User:UlsterWatch/sandbox

Suspected sockpuppets



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There is reasonable suspicion that Apollo may be another iteration of this editor, there are too many similarities in interactions with Apollo as there was with LP's previous sock-account Gob Lofa. Whilst the exact editing demeanour between these editors is not the exact same would you expect it to be with a serial sockmaster wanting to evade detection?

Edit history comparisons

 * Edit history comparisons show that Apollo and Gob Lofa have a lot of shared editing history
 * The same for Apollo and LP though when all three are compared there are some articles where one of the accounts hasn't edited. They also have shared editing history with another blocked sockpuppet of LP, Gestur
 * Whilst this can be excused as editors having the exact same affinity in editing lots and lots of articles to do with Irish republicanism, especially socialist republicanism there are a few oddities that increase the likelihood of sockpuppetry. For example once you take out all the articles that are to do with Ireland you are left with:
 * Apollo and Gob Lofa oddities: Enver Hoxha, Pediga, War in Donbass, Colonization of the Moon, Donetsk People's Republic, European_United_Left–Nordic_Green_Left, World War III, October Crisis, Red Army Faction, Mars One, Social science fiction, Exploration of Jupiter, 433 Eros, Democratic centralism, Roman Republic, European migrant crisis, Vladimir Putin, Communist terrorism
 * Apollo and LP oddities: Front_de_libération_du_Québec, Movement_for_Socialism_(Bolivia), Foco, Shining Path, The Left (Germany), October Crisis, ETA_(separatist_group), Hungarian_Revolution_of_1956, One-party state, Red Army Faction, Flat Earth, Islam in the Republic of Ireland

Aversion to terrorism in regards to Irish republicanism

 * A more convincing comparison is Apollo's and Gob Lofa's aversion of the term terrorism when involving acts against the British state.
 * Gob Lofa: Tried to move List_of_terrorist_incidents_in_London to List of incidents in London labelled as terrorism, with the intent here quite obvious. Subsequent discussion (talk page) cited "Words_to_avoid", which as we all know is abbreviated to WP:LABEL. Looking at the whole discussion Gob Lofa was opposed to the use of terrorism for various acts in the article but would not state which ones. This comment by  shows that Gob Lofa has long campaigned on this issue . At that same discussion is another not terrorism argument by Gob Lofa, followed a while later by Apollo citing WP:LABEL at Talk:List_of_terrorist_incidents_in_London. Once more arguing about the use of the terrorism category at Talk:Brighton_hotel_bombing, along with edit-warring over it
 * Other examples of removing the word terrorism/terrorist:, , , , &  and the subsequent discussion over it, , ,


 * Apollo terrorism removals: ,,, , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , [https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Bayardo_Bar_attack&diff=prev&oldid=773151028, , , , , , , , , , , , - and as far as I can tell that is all from just March this year, and some are repeated removals of the category from the same article having being reverted. Also see , , ,.
 * Here Apollo states that the killing of soldiers does not meet the definition of murder. Other examples of Apollo removing terrorism:, , and then this mass removal of Irish terrorism from guess which article? That's right List of terrorist incidents in London that Gob Lofa was fond of arguing over.


 * Oddly we find Gob Lofa restoring the use of the term terrorist but as its an article about a loyalist attack and matches Apollo's sentiments on the issue they recently gave at Administrators'_noticeboard/Incidents where they stated that only loyalist incidents are terrorism. Gob Lofa and Apollo likewise never remove the term from loyalist articles.

Opposition to use of crime and murder in regards to attacks by republicans
Some of the preceding diffs also show examples of this but if the diffs are already checked to prove throughness then I shouldn't need to repeat them unless required?
 * Gob Lofa: opening comment of Talk:Warrington_bomb_attacks and the conversation where they argue about it not being crime or murder. This edit on Remembrance Day bombing where they substitute "murdered" to "killed". Removal of "innocent" which implies they were legitimate targets. Change of murder to killing.
 * Apollo: their recent AN/I statement stating that IRA attacks where not murder unlike those by loyalists. Also Talk:1970_RUC_booby-trap_bombing, which when compared to Apollo's edit on the article itself removes both the crime and terrorism categories. Also see  where Apollo pours cold water on a suggestion for the article Killing of Stephen Carroll to be moved to Murder of Stephen Carroll, claiming there is no difference in the terms and then, which I don't need to explain.

Citing talk and false agreements

 * Gob Lofa and Apollo are both fond of citing false agreements as justification for their edits when none exist and then demand others get consensus or take it to talk:
 * Gob Lofa: ironic its the addition of a terror cat for a UK committed incident, though the talk cited doesn't really explain anything., , , , , - all these edits are from the one article to which there was no apparent agreement/consensus between the two arguing editors until after all these edits! , , , , , ,  - I can find no such agreements or consensus on the talk pages to match Gob Lofa's claims.
 * Apollo: cites consensus for removal, responded to by stating there is no consensus  and . A look at the discussion shows no consensus. Same with , , , ,  all of which have no such consensus or agreements on the talk page at time of edits. This discussion. This one doesn't actually seem to have an agreement either for Apollo's reinstatement of contentious content.


 * Similarly they like to use the "see talk" edit summary:
 * Gob Lofa:, , , , , , , , , , , , etc. etc. etc. there are so many to list.
 * Apollo:, , , , , , . Further back they also used the variant "see talk page" however seem to have dropped the page bit , , , , , ,.


 * Gestur and Lapsed Pacifist seem to have rarely used edit summaries so its hard to compare them both to this, though LP and Gob Lofa do share a fondness for stating "Reword", which Apollo does not - maybe too obvious a tell?

Other odd similarities

 * Apollo and Gob Lofa appear to also have an early tendancy to not use edit summaries resulting in requests for them to do so: Apollo being asked to use more and User_talk:Gob_Lofa/Archive_2.
 * Apollo never made a single edit summary in their first 596 edits, which seems kind of wierd, but arriving on the scene not long after Gob Lofa was blocked, would a sock want to raise suspicion? Ironically their second ever edit summary simply states NPOV, something they have cited many times since, something that Gob Lofa was all too fond of citing as well. If you wish I can post the litany of examples but I think I have already done quite a bit.
 * Both editors have a very high reverted edits tally compared to total edits: Apollo - 327 out of 6,138 edits. Gob Lofa - 524 out of 18,570 edits. On the other hand comparing to other editors on Ireland related articles I have 27,388 edits of which only 321 were reverted (many by Gob Lofa), Scolaire  has 146 reverted edits out of 22,054, Snowded  has 630 out of 32,177. Far smaller percentages when compared to GB and Apollo.

In summary
These may all just be coincidences and there are more similarities in behaviour but I have limited time to trawl through their myriad of edits many of which are quite trivial to find them. However the above is more than enough to prove a high degree of likelihood when compared to other SPI's on other editors. Apollo may still be innocent but I will leave it up to whoever takes on this SPI to decide.

I will also reiterate that Gob Lofa appeared to edit via a VPN or some other IP hopping method or from different locations, and Apollo's willingness to accept an IP check only reaffirms my suspicion. After all Gob Lofa was an obvious sock of Lapsed Pacifist despite the fact it was stated that the technical information didn't prove it beyond doubt and I don't think a CheckUser will be of viable use. UlsterWatch (talk) 23:59, 4 July 2017 (UTC)

Comments by other users
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