Wikipedia:Sockpuppet investigations/Accurateinfo973/Archive

25 April 2014

 * Suspected sockpuppets




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I can't remember the last time I actually created a case, as opposed to investigating/closing a case. This case involves the Yank Barry article. That article was brought to my attention from the COI noticeboard when there was a complaint that an editor named Gogvc was making promotional edits to the article (adding awards and achievements, removing negative information). The username matched the Twitter handle of Barry's charitable organization (Global Village). The Gogvc account was then blocked for username violations and spam. Since then, I've become directly involved in the article as an editor, so I'm unable to act as an administrator with regards to any editors or actions that take place there.

Two other accounts have shown up at the article since then. The first account was Theprincessmom1, who made the same kinds of edits as Gogvc before disappearing. One of the edits triggered a Cluebot revert because it appeared to be vandalism.

The most recent account to edit is Accurateinfo973. It's an old account, created in February 2010. I believe this account is the same as Megavox. Megavox was an account created in March 2009, and whose entire edit history was to begin a draft for the Yank Barry article on their user page. Megavox stopped editing in April of that year, and Accurateinfo973's first edits were to finish that same draft on Megavox's user page and then copy it into article space to create the Yank Barry article. Most recently, Accurateinfo973 has returned to the Yank Barry article on April 11 of this year, following an absence of almost a year from Wikipedia. That was about a month after the Gogvc account was blocked, and a day after Theprincessmom1's edits. Accurateinfo973 was making substantially the same changes as Gogvc and Theprincessmom1 did, edit-warring with multiple editors in the process (including myself). This prompted a second notification at the COI noticeboard. I followed that up with a request at ANI asking for assistance. At that point, Accurateinfo973 began discussing issues on the talk page of the article and I suggested that help may not be needed, but there has still been some friction (both in the article itself and on the talk page).

There have been other editors in the past who have edited the Yank Barry article in a promotional manner, including Reggie3155 and Digital villager (again matching the "Global Village" charity belonging to Yank Barry) but neither account has edited in a long time and they'd be stale for any checks.

24.73.100.90 listed above has taken to the article and been making the same kinds of edits as Gogvc, Theprincessmom1, and Accurateinfo973. I don't expect CheckUser to verify an IP but I thought I should include it as a probable sockpuppet who is currently active. Also, while I was in the middle of writing this report, a new IP (166.205.55.26) appeared to make the same edits.

Here are some diffs below showing the kind of behavior I'm talking about.


 * Gogvc adding awards, removing information about Barry's jail time.
 * Gogvc again adding Nobel Prize nominations, removing info about Barry's jail time.
 * Theprincessmom1 putting the Nobel Prize nominations back in, again removing references to jail time.
 * Accurateinfo973 showing up to reinsert the Nobel Prize nominations, removing an even larger chunk of info related to Barry's legal troubles.
 * Accurateinfo973 again removing the negative material, but this time introducing a press release for one of the Nobel Prize nominations.
 * 24.73.100.90 reinserting info about one of the Nobel Prize nominations and using the same press release for a source.
 * 24.73.100.90 rewriting the lead to remove the extortion conviction.
 * 166.205.55.26 just now showed up to again remove the extortion information from the lead.

Some assistance would be greatly appreciated. There appear to be editors with a conflict of interest due to their usernames and/or promotional editing (making claims that we are threatening Barry's livelihood or claiming that everyone is out to get him). It has been difficult to fix this article with all of these attempts to return the article to an ad for Barry and his charity, and figuring out if there is sockpuppetry involved will help greatly. --  At am a  頭 22:34, 25 April 2014 (UTC)
 * Thank you for checking on this. Since Theprincessmom1 only edited for a short time and stopped, and may never come back, and Gogvc is already blocked there probably doesn't need to be any action taken against any currently-active editors at that article. At least we know who we're dealing with. --  At am a  頭 15:29, 28 April 2014 (UTC)

Comments by other users
''Accused parties may also comment/discuss in this section below. See Defending yourself against claims.''
 * I also came to this article from the report on WP:COIN. See and  The editing pattern is that a new editor or IP anon appears, edits only Yank Berry articles, and is then, after complaints, replaced by another Yank Berry-centric editor. --John Nagle (talk) 05:59, 26 April 2014 (UTC)


