after her failure to be re-elected to the Oak RIdge City Council. Her "hate list" remains.

Atually, If Modulato weren't obviously Italian, I would start to suspect he was another Ellen Smith sockpuppet.....

The final point: we have seen this bullshit before. On Wikipedia, history ALWAYS repeats itself.

Re: The Italian PhD: From Modulato back to Gmacar

Posted: Sat May 29, 2021 10:52 pm
by sammywalker
Wow. The similarities are quite striking.

Re: The Italian PhD: From Modulato back to Gmacar

Posted: Sat Jun 26, 2021 1:45 am
by sammywalker
This editor continues his crusade against supposed diploma mills. If there is something I've learned in my years, it's that those who howl the loudest about often guilty of the very crime they decry.

He has a "Doctor of Philosophy in Religion"...

Source: https://archive.is/3DYv2
Larger Image: https://archive.is/V2CmP

...from Universal Life Church.

Re: The Italian PhD: From Modulato back to Gmacar

Posted: Sat Jun 26, 2021 4:56 am
by ericbarbour
sammywalker wrote:
Sat Jun 26, 2021 1:45 am
He has a "Doctor of Philosophy in Religion"...
...from Universal Life Church.
Hypocrisy: also typical for Wikipedia power abusers. "The rules are for them, not for ME" etc. See the SlimVirgin death thread.