User:130.185.250.4/Wikipedia talk:Sockpuppet investigations/Art Dominique

23 September 2015

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Art Dominique was blocked indefinitely in 2006 for edit-warring and socking on articles relating to Finnish history, including adding WP:FRINGE, WP:OR and WP:SYNTH material relating to Finns/Kvens (material sourced to odd sources, none of which can be easily verified since they aren't available on line and would be very difficult to get hold of in hard-copy, and in most cases also are in foreign languages; most of it being based on the decidely non-mainstream theories of Kyösti Julku and Kalevi Wiik; to give you an idea of how far away from the mainstream the theories posted by the various socks are, the claims have included that the Germanic languages derive from Finnish, and that Rurik and the Varangians/Vikings weren't Scandinavians but Finns) on a number of articles, such as Kvens and Kvenland. But has continued to add the same and similar fringe material on the same and similar articles, and if needed edit-war to keep it in the articles, using a long line of socks, from 2006 until as recently as a couple of days ago, when the three latest socks,, and , were blocked.

During 2006 and the early part of 2007 the socks used were both named throw-away accounts and a considerable number of IPs, but after having had a large number of named socks blocked (see Category:Wikipedia sockpuppets of Art Dominique and Category:Suspected Wikipedia sockpuppets of Art Dominique) the sock master seems to have used only IPs during the next three years (all geolocating to Finland; during 2009 and 2010 there was very little activity, by anyone, on the articles I checked, though). The use of named throw-away accounts then seems to have started again in 2011, in many cases with a separate sock created for each article edited, and even a new sock for each time an article was edited, in an obvious deliberate attempt to evade scrutiny. The list of socks above is far from comprehensive, just a small sample of socks to show that this has been going on continouosly since 2006. For more information about early socking by Art Dominique see this.

What first caught my attention was that a number of user accounts adding the same type of material had similar user names, common Swedish female given names, and a user page with just a dot on (added to make the user name a blue link in watchlists and page histories, and make it less likely that the edits were checked; clearly showing that the accounts had been created by an experienced user). And when checking further back in time on a handful of articles I found more and more obviously connected throw-away accounts and IPs, leading all the way back to 2006 and Art Dominique.

Sample edits:

Art Dominique (2006): (compare the sample edit with these consecutive edits from 2012 by Vigelandsdotter)

Digi Wiki (2006): (In this old thread Art Dominique admits that Digi Wiki is their sock)

IP91.156.108.170 (2008): ,

ErikOppland (2011, 2012): (created user page with just a dot on in March 2012, a full year after most edits were made, possibly as a test, since (almost) all socks created after that have had just a dot on the user page, but none before that; note how the edits in March 2011 changed/falsified the sourced content "The Scandinavian placenames Finnveden, Finnmark and the province of Finland (which gave name to Finland) are all thought to be derived from finn, an ancient Germanic word for nomadic "hunter-gatherers" (as opposed to sedentary farmers, cf. to find " to "The Scandinavian placenames Finnveden, Finnmark and the province of Finland (which gave name to Finland) are all thought to derive from Finn, an ancient Germanic word for the Finnic people inhabiting areas of Fenno-Scandia and Scandinavia" to make it look as if the source supported the rest of the edit, behaviour that is typical)

KEriksdotter1 (2011): ,

Vigelandsdotter (2012): (created user page with a dot as first edit; used only on 31 March and 1 April 2012; compare the consecutive edits in the diff with the edit by Art Dominique above)

Britaxxx (2012):, (created user page with dot)

RasboKaren (2012, 2013):, , (created user page with "<3" as first edit; account used only in November 2012 and March 2013; blocked for 48h for "tendentious editing, WP:FRINGE and edit-warring" in november 2012; see also note below)

A1 Karin Å (2012, 2013, 2014): (created user page with short nonsense text as first edit; account used three times on the same article, with up to a year between each time, showing that the editor hadn't forgotten the password, but still created multiple other accounts during that time...)

Åsaxxx (2012, 2013):, (created user page with dot; active in 2012 and 2013 but inactive between the very short active periods)

Lena Ast (2013): (created user page with dot; multiple socks were active in parallell on Kvenland during 2013, supporting each other)

AHenrikaB (2013): (created user page with a dot; active only in early 2013)

Carolina212 (2013): ] (created user page with a dot; active only during three consecutive days in April 2013, the diff shows cumulative edits; note how the edits changed the sourced content " In the early Umesaami dictionaries the terms Kainolads and Kainahalja described Norwegian and Swedish men and women respectively" to the direct opposite "In the early Umesaami dictionaries the terms Kainolads and Kainahalja described respectively Finnic men and women inhabiting the northern parts of the modern-day areas of Norway, Sweden and Finland" to make it seem as if the reference supported the other edits made)

BoArnezzz (2013, 2014): (created user page with a dot; active on Kvenland in February 2013 and January 2014, but inactive during the 11 months between those periods; see also note below about Finnedi)

BogatusAB (2013-2014): (created user page with a dot; active on Kvenland in February 2013 and April 2014, but inactive in between; interesting mainly because of having posted on Finnedi's talk page; see note below)

Annika Dlb (2015): (created user page with a dot, but only made one edit in article space before being blocked; confirmed by CU to be the same editor as Åsa Gunilla and Karin Andxxx)

Åsa Gunilla (2015): (created user page with a dot; confirmed by CU to be the same editor as Annika Dlb and Karin Andxxx)

Karin Andxxx (2015):, (created user page with a dot; confirmed by CU to be the same editor as Annika Dlb and Åsa Gunilla)

A couple of fellow editors have suggested there might be a connection to Sockpuppet investigations/Finnedi, but I don't think they're the same editor, since the material that Finnedi didn't like and edit-warred to remove was added/edited by socks listed in this SPI, primarily. Because of slightly different style and behaviour, listed above, might be connected to Finnedi instead of Art Dominique. Thomas.W talk 12:30, 23 September 2015 (UTC)

Comments by other users
''Accused parties may also comment/discuss in this section below. See Defending yourself against claims.''

It has been two or 1 and a half months, and still no checkuser. Will someone please respond? I am a user who merely wishes to help out, and noticed that this case is still here, despite the fact that nothing has been done. 92.25.203.176 (talk) 18:52, 13 November 2015 (UTC)

Clerk, CheckUser, and/or patrolling admin comments

 * Three recent accounts are already blocked. All others are years old, so I'm closing this case.  Vanjagenije  (talk)  20:24, 26 September 2015 (UTC)
 * In normal circumstances, I wouldn't argue with your closure. However, I and another administrator encouraged Thomas.W to file this SPI specifically to set a baseline for the future. Therefore, I've reopened the case and would sincerely appreciate it if you would do a behavioral analysis and reach a conclusion as to the sock puppetry. Thomas.W's presentation of the evidence should facilitate this inquiry, but there's no urgency to it. I know you're busy. Thanks.--Bbb23 (talk) 20:45, 26 September 2015 (UTC)
 * I've semiprotected this report due to IPs warring to change the status. I'll ping Vanjagejie to see if he has any suggestions of where to go from here. EdJohnston (talk) 18:12, 28 December 2015 (UTC)


 * - Support check needed. --Boxsinfoxs (talk) 07:40, 29 January 2016 (UTC)