 * Another WP:SPA has shown up the last two days - User:173.65.81.198. Shearonink (talk) 18:14, 26 April 2014 (UTC)

Clerk, CheckUser, and/or patrolling admin comments

 * and are ✅ socks of one another.  is ❌.  with regards to the IPs per the privacy policy. I will note that the IPs geolocate to two different locations.  Tiptoety  talk 16:50, 27 April 2014 (UTC)
 * Theprincessmom1, I'm not convinced that the IPs are related to this person, there is behavioural evidence which suggests they aren't. Closing now. Callanecc (talk • contribs • logs) 02:05, 29 April 2014 (UTC)

07 May 2014

 * Suspected sockpuppets




 * User compare report Auto-generated every hour.
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Appeared on the Yank Barry article making similar edits as things began to go poorly for Accurateinfo973 on the talk page.

https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Yank_Barry&diff=607488211&oldid=607483228

https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Yank_Barry&diff=607483228&oldid=607480880 - Richfife (talk) 17:14, 7 May 2014 (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

 * blocked indef, 24.* IP blocked 2 weeks. &mdash;Darkwind (talk) 06:02, 14 May 2014 (UTC)

28 May 2014

 * Suspected sockpuppets




 * User compare report Auto-generated every hour.
 * Editor interaction utility

I apologize for the confusing way that I set this up. But the original SPI I created was checking to see whether Accurateinfo973 had used sockpuppets. CU showed that Accurateinfo973 was technically unrelated, but that Gogvc and Theprincessmom1 were technically indistinguishable. Gogvc was blocked indefinitely prior to the filing of the SPI, and as the result of those findings Theprincessmom1 was blocked as a sock. When the case was archived, Accurateinfo973 was kept as the sockmaster name even though they weren't judged to be involved in the socking at the time. (Accurateinfo973 has since been blocked but for behavior unrelated to socking.) I'm not asking whether any new accounts are connected to Accurateinfo973, I suspect that they aren't. So I included Gogvc and Theprincessmom1 above because they were connected together technically in the past, and I'd like to see if a new editor, Bestmomever, was also technically related.

I have two reasons for suspecting this; first of all, Bestmomever is an SPA that has only edited the Yank Barry article space (just like the other accounts, check the contributions of all three), and the username is very similar to Theprincessmom1. We (myself and other regular editors at that article) have reason to believe that the previous sockpuppets are connected to Yank Barry's charity/business dealings (his charity, "Global Village", uses the domain name gogvc which is identical to one of the sock usernames) and their participation at the article has been disruptive in the past.

I've been directly involved with the article and so I am constrained from exercising administrative powers in this case. --  At am a  頭 21:06, 28 May 2014 (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

 * is, bordering on , and .--Jezebel's Ponyo bons mots  22:18, 28 May 2014 (UTC)
 * All blocked and tagged per behaviour and CU result. Closing. Callanecc (talk • contribs • logs) 12:24, 31 May 2014 (UTC)

05 June 2014

 * Suspected sockpuppets


 * User compare report Auto-generated every hour.
 * Editor interaction utility

Both are WP:SPAs on Talk:Yank Barry, which has a history of sockpuppetry. Both have started (in their first dozen edits or so) with a "backstory" on how they came to the talk page. VQuakr (talk) 00:57, 5 June 2014 (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

 * - Per above (not obvious enough for WP:DUCK though). Diff from master: . King of &hearts;   &diams;   &clubs;  &spades; 03:48, 6 June 2014 (UTC)
 * ❌ - The article, Yank Barry, has been the subject of rather frequent edit wars. The subject matter of the edit war is one that has been highly publicized. It would not surprise me if these were well recruited meatpuppets. It also would not surprise me if the explanations that both of these accounts provided is true, and they simply came upon the article because of their interest in the dispute. Tiptoety  talk 22:32, 9 June 2014 (UTC)
 * Closing. King of &hearts;   &diams;   &clubs;  &spades; 03:25, 10 June 2014 (UTC)