Wikipedia:Sockpuppet investigations/121.215.10.7/Archive

30 May 2013

 * Suspected sockpuppets


 * Please note these addresses are all from one archived day and all "signed" manually by the same user (I am not quite sure of formatting, there are 12 IP addresses here from one day with Wickwack's signature)




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This is a rather difficult case to document, which seems to be the sockmaster's intention.

We have various users signing in under overlapping IP addresses, and signing their posts manually with the names including "Wickwack", "RatBone", "Keit" and "Floda". None of these names is a registered account, and when challenged, these "user" suggest we do a search on their manually assigned user names to find their posts. These users all geolocate to Western Australia, support each other's posts, and have been mentioned in regard to continuing abuses.

For documented evidence, see the comments below, copied incuding signatures from the Reference Desk Talk Page, especially the extended ones by User:TenOfAllTrades.

Contributions from an IP abused these boards with a personal attack under Wickwack and made comments here as Ratbone. I suspected socking earlier for other reasons (such as their contributions to this thread) and this confirms it. Any contributions from their IP range should be suspect and be removed and/or blocked when appropriate. --Modocc (talk) 15:16, 30 May 2013 (UTC)


 * So you are saying that Wickwack did not make "Derogatory comments about other contributors"? Did the recent IP not use the same multiple monikers and sock? Not to mention the earlier disruptions? The earlier IP used the same monikers to sock with. I submit that the evidence is clear and compelling for a community ban of this user. -Modocc (talk) 17:41, 30 May 2013 (UTC)


 * This user, who's IPs geolocate to western Australia, has no right to sock and cause disruption. If we want to begin improving the boards, per all the other discussions, we had better start with stopping blatant policy violations and Wickwack has already made it clear in previous discussions he is unwilling to register. -Modocc (talk) 18:28, 30 May 2013 (UTC)


 * (multiple ec) Doing a bit of untangling, it looks like Modocc's complaint has merit.
 * First off, there do appear to be threads in which editors signing as Wickwack and editors signing as Ratbone both participate and are mutually supportive.
 * Reference desk/Archives/Science/2013 February 8 (noted by Modocc) involves heated debate between Wickwack, Gandalf61, and Modocc. At one point, Ratbone interjects a remark endorsing Wickwack's position (and referring to Wickwack in the third person several times) and deriding Gandalf61, saying in part "Gandalf61 is, at best, very confused, and at worst, just a troll. Wickwack says sound, light, waves etc are forms of energy. This is consistent with reality...".  This thread also includes another IP editor siging as 'Keit' who again agrees with Wickwack.  Wickwack, Ratbone, and Keit are all editing from the same ISP (Telstra), and all three sign their posts in the same manner (a plain-text name, followed by the standard IP address and date generated by four tildes).
 * On this talk page, just above at Wikipedia talk:Reference desk (permalink), we again have Ratbone jumping in to defend Wickwack "In any case, Wickwack only seems to attack personally when he/she's been attacked personally. Wickwack does post when he/she thinks someone else has given an incorrect answer, but surely that can be tolerated?" when it was mentioned in passing that Wickwack might be sanctioned.
 * By themselves, those instances might be explained away as (admittedly rather implausible) coincidence. Damning, however, is that while editing from the IP address, Wickwack/Ratbone appears to have inadvertently slipped up, first editing this talk page and signing as Ratbone, then about half a day later, posting a rather mean-spirited comment on WP:RD/Sci while signing as Wickwack.  Either he forgot to reset his router between posts, or Telstra left his IP static for a lot longer than usual.
 * If Wickwack/Ratbone just liked to use different names from time to time, it might be no more than a mildly-irritating eccentricity. Pretending to be two or more separate individuals to try to win arguments on the Ref Desk, or to try to protect himself from sanctions on this talk page rises to the level of misconduct. TenOfAllTrades(talk) 19:12, 30 May 2013 (UTC)
 * And here are a few more. A very quick search through the archives finds
 * Reference desk/Archives/Science/2013 April 25, where 'Keit' disagrees with SteveBaker; they go back and forth for a bit, and in a thread with no other participants to that point, 'Ratbone' suddenly shows up to announce "I agree with Keit..... One suspects that if Steve was actually a researcher in Philips Display and Television Group, then from the misinformed nonsense he wrote, he was probably in cabinet design or something."
 * Reference desk/Archives/Science/2013 March 5 is interesting, as it introduces another pseudonym: Floda. 'Wickwack' offers a response, Alterprise demurs, and then 'Floda' (another Telstra IP) pops in with "It would appear that Wickwack is correct..." before Wickwack returns to further agree with himself.
 * Reference desk/Archives/Science/2013 January 6 features 'Wickwack', 'Floda', and 'Keit'. They don't appear to be up to no good, but it's just plain weird to run through three aliases just answering a question about fluorescent tubes.
 * Reference desk/Archives/Science/2013 January 18 starts with responses by 'Ratbone' (among others); 'Ratbone' becomes increasingly vexed by disagreement with another IP. After three 'Ratbone' posts, 'Keit' appears to lend support: "Didn't you read anything that Ratbone and SteveBaker wrote? Information theory, as both have outlined, is a well established branch of science...".   'Ratbone' then returns to make another five or so comments in the discussion.
 * ...and I'm losing interest in looking for more. If you do a Wikipedia-namespace search for pairwise combinations of Ratbone, Keit, Wickwack, and Floda, anyone can find dozens of Ref Desk pages where they show up together, often to offer mutual support and endorsement. TenOfAllTrades(talk) 21:03, 30 May 2013 (UTC)


 * Regarding diffs, please read the extensive evidence and consider that the users involved are signing in under multiple IP's which they know are difficult to document, while signing their comments manually. μηδείς (talk) 22:09, 30 May 2013 (UTC) μηδείς (talk) 22:09, 30 May 2013 (UTC)

Comments by other users
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Clerk, CheckUser, and/or patrolling admin comments

 * Other than 121.215.10.7, the other IPs are all stale, so closing with no action. King of &hearts;   &diams;   &clubs;  &spades; 00:10, 31 May 2013 (UTC)
 * This seems to be a special case, since the user self-identifies as using various addressses. The Feb 8 2013 date was chosen randomly, and the same behavior would be found on a search of posts signed by Wickwack on any archive date.  Is it understood by the closing admin that the accused is widely believed disruptive by ref desk regulars, but cannot be easily tracked because he edits as dozens of IP users while maintaining that he is a few "separate", but actually self-supporting sock puppets? μηδείς (talk) 03:39, 31 May 2013 (UTC)