Wikipedia:Sockpuppet investigations/76.172.176.45/Archive

Evidence submitted by John Cardinal
On 27 October 2009, I posted to the Administrators noticeboard asking for help dealing with disruptive edits from three of the IP addresses listed above (76.172.176.45, 76.91.152.248, and 216.100.93.128). 76.172.176.45 was already blocked, but editing evidence convinced me that the same person was using the other two IPs to evade the block and make the same disruptive edits.

As I wrote in that noticeboard post, the edits in question were not obvious vandalism, such as the inclusion of nonsense or profanity, but rather, they were edits contrary to policy, guidelines, and consensus. (See the post for details.) The editor had refused to cooperate, was blocked, but unfortunately began using other IP addresses to repeat the troublesome edits. My noticeboard post resulted in blocks on the other IPs.

Here are the edits I gathered for that report.
 * 1) Sur la Mer article; user persists in changing text in the article from "Sur la Mer" to "Sur La Mer" when article naming and lead section conventions instruct editors to use lowercase for articles ("la" vs. "La") and to use the name of the article in the first sentence. See:, , , ,
 * 2) Instant Karma!, Power to the People (song), Get Back, Happy Xmas (War Is Over), Hey Jude, and other articles; user persists in modifying infobox to indicate that the single was issued from an album when the song was originally released as a non-album single and was only added to the album as a bonus track on a CD-era re-release. See:, , , , , , , , , , , , , ,

Now the same editor is back on a 4th IP address, 216.100.93.130. Here are edits by the new IP that are exact repeats or follow the same pattern:


 * 1) Sur la Mer:
 * 2) Singles from album:, , ,  (sloppily done and corrected by  and then )

Other edits by the same IP indicate the same focus as the prior IPs: The Moody Blues and The Beatles. Multiple editors have reverted edits by the latest IP. Some of the user's edits improve articles, but those contributions are slight and trivial. As far as I can determine, the editor never enters edit summaries attempting to justify his/her edits, has never responded to warnings or blocks, and thus gives no indication that he/she is willing to work collaboratively, etc. Please add this address as a sockpuppet of the disruptive user and block all the addresses indefinitely. — John Cardinal (talk) 21:23, 15 January 2010 (UTC)

Comments by accused parties
See Defending yourself against claims.

Clerk, patrolling admin and checkuser comments
IPs are rarely, if ever, blocked indef. Any reason this case should be an exception? Tim Song (talk) 05:45, 17 January 2010 (UTC)
 * I am not aware of typical block practices and so perhaps indef is not correct. Something longer than 3 months—the length of the last block—would be good, as well as acknowledgment that this is a sock so that future IPs used by this editor can be blocked quickly.

No action taken right now. The report was good about 4 days ago, but the last IP, 216.100.93.130, has not edited since then, and all the others hasn't edited since last year. I'd definitely keep tabs on that currently-blocked IP, and let an admin know if that IP starts up again (as that block is set to expire not too long from now). –MuZemike 02:28, 20 January 2010 (UTC)