Wikipedia:Sockpuppet investigations/Anonymous081222/Archive

Report date 16:45, 11 January 2009 (UTC)

 * Suspected sockpuppets


 * Evidence submitted by Cacycle (talk)

Single purpose accounts created between December 22 and January 2 solely to insert putative fringe views into and the closely related article  (now a redirect). The suspected sockpuppet accounts have the same edit warring behaviour with missing summaries and undiscussed reverts and the same disruptive "discussion" style at (parts of that discussion have been userified to User talk:Anonymous081222) with the same highly prolific prose that fails to address the raised concerns and instead resorts to personal attacks and accusations in a distinct paranoid/conspiracy theory tone (see also Administrators' noticeboard).

The account Anonymous081222 (talk) has received no personal attacks and three-revert rule warnings and the account FFN001 had already been temporarily blocked for edit warring (log) but now continues in the same style. Cacycle (talk) 16:45, 11 January 2009 (UTC)


 * Comments by accused parties    See Defending yourself against claims.
 * Is agreeing with Anon enough to get me accused of being a sock puppet? I don't know how to prove I am not a sock puppet unless the admins see our IP addresses and track which cities we live in.  The odds we all live in the same city seem pretty low!

Paraniod and conspiracy? Isn't asking questions and putting up reference what we are supposed to do? But cacycle is right that my tone was definitely too strong when I first started off. I have been watching the High Fructose Corn Syrup page for a bit (but haven't felt the need to post) and later I started watching the MSG page too. I was sort of annoyed that there wasn't any health information listed but I still didn't make an account. Then Anon started up but was violently berated for his views. He was right but badly needed some references and some moral support. Since I have access to a large database I figured I would step in and help. So in a way, I guess I did start off as a single-use account. But please don't delete me--I want to leave the MSG discussion as soon as I can. I mean, this is completely brutal. By now my reputation is so ruined from this whole onslaught I won't have much credibility to post on controversial pages anyways. However, I still want my account so that I can contribute to some other topics. FFN001 (talk) 17:10, 11 January 2009 (UTC)

This accusation is baseless and totally incorrect. I created an account when I was inspired to do so by a missing fact on the MSG page, but I may do other work in the future. This is my first and only account. I do not think that the accusations of edit waring and such (which I could certainly defend against) are relevant to this unfounded and incorrect sockpuppet accusation. However, let me know if you do want an explanation and I'll be more than happy to give it.

"putative fringe views": An invalid opinion. Cites more than supported our view, and we made every effort to discuss and compromise on the issue.

edit behavior: Similar behavior was each displayed by those on both sides of the debate: Those with my viewpoint were making one set of similar changes, while those with the opposite viewpoint were making a different set of similar changes.

"edit warring", "missing summaries and undiscussed reverts", "disruptive discussion": Unrelated and extremely hypocritical accusations that I could certainly defend against.

"highly prolific prose that fails to address the raised concerns and instead resorts to personal attacks and accusations in a distinct paranoid/conspiracy theory tone": Opinions, incorrect, and a personal attack in and of itself. Just look at the way that is phrased; totally inappropriate. "Fails to address the raised concerns": Unrelated and, by the way, completely false. "distinct paranoid/conspiracy theory tone": Untrue, inappropriate, impolite, and a personal attack.

This accusation is false, unfounded, and filled with personal attacks.

Please let me know if you need more details and I would be more than happy to give them. Anonymous081222 (talk) 03:08, 12 January 2009 (UTC)

This has gone on long enough. Please remove this false and baseless accusation immediately. Anonymous081222 (talk) 09:35, 12 February 2009 (UTC)


 * Comments by other users

imported from Suspected sock puppets/Anonymous081222 -- lucasbfr  talk 22:03, 16 January 2009 (UTC)
 * Clerk, patrolling admin and checkuser comments

Having reviewed the contributions of Anon and FFN, I do not think they are sockpuppets. I disregarded Guru because he has too few edits to properly draw correlations with the others.
 * Conclusions


 * Anon uses edit summaries very frequently, but FFN has never used one other than the default ones provided by MediaWiki.
 * On January 9, both Anon and FFN edited at the same time. They have never done so other than that day. If they were sockpuppets, that does not make sense. They would either not do it at all, or, if they were deliberately trying to throw people off, surely they would do it more than once in nearly two months.
 * The days of the week they are active and times of day also do much to suggest that they are not the same person. See Wikichecker profile for Anon, and profile for FFN.

In conclusion, these editors were accused of sockpuppetry because they edited the same article expressing the same opinions. Their writing style is somewhat similar, but based on the evidence above, I do not think they are the same person. J.delanoy gabs adds 00:58, 15 February 2009 (UTC)