Wikipedia:Sockpuppet investigations/Albertan Oil Sands/Archive

Suspected sockpuppets



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BasedMises (BM) nominated Warsaw radio mast for good article status (see diff); Albertan Oil Sands (AOS) edited the article substantially within three hours (see diff); Localrussan (LR) performed a two-sentence perfunctory review the next day, approving the good article nomination (see review page). BM created a user page for AOS (see history of user page) and LR edited it (see diff). AOS has made numerous edits to LR's user page (see, e.g., diff), and BM's user page has a userbox reporting that he is from Alberta, which is featured prominently in AOS's username (see user page). In sum, we have a three-account conspiracy to pass GANs, plus additional irregularities on the user pages. In light of this brazen sockpuppetry, CU shouldn't be necessary, although I imagine it would confirm my suspicions. Extraordinary Writ (talk) 22:02, 21 April 2021 (UTC)

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

Go on, do a check, because he is a friend of mine, but he is a friend of mine. He edits, at home, from an IP address, I edit at a different IP address also at home. The only IP we share is the school WiFi one. Absolutely, do a check, but is there any way to get some form of way to show we are separate accounts. Seriously, this is a false positive. Please, I welcome you to perform a check, as it would prove our innocence. The majority of my edits on pages other than the Warsaw Radio Mast have been performed on my home IP address, while some may have been on the school IP address. The same likely (of course, I'm not sure)is the same with the others.

Also, no it would not confirm your suspicions. Is there away to confirm, once again, that we edit at a different place, like the user check? (im very sorry that i sound so weird, im just scared of losing this account) The irregularities in the userboxes has to do with the fact that the 2 of them are making jokes about how they are furries and other nonsense (see the page and see how they changed this). Also, some edits were made at very similar times, and it would be impossible to do so with sockpuppets. The reviewer is a friend who objectivly reviewed the article. He finished the review, without our coercion without anything like that.

AOS created his Wikipedia account for editing other pages, not just the GA in question

(again i apologize for being so erratic, but its just that I feel quite scared of losing this account) Also, I would like to mention, if you look at my edits, I have lots of edits about economics and some distributed elsewhere, whereas neither of the are into econ. I know im really erratic, but I'm not sure if the https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:The_duck_test rule works for this case. We have one common interest: radio masts (its an inside joke, very odd). Outside of that, however, all of my edits are related to econ (contributions tab). The rest have 0 interest in econ. Again, really sorry that im really erratic.

Because it would be blatantly against the rules for either of us to review the article, we enlisted a friend to help. We did not coerce him, instead telling him the criteria and showing him a couple pages and guides about what to look for. His subjective valuation of our article was not put on the review page, mainly because he told us why he liked it. — Preceding unsigned comment added by BasedMises (talk • contribs) 00:13, 22 April 2021 (UTC)

&#91;&#91;User:BasedMises&#124;F. A. Hayek&#93;&#93; (talk) 00:00, 22 April 2021 (UTC)
 * In the spirit of WP:AGF, I'm inclined to accept this explanation at face value. Please do not ask friends to review articles, etc. - it creates a conflict of interest and arguably falls under our policy against meatpuppetry. (It also creates all sorts of confusion, as this investigation shows.) That being said, it appears to have been a good-faith mistake by a new user, so punishment would be inappropriate. While I of course must leave this for a clerk/admin, I support archiving it without action. Extraordinary Writ (talk) 00:31, 22 April 2021 (UTC)

Understood. We were still concerned about letting someone, but we couldn't find anything explicitly against that, as long as it was objective. &#91;&#91;User:BasedMises&#124;F. A. Hayek&#93;&#93; (talk) 00:37, 22 April 2021 (UTC)

Clerk, CheckUser, and/or patrolling admin comments

 * The provided explanation is potentially plausible, but given that we're also looking at broadly similar edit summaries, trolly behaviour, potential community process manipulation and that probaly was not a new user when they joined, I would like a check to determine what the best route to take is.  – CU, please see if the technical data lines up with the explanation offered above and look for others. Thanks and best,  Blablubbs&#124;talk 09:53, 22 April 2021 (UTC)
 * .  ~Oshwah~  (talk) (contribs)   14:50, 22 April 2021 (UTC)
 * , to clarify, the CU data is not consistent with the explanation offered above? Blablubbs&#124;talk 14:52, 22 April 2021 (UTC)
 * Blablubbs - Sorry! I should have offered some clarification and probably read through the user's response. All three users do share an IP to an educational institution. Outside of that, they do not share any ranges. This is in-line with what the user is telling us above. Given the user's explanation, I've updated my results.  ~Oshwah~  (talk) (contribs)   15:24, 22 April 2021 (UTC)
 * Ok, thanks. I'll go the AGF route. I won't request that this case be actioned with sanctions, but I do have a word of warning: Soliciting people off-wiki to leave favourable Good Article reviews crosses the line into canvassing and meatpuppetry, both of which can lead to being blocked. Understand that Wikipedia is an encyclopaedia, not a game; things like this are not what we're here for. It is likely that future violations will be met with sanctions. Please let me know if you have any questions regarding sockpuppetry policies. Closing. Blablubbs&#124;talk 15:52, 22 April 2021 (UTC)