Wikipedia:Sockpuppet investigations/03SadOnions/Archive

02 September 2012

 * Suspected sockpuppets




 * User compare report Auto-generated every hour.

All commented at Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Legionwood: Tale of the Two Swords saying that the article should be kept, all used a WP:OTHERSTUFF argument, all tried arguing against a particular comment (mine) that the game probably wasn't notable because it had no reviews on Metacritic, and both IPs Geolocate to Melbourne, Australia. CtP (t • c) 15:16, 2 September 2012 (UTC)

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
The double-voting at Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Legionwood: Tale of the Two Swords is probably deliberate, so I have blocked all three accounts. AGK [•] 10:00, 3 September 2012 (UTC)

09 September 2012

 * Suspected sockpuppets


 * User compare report Auto-generated every hour.

I nominated Legionwood: Tale of the Two Swords thread for AfD, and DRV. During the DRV it was mentioned that multiple Keep votes from the AfD were IP sockpuppets of 03SadOnions, the article creator. During the DRV, a number of IP addresses, all traced to close to Melborune, Australia, either Endorsed, or commented (granted, most people in the discussion have Endorsed or commented), Of note: 128.184.132.38 appears to be a proxy, could explain the other contributions by that IP), 121.214.88.239 argued against the sockpupptery ban, 124.180.205.1 traces to Melbourne specifically. I'm not sure how meaningful that all is, but I figured it worth looking into. 31.220.203.74 (talk) 19:21, 9 September 2012 (UTC)
 * Just added 124.180.9.143, another endorse vote traced to the same area, and from the original AfD, 124.180.161.51 seems similar, too, although the lower case 'i's and disagreeing with something 03SadOnions said (while agreeing with his overall argument) might point it to being someone else. 31.220.203.74 (talk) 09:54, 11 September 2012 (UTC)

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
Largely moot now. Unsurprisingly, it's very possible that all edits from the abovementioned IPs were made by the same user. Also unsurprisingly, is very possibly related, and considering the choice of topics probably a match. Not sure about the best way forward. As evident he has a sufficiently large pool of dynamic IPs to make simple blocks meaningless, in fact will only make it harder to track him -- sock edits have stopped since the DRV, but ArkRe has commented in a number of AfD where IPs from the above ranges (or others that geolocate there) have also commented. Amalthea 19:53, 17 September 2012 (UTC)

20 September 2012

 * Suspected sockpuppets


 * User compare report Auto-generated every hour.

Another new user suddenly becoming active with the same topics, wants Confirmed status to post in the new Leginwood AfD. Amalthea 16:33, 20 September 2012 (UTC)

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

My apologies. I was unaware that there were issues of that nature going on in that article. Please withdraw my request for confirmation and I will leave that AfD well alone. Reading the investigation above, I can safely say I'm not related to the other users as I'm a citizen of the UK (unfortunately, I am restricted to using the internet on a public computer at a holiday park at the moment, which is very tiresome) but perhaps it is best not to contribute to that article as I do not want to have my editing permissions removed!

I don't have any special interest in either Legionwood or the other RPG Maker games. I'm merely someone who lurks in the RPG Maker community who was alerted by a topic on an RPG Maker forum that the RPG Maker VX article needed some updating. Nobody else seemed to know how to use Wikipedia so I came here and registered an account. I fixed up the errors I found and then while I was at it I started systematically reading the other articles linked to from that article (you can see this in my contribs) and fixing up a few errors I found. There was a list of RPG Maker games linked in the "See Also" of the RPG Maker article and I began editing them one by one; this is how I came to Eternal Eden and Legionwood: Tale of the Two Swords which I noticed were both proposed for deletion. While I was editing I figured that I should contribute to the AfDs since I have a passing familiarity with both games from my time in the RPGM community.

Again, I'm sorry if my editing has caused any issues. Please don't block me, I meant no harm and was only trying to improve Wikipedia's coverage on RPG Maker topics, as that's what led me to come to Wikipedia in the first place. None of us in the RPG Maker community were aware that somebody appears to be vandalising articles related to this topic at the time and it was not my intention to contribute to that. All I can ask is that you assume good faith on my part and don't bite me! Sentient Cat (talk) 03:00, 21 September 2012 (UTC)
 * Editing at a later time, I looked at the compareuser report and it appears that one of the socks nominated Eternal Eden for a deletion. I voted to keep the article in that AfD. Likewise, for what it matters I was going to vote weak delete in the Legionwood AfD... if I were a sock, would I not logically support the other user's argument and attempt to skew consensus? Also, I am interested in knowing if there is a way that I can prove that I am not connected to the sock-puppet master? Since admins seem so ready to punish anybody unfortunate enough to have the same area of interest (RPG Maker is a very narrow area of interest and there are only a small number of related articles on Wikipedia in the first place!) - understandably in the name of protecting the wiki from abuse, of course - I would like to be disassociated from this investigation as soon as possible (mainly as I am using a public IP address while on holiday and I do not want to get it blocked or there would be collateral damage)! Sentient Cat (talk) 03:09, 21 September 2012 (UTC)

Clerk, CheckUser, and/or patrolling admin comments
Unsurprisingly again, is very possibly related, and considering the choice of topics probably a match. Amalthea 16:33, 20 September 2012 (UTC)

22 September 2012

 * Suspected sockpuppets


 * User compare report Auto-generated every hour.

Yet another brand-new user becomes active right away, shows support for the Legionwood article, active in AfDs of other RPG Maker articles. Amalthea 14:16, 22 September 2012 (UTC)

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

Well, I must say I'm very distressed to see these accusations! I registered specifically to edit RPG Maker related articles after a discussion on an RPG Maker forum, I identified myself as such on my user page and I have not broken any rules! I am confused by the allegations made by amalthea below and do not understand how they mean that I am abusing the policies of Wikipedia. I should clear something up, I don't know what he/she is talking about when they say I "showed support for the Legionwood" article! I have not posted in its AfD or talk page, or made any edit to it other than attempting a simple grammatical cleanup on the page! Check my edit history and you will see that I have not made any such edits that even attempt to support it or promote it. I have been attempting cleanups of other RPG Maker related pages and even completely unrelated pages, and how this could be seen as me "supporting" one troublesome article is unknown to me! I have nominated pages for deletion that I believe fall under the criteria for deletion, only as part of my cleanups! For one I am from Canada which is nowhere near where the creator of these games supposedly lives... Come on, this is 2012, many users know how to use Wikipedia and many new users are aware of policies and things such as AfDs when they register! This shouldn't be used as a criteria to label me as some sort of troublemaker! In addition when I log on I find that my primary IP is blocked for no particular reason, I use a web hosting service to edit Wikipedia because I work for a web hoster and route my home computer through this network too. I even had to contact our other division and get my IP changed to one of our other servers JUST SO I COULD DEFEND MYSELF, which I was denined the opportunity to! I was under the impression that wikipedia is supposed to be a place of fair discussioin and that acting in bad faith is discouraged... how is this fair? If this is how Wikipedia treats new users, then I don't want any part of it! I try to edit and all of a sudden I'm blocked! So much for assuming good faith! It seems that everyone here is assuming bad faith just because a new user who identifies himself as an editor of a specific suibset of pages knows how to use Wikipedia! RPGMakerMan (talk) 18:01, 22 September 2012 (UTC)

Clerk, CheckUser, and/or patrolling admin comments
, RPGMakerMan edits through dedicated server so hides his home IP. As I see it, everything including behavior matches the other abovementioned accounts, but a conclusive match cannot be shown here. I would appreciate if someone could look at the edits of the account to stop or reduce any potential disruption, in particular AfD comments that I think were problematic in the past. Amalthea 14:16, 22 September 2012 (UTC)
 * RPGMakerMan edits in support of precisely the same minority source that the previous socks have seized on in the AFD as a justification for keeping the Legionwood article. Based on this, the account is very obviously a re-incarnation of 03SadOnions, so I've blocked and tagged that sock too. AGK  [•] 18:59, 13 October 2012 (UTC